ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a meditation on three intertwined themes: the possibility of non-violence, identity politics and the notion of sympathy. On any given day when violence threatens, there is for William Blake an unexpected moment of peace or love – the good – that tempts us to act with sympathy and imagination toward the Other. A similar double consciousness marks the work of Simone Weil and Ramchandra Gandhi. Only, they insist, by understanding in the quietude of our being that violence is both intoxicating and degrading can we overcome hate and find ways of living with all that is sentient and non-sentient on earth.
