I would agree there are multiple contexts under which pacifist-style resistence can operate, and it should always be considered as an option, but like any base action when you change the context around it you change (IMO) the total moral perspective.
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I am so thrilled to be debating with someone who supports their points with science fiction stories.
Chas-
Think of it as an allegory. Plato used them all the time. As such, it stands on it’s merits.
Here’s another allegory:
Henry, a feeble old man, has a knife to the throat of Walter, a strong young man. Walter could easily overpower Henry before Henry could do any damage. Walter’s friend, George, is with them. Walter is also capable of easily overpowering Henry.
Instead of disarming Henry, however, George counsels Walter to practice non-violent pacifism. Walter heeds this advice, and is killed by Henry.
Now, to what extent is George culpable in Walter’s death?
“You’re dead. You’re all dead.” – Frank Sinatra
My friends, I promise you that Chas will be back. He’s simply gone to “take a refresher course in logic”.
Sorry, Chas, cheap shot. Cheap, but fun.
I cannot believe that The Washington Post pays this guy to write.
He opens by saying;
“Pacifists are not serious people, although they devoutly believe they are, and their arguments are not being taken seriously at the moment. Yet, it is worth taking seriously,
and in advance of need, the pacifists and their appeal.”
He begins by saying that pacifists are not serious and then follows that up by calling their beliefs devout. Which one is it? One cannot be a devout follower of a philosophy or religion without being seriously committed to practicing the tenets of that belief. Ghandi took his beliefs so seriously that he risked his own life on more then one occasion and many people have died because they could not deny their faith. If that’s not serious I don’t know what serious is.
A pacifist is by definition one who opposes violence as a solution to conflict. This opposition to violence is at the core of many people’s belief system and a devout believer in pacifism believes that committing violence towards another human being is unthinkable under any circumstances. Terrorism is the antithesis to pacifism.
Mahatma Ghandi’s name has become synonymous with this philosophy and this is well deserved. On many occasions he was physically assailed for his political beliefs, on February 8th, 1908 he was nearly killed yet he refused to prosecute his assailants. He was incarcerated many times in his life by those who wished to silence him yet he prevailed in winning many battles without raising his hand to anyone. He was also a realist, knowing that many of his actions would result in violence towards himself and others. He still extolled his followers not to raise their hands against anyone. He practiced what he preached and was possessed of great courage to stand by his convictions.
Mr. Kelly states:
“But in the situation where one’s nation has been attacked — a situation such as we are now in — pacifism is, inescapably and profoundly, immoral. Indeed, in the case of this specific situation, pacifism is on the side of the murderers, and it is on the side of letting them murder
again.”
The pacifist’s position is simple, NO violence under any circumstances. This is the moral code under which they operate and despite it being contrary to what many, if not most people believe, it is their belief. A pacifist could never support the acts of terrorists because terrorism is violent, it causes death, and does nothing to resolve conflict.
Kelly states:
“No honest person can pretend that the groups that attacked America will, if let alone, not attack again. Nor can any honest person say that this next attack is not at least reasonably likely to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people. To not fight in this instance is to let the attackers live to attack and murder again; to be a pacifist in this instance is to accept and, in practice, support this outcome… their position is evil”
Mr. Kelly does not seem to understand the definition of honesty. He should have replaced his “honest person” with a “realistic person”. By using honest instead he calls the integrity and beliefs of pacifists into question. He then proceeds to equate their “dishonesty” with accepting and supporting terrorism and calls them evil. Mr. Kelly is passing his own moral judgement on an entire group of people because they do not believe as he does.
Ghandi was honest when he said:
“I will not be a traitor to God to please the whole world.”
Mr. Kelly disagrees with this philosophy and does not seem to understand that these people cannot discard their devout beliefs for any reason. They simply cannot fight.
For the record, I am not a pacifist but I understand where they are coming from. I do not agree with their position and realize that if this was everyone’s position we’d be in deep shit. I respect their beliefs even though they are contrary to my own. Personally, I would fight to the death anyone who threatened myself, my family, or my friends.
For as much as I respect Ghandi, I could never be like him.
