SFU Keynote Abstract

Disturbing Gentleness: The Ontological Depth of Nonviolence

[for the conference on nonviolence on November 15]

Nonviolent ethics enjoins us to practice nonviolence in all aspects of life. But what is the basis for this? In this talk I shall argue that nonviolence descends all the way down into fundamental ontology—the basic questions of being: what exists, what is existence? I shall argue that there is now a high degree of congruence between recent developments in Western ontology and Eastern philosophies that have inspired the thinking and practice of nonviolence, such as Buddhism. This happy conjunction presents humans with a genuinely new choice as we face a future ecological age in which we must acknowledge our coexistence with one another, with all lifeforms, and indeed with nonlife.