18 January 2009

One of John Howard Yoder’s favorite verses is Matthew 20:25, where Jesus tells his disciples that though the world’s rulers “lord it over” their subjects, it shall not be so among them. The normal structure is one of domination, at worst, and at best a benevolent paternalism—and either way it’s wrong for the disciples, among whom “whoever wants to be great must be your servant.” The reason that Jesus ultimately rejects the option of revolutionary violence (at least according to Yoder’s essay “The Original Revolution”) isn’t that violence isn’t nice or that it disrespects the sanctity of human life, nor even because just ends can’t be achieved by unjust means, but because—in an interestingly Zizekian move—violence can’t be violent enough; or, as Yoder himself says it, “what is wrong with violent revolution according to Jesus is not that it changes too much but that it changes too little.” The only truly violent action, the only action worth its salt as truly revolutionary, will be one that acts anti-paternalistically, in the posture of servitude rather than social manipulation. And the sword is always a tool of social manipulation.

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Tags: Ethics,John Howard Yoder,Peace,Slavoj Zizek