Maggie Nelson on Avant-Garde Cruelty

The most interesting of this work—past, present, or future—is or will be that which dismantles, boycotts, ignores, destroys, takes liberties with, or at least pokes fun at the avant-garde’s long commitment to the idea that the shocks produced by cruelty and violence—be it in art or in political action—might deliver us, through some never-proven miracle, to a more sensitive, perceptive, insightful, enlivened, collaborative, and just way of inhabiting the earth, and of relating to our fellow human beings. For as Arendt puts it succinctly in On Violence, “The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.”

—Maggie Nelson, from The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning

Here is my principle, stated here many times: violence begets violence. If you want a kinder, more peaceful, more equal world, you must start by renouncing violence.