REINHABITING CIVIL DISOBEDIENCEdesire, a conception of the good life, affective and cultural tendencies, all of which possess
relative variations over space and time, say, in social or sectarian differences, or in relation
to the raw materials they inherit, or the technological innovations they absorb (which all
faiths do). The masterstroke of this faith is to make even heresy potentially profitable.
Dialogue? How does one converse with a polity that is saturated with technologies of
communication? It would be achievement enough to catch their attention for a few sec-
onds. An argument still quite unclear in this regard is the relation between violence and
nonviolence. In which cases and to place what demand in front of whom is the use of
violence justifiable, and to what degree? The charter of the WSF turns against violence
per se. Participating groups must have pledged to use only ‘‘non-violent methods of social
change.’’^38 Paradoxically, this denies participation to many of the groups, such as the
Zapatistas from Mexico, Ya Basta!, and the Black Bloc from Europe, that began the entire
process in the late 1990s, when it was still referred to as the antiglobalization movement.
It is perhaps too early or too late to say anything definitive about such matters, but given
that Gandhian practice practically invented the possibility of nonviolent direct-action
politics, there surely remains here an inheritance not to be lost, or rather, one to be
recurrently rebuilt. Such that one can say, of the ‘‘ongoing soft revolution,’’ that, at the
very least, it remains ongoing.
And what about the concerns regarding philosophy with which we began this essay?
It may well come to pass that these supposedly unfavorable conditions, the lack of a
readily available public, turn out to be for the best. Bereft of all pre-existing authority,
philosophy can once again begin to be persecuted, or ignored long enough to wait, to
gather its own forces, and to go in search of the few companions to whom it is meant to
speak. And in this privacy plant the seeds that will bear fruit the day after tomorrow.
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