Unresolved Antinomies

Civility and Disobedience by Burton Zwiebach Cambridge, 241 pp., $10.95 “On first glance it appears that nothing both new and interesting can be said about violence,” Mr. Zwiebach concedes; and his second glance confirms the first. Nevertheless, he proceeds to write about it, remarking that he might as well instruct the totally ignorant.

This question of audience arises throughout the whole book. The debate about political obligation was centuries old and about to die of exhaustion when our recent crop of young radicals, affluent and Ivy League-educated, first discovered laws they were delighted to flout; then, obtaining university posts, they found they had to write a book about something. We have had a number of such books in the last several years. Alas, the poignancy of recent experiences might perhaps contribute something to the phenomenology of a perennially fascinating issue, but it is not likely that much that is theoretically new can be said. The aridly analytical tone of this book will put off the totally ignorant and possibly many others; while its content will add little to the understanding of anyone who has at all kept up with the debate.Certainly it will not appeal to the rabidly radical, who will prefer to stick to their usual diet of inspiring tributes to Che Guevara and philippics against the military-industrial complex; for Zwiebach’s is a mild, reasoned book that only occasionally decays into rhetoric.

RS

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Roland Stromberg

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Civility and Disobedience by Burton Zwiebach Cambridge, 241 pp., $10.95 “On first glance it appears that nothing both new and interesting can be said about violence,” Mr. Zwiebach concedes; and his second glance confirms the first. Nevertheless, he proceeds to write about it, remarking that he might as well instruct the totally ignorant.

This question of audience arises throughout the whole book. The debate about political obligation was centuries old and about to die of exhaustion when our recent crop of young radicals, affluent and Ivy League-educated, first discovered laws they were delighted to flout; then, obtaining university posts, they found they had to write a book about something. We have had a number of such books in the last several years. Alas, the poignancy of recent experiences might perhaps contribute something to the phenomenology of a perennially fascinating issue, but it is not likely that much that is theoretically new can be said. The aridly analytical tone of this book will put off the totally ignorant and possibly many others; while its content will add little to the understanding of anyone who has at all kept up with the debate.Certainly it will not appeal to the rabidly radical, who will prefer to stick to their usual diet of inspiring tributes to Che Guevara and philippics against the military-industrial complex; for Zwiebach’s is a mild, reasoned book that only occasionally decays into rhetoric.