Utopian Visions

Nonviolence Radio

“Share the Day” — this is a translation of a greeting from the ocean world of Shora, which was a world created by Joan Slonczewski. She’s a science fiction writer and professor at Kenyon College. This is from her 1986 novel “A Door into Ocean.” The book describes a society of people who are committed to nonviolence at a very, very deep level — and not just an emotional, sentimental kind of “do no harm” nonviolence, but one that is a really deeply transformed view of what it means to be human. And with that, what’s really at stake when we turn to or away from the nonviolent path.
Nonviolence and utopian thinking go hand in hand, or so argues Safoora Arbab on the second half of this episode. Utopian thinking is about what is possible, not what is impossible, she posits, and when coupled with nonviolence, we have both a roadmap and a means for achieving a more balanced and inclusive political identity. The goal may be “ever receding” as Gandhi said, and yet, without the clarity that utopian thinking can provide, nonviolence cannot fulfill its higher capacity to engage with long-term systems’ transformation.