Pacifism as practised by those brave souls in WWI is a courageous thing, refusing to fight what seemed to them a pointless wasteful war about empire with little moral authority and yet being on the recieving end of utter approbrium from their peers.
The were imprisoned, and outcast from their society or even shot and those who were prepared to provide medical attention and spiritual comfort whilst in uniform were often in as much peril as the men in the trenches were, yet they still refused to kill.
WWII is rather differant, as far as Great Britain and it’s dominions were concerned.
After a rollercoaster few decades, with the post WWI boom then the Great Depression and having to deal with a significant loss of population in a certain demographic no-one in the UK wanted anything to do with more war, it was not just pacifism but partly tiredness with the futility of it all.
There were few in the UK who looked upon Hitler as being someone elses problem, after all it was one of those ‘Continental things that the foreign johnnies should learn how to deal with’ and we in the UK had given enough already.
It seemed to many in the UK at the time that the natural order of things was a centralised large power in Europe whilst the UK ruled much of the rest of the world, partly through trade - besides which most military experts in the UK knew that we could not defeat Germany so a war in that direction would be foolish.
Maybe this was dressed up as appeasement or pacifism depending on your outlook but Winston Churchill was extremely unpopular at the time for warning of the price of pacifism and Neville Chamberlain was the man of the hour with his pathetic piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature.
When it became clear that war with Germany was inevitable Churchill was disliked even more by much of the power broking set, no-one likes a smartarse, and he was put in charge of the government partly as a poisoned chalice.
There was a pause when France had been overrun and Hitler offered terms to the UK, if Churchill had accepted them there is no doubt whatsoever that he would have had the grateful support of virtually all of the UK.
Instead of this he began a series of radio broadcasts and went around the country drumming up support for the war, he sacked all the waverers in the government and began to re-organise the economy.
We know now he was right but at the time Churchill was a war-monger in a sea of pacifists, this is conveniently forgotten.
One man, or at least a tiny minority secured the UK’s participation in WWII.
Look at things another way, imagine the UK had sued for peace, on favourable terms if you wish, would that peace be worth having ?
The Nazi party had support among some of the elite in the UK and that included some of the Royal family, as Hitler grew more powerful Nazism might well have taken off here.
The UK stood completely alone, the time this bought for Russia was critical, without it they would have been defeated, with it they almost were.
Hitler would have continued on his way with his genocide of the Poles, Russians, Jews and the notion of human rights would have dissappeared without trace.
How long before Hitler got his hands on the atom bomb ? Even thought Germany was not as far toward this as was feared it would only have been a matter of time, certainly the UK would have effectively lost its independance.
Again, human rights would have vanished but now throughout the British Empire.
Could the US have taken this on ? Nope it would most likely have cut a deal with now German Empire.
It was Churchil who gave WWII a moral dimension, he might have guessed that Hitler would attack Russia, it was flagged up enough in various speeches about Lebensraum but he didn’t know for sure, and there is no way he could have forseen the US entry to WWII, so as a war monger he took the UK into WWII alone in what was going to be a defeat, and he must have known it too, he also knew that it was better to fight, lose and die than be a pacifist and end up serving Hitler’s evil.
Well, assuming both the major and minor terms in that syllogism are true, you’ve already proven it. Why would it be difficult to argue that the three of them were immoral?
One thing that is being overlooked is the religious feeling that is often behind pacifism, which is obvious in the case of Jesus, Gandhi and , in a different way, Buddha. All three of them believed in an after-life where there would be an accounting of for one’s actions.
The systems of all these men are “otherworldly” in some fashion; they seem to say that life in this world is just a kind of moral preparation for the afterlife.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean that they would look at mass-slaughter with equanimity it does change the way the evaluate the reasons for non-violence. In particular, in comparison to a purely secular approach they would reduce the emphasis on the effectiveness of non-violence in any given situation and focus on the inherent moral qualities of non-violence versus violence.
If you believe that violence is inherently against God’s rules and if you believe that the only point of this life is to serve God, then the practical consequences of non-violence versus violence become less important. A true believer would say that true justice is ultimately dispensed only by God in the after-life anyway.
