Czarcasm, first, I find your unwillingness to hurt other creatures very admirable. More power to you. Having said that, it is impossible to live on earth without hurting and killing other creatures. Every time you walk, drive or just sit, you kill creatures too little to see or hear. Ditto when you drive your car; the carnage could be significant.
Oh, you said sentient, I interpret that as “creatures capable of experiencing self-awareness.”
Even this is difficult; for example, cell phone towers are known to harm birdssignificantly. Dont you use a mobile?
If you were to give up anything that might conceivably hurt something, you’d have to be dead.
It is impossible to achieve true pacifism in practice. There are religious communities in India (possibly the birth-place of pacifism) that are forbidden to wear footwear, and required to cover their mouths lest insects be drawn into them and be harmed. Even they realize they are still harming other creatures, and so are constantly praying for forgiveness, and lead a monk-lie existence. Not very suited to today’s world, IMO.
I would not willingly hurt something that did not first hurt me, but I relax this rule for cockroaches.
If you had ever happened upon some psycho doing harm to your child, you would have fucked him up, tout suite. If I’m wrong about that, I don’t wanna be right!
I find it pretty incredible that someone who would describe themselves as a pacifist actually served in the military. You may not have been participating in active duties but you were facilitating the actual or potential bombing of other people. And if that version of the B-52 is nuclear capable then that’s a lot of people.
I think Alan Smithee is right, you’re mischaracterising the word pacifist.
I’m not a pacifist, I’m perfectly willing and capable of using violence to defend myself or others. For a long time I considered joining the RAF but for various reasons I didn’t. On graduation I was offered a job with the military mapping section of the Ministry of Defence, no one was more surprised than myself when due to a crisis of conscience I turned the position down.
If I’m going to be inflicting violence I’ll do it directly, not at second-hand.
I think this is the closest to my thoughts. My take of pacifism is a moral code (which I believe is naive) but whatever you are, it’s not what you are saying you are.
And I say this as someone who never got into fights as a kid, and only ever hit someone when I was drunk. Obviously my squeamishness isn’t innate.
But I would use force to defend either myself or my family, or someone else if needed, so it’s not absolute.
I think it is a moral/right/good position for me. The inability to do violence towards others has been with me my entire life, but extending that into a life of all-around pacifism is something that has developed over time. I served in the military over 35 years ago, and at that time I didn’t think of what I was doing as violent in nature because those old bombers were being phased out…but over the years my mindset has changed, and I wouldn’t do that job today for any amount of money. I believe that I am a pacifist not because of what I did or didn’t do in the past, but because of what I have become.
Fair enough. I don’t think you’re a pacifist now, as I understand the term, but I certainly understand that whatever you call yourself now needn’t be the same as what you were then.