Pacifism As Pathology

Originally written during the mid-1980s, the seminal essay Pacifism as Pathology was prompted by veteran activist Ward Churchill&;s frustration with what he diagnosed as a growing&;and deliberately self-neutralizing&;"hegemony of nonviolence&; on the North American left. The essay&;s publication unleashed a raging debate among activists in both the U.S. and Canada, a significant result of which was Michael Ryan&;s penning of a follow-up essay reinforcing Churchill&;s premise that nonviolence, at least as the term is popularly employed by white &;progressives,&; is inherently counterrevolutionary. This book challenges the pacifist movement's heralded victories, suggesting that their success was in spite of, rather than because of, their nonviolent tactics. Along with a preface by Ed Mead, postscripts by both Churchill and Ryan, and a new foreword by leading oppositionist intellectual Dylan Rodríguez, these essays are being released in a fresh edition.