By its very nature and philosophy, non-violence (and the practice or action of civil disobedience) amounts to violence. At its best, non-violence is the philosophy of using peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. Civil disobedience implies the willful and deliberate violation of a certain law, civil rule and political authority in resistance to some real or perceived injustice. In other words, civil disobedience is the philosophical tradition that upholds non-violence as the sole route to resisting oppression and injustice. This implies psychological retaliation. But the question is, is the very idea of civil disobedience, as the practice of non-violence, not itself violent? In consideration of this, this article indicates the nature of civil disobedience, provides a typology of violence, and there-from argues that if violence implies violation (whether physical or psychological); that if nonviolence denounces violence; and that if civil disobedience is the praxis of non-violence, then by its very nature, theory and practice, non-violence/civil disobedience amounts to some form of violation or violence – the supposed evil that it is meant to cure.

University of Benin Faculty of Arts Department of Philosophy and Religions Benin City Nigeria

University of Benin Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Sociology and Anthropology Benin City Nigeria

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