Paul Tournier: Your Power Comes at Others’ Expense
A 1977 book on attitudes that might break the cycle of violence
Paul Tournier, a Swiss physician rooted in his Christian faith, was a prolific writer. Violence et Puissance was originally published in 1977 in French; the following year, as the author turned 80, it was translated to English by Edwin Hudson as The Violence Inside, alternatively The Violence Within.
Distinguishing good violence from bad
Tournier makes some basic observations about how people philosophize about violence and try to justify real examples of it. He also gives his opinions.
Tournier’s observations
Each of us has the capacity for violence. There are not two essentially distinct types of people, violent and nonviolent. Violence is a broad name for certain types of forces, like aggression or dominance, that can be redirected but likely not eliminated.
Some violence may be necessary to the moment, while other violence isn’t and is unethical. You may designate vocabulary to distinguish good and bad violence, but “of course it is not the word, but the thing, that matters.” The first question ought to be how we may distinguish good and bad to make judgments and choices. If we can’t…