Note that I am an atheist and don’t believe in the above particularly from a theistic perspective but I think it’s important to understand where pacifists are coming from.
My own feelings on this subject are deeply conflicted and that is a key reason I started this debate.
If a person holds the position that he or she will not fight even when attacked directly, that stance can be seen as noble. The person is suffering directly and yet still has the strength of will to maintain his or her moral stance. It is quite another matter for the same person to stand idely by while another person is beaten or murdered. The pacifist position at that point is at best apathy and at worst approval of violence upon another. It is clear that for pacifism to be moral, it must involve the active defense of others. There are still nonviolent means to defend others. A pure moral pacifist would throw him or herself between the attacker and the victim. A less extreme pacifist might run for help, but that really is a call for violence, for those that heed the call for help will almost certainly employ violence of some sort to end the attack.
Wars were common in the Old Testament and because God is portrayed as taking an active role in many of these wars, it would not seem that for God wars were immoral. I do not know if Jesus ever spoke directly on the morality of large scale conflict. He did preach to turn the other cheek when struck but this case obviously covers a direct attack upon one’s person. Jesus did not preach to stand idely by while someone else is slaughtered. He certainly would have taken an active role rather than one of apathy.
There still exist for me a certain illogic to pacifism. The only hope for the violence to end relies on the ability of the aggressor to see that their actions are morally wrong and stop. This can work if the aggressor subscribes to a moral set of rules that at their core teach that violence against the nonviolent is morally wrong. Ghandi knew that the British people held such a moral code. But what if the aggressor holds a moral code that states that nonbelievers deserve death be they violent or not? The end result of pacifism in such a case is a world ruled by hate. At that point the only logic in pacifism would be belief that nonviolence will be rewarded in the after-life.
In our current crisis, there is no way for pacifists to have any means of shielding the rest of us from attack. Their call for us to do nothing is basically a call for us to fall into their belief system. And because there is no way to actively shield others from attack, it is the worst kind of pacifism, apathy.
If the United States were to take a pure pacifist stance we would be unable to stop further attacks because violence would be needed to disarm or stop would be terrorists. If we take a step away from that extreme and accept that violence can be used to stop further attacks, it is still only a matter of time before the terrorists think of some way to kill more innocents. We are simply unable to stop every murder in this nation. Therefore to preach that the US should not try to wipe out the terrorists is an attempt to try and convert the rest of us to a belief that we may very well die for.
When pacifism is used in terms that can be described as apathy, it is immoral. Only active pacifism can be held as moral. Moral pacifists in this conflict must find a way to help prevent the future deaths of innocents. Distributing food and education to others who are vulnerable to the terrorist mindset are just a few ways to do this. Although these actions help prevent more terrorists from being created, they do nothing to stop those who already are terrorists. In the practical world, we need both a violent and nonviolent approach.
Pacifism as apathy. A novel idea, but not particularly accurate. Since when is “action” exclusivly “violence”? Methinks that there are lots of ways to act without being violent. The effectivness of these actions are up to debate, but it still stands that pacifism is not simply apathy. We do not want to idly stand by and do nothing, we just see options for action besides killing people.
And yes, pacifist have a certain streak of realism in them. We arn’t busy activly hindering the military because we know that is a way to get two people killed for the price of one. The world will continue in it’s evil ways, and the best we can do is to opt out of the evil. We refuse to participate in a world gone wrong. If we can’t have our lives at least we can have our morals.
And there are plenty of other ways to come to a pacifist belief system without including an afterlife. I personally believe that because our lives are the only thing that we come in to the world with, life should be ultimatly respected. I believe in pacifism specifically because I don’t believe in an afterlife. This one is all we got, so taking a life is the worst thing that it is possible to do.
Others see the world in terms of the Prisoner’s dillema. If everyone were to take the riskier, higher ground, things would work out a lot better.
All the same, I still find it hard to see pacifism as immoral.
Actually, if pacifism were ** everyone’s ** position, the world would be a much more lovely and wondrous place.
stoid
I can. Anyone who thinks that Ