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Pacifism

8 comments on Pacifism

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.

8 responses to “Pacifism”

  1. chuck Avatar
    chuck

    I was a pacifist from age 12 to 13, seemed logical at the time. Then I gave it up: the world didn’t work that way. Muscles and a willingness to call folks out worked _way_ better.
    This was back in the 50’s, before Vietnam and all that.

  2. John Dowdell Avatar
    John Dowdell

    Rejection of force is a little different than rejection of initiation of force, particularly when the former risks someone else down the line getting hurt even more.
    At some point “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” runs face-on into “Do unto others as they would have others do unto them”, true…?

  3. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    I never thought about it. Surrendered my 2S for a 1A and went off to play war. Came home and never talekd about it. Now I find I am very pacifist. I find the whole idea tiresome.
    Except, I know there are some things worth dying for. Or more properly, to paraphrase Patton, “Make some other poor bastard die for his beliefs”. 9/11 brought that clarity. People we don’t know, have never met, wish to kill us simply because we exist. They have demonstrated their ability to reach out and kill 3,000 people in one morning. Will they do it again? Unless stopped.
    There are quite a few Americans who can no longer justify pacifism to themselves. This change has been underreported, except at dinner parties and among friends. I haven’t read about it anyplace except here.

  4. Matt Stoller Avatar
    Matt Stoller

    Pacifism has always seemed short-sighted to me. I haven’t changed my mind, though certainly the practical limits of applied violence are more apparent these days.

  5. Howard Owens Avatar
    Howard Owens

    As a young man, I very much wanted to be a pacifist. It tried hard to make the case to myself. Slowly, over a matter of years, I decided it was a hopeless cause. One of the turning points was covering a murder trial where the perp had killed a man who came home and found the perp raping his wife. I came to the conclusion that if you kill a man because he dares to try and stop you from raping your wife, you don’t deserve to live. I couldn’t believe it when the bastard didn’t get death. From becoming more accepting of the death penalty, it wasn’t a huge leap to: there are some things worth killing and dying for. Protecting one’s family is one of them, and going to war is one way in which men (and now increasingly, more women) protect their families, and their neighbor’s families. At some point you have to face the reality that there are people who kill you if you don’t kill them. You can’t talk away their insane hatred or their dementia.
    Ironically, I didn’t start wrestling with this issue until after I had spent four years in the military.

  6. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Pacifism was never a serious option in my life. I had too many troubles with bullies and the only thing that worked was turning and fighting.
    No, I didn’t initiate fights. I just tried to end them. By winning.
    I wasn’t always successful, but I won often enough not to be bothered all the time.

  7. sbw Avatar
    sbw

    Discussions with top-notch generals and equally clear-thinking pacifists lead me to conclude that both hold the same firm belief that war is a nasty place to be, with no guarantees that the good guys — whoever they may be — will win.
    Where they disagree is how best to avoid war.
    A different way to avoid war is to have an effective international peacekeeper/problem resolver. Over time, my own conclusion is that not everyone believes in peaceful problem resolution and that Article 2, Paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter (keeping the UN out of a country’s internal affairs) — which was necessary to include to establish the UN — is one flaw of several that keeps it from being an effective police.
    Oh, yes. We also have to help people learn why peaceful problem resolution is in their own long-term best interest.
    Long and short of it? Try to work together, but keep your powder dry.

  8. Matt Stoller Avatar
    Matt Stoller

    (x-posted on Ed Cone’s blog)
    If there had been more pacifists in this country, Hitler could not have rearmed. It was the incipient military industrial complex – subsidiaries of Ford, GM, ITT, etc – that invested heavily in German industrial plants that came to be used for rearmament. They could have shut down these plants as soon as it became apparent Hilter was rearming in violation of his treaty obligations – that they did not made it easier for him to rearm, a critical component we don’t like to remember about the beginnings of WWII.
    War doesn’t just come from the need to stop evil – sometimes war is incentivized, and to the extent you can disincentivize it, pacifist policies to do so make sense.
    As an analytical construct I don’t buy absolute pacificism, but the pragmatic implications of pacifism are often overlooked.