Pacifism
: David Weinberger, probably the gentlest folk I know in this world (unless there’s a bad side I haven’t gotten on yet), writes an essay that rings very true with me about not being a pacifist anymore: “Then, one day I was writing a dialogue about the morality of pacifism, and I lost the argument with myself.”
My story isn’t the same but isn’t all that different. I made myself a pacifist early in life (after being a Civil War fan in the third grade but well before I was Vietnam draft bait; watching Vietnam on TV certainly had an impact). I wrestled with the same angels David wrestled with (what about Hitler? oh, that’s now a hypothetical). And then I faced the demons of September 11th and gave up my pacifism, publicly, in front of the few readers I had here a few years ago. Different paths. Similar feelings.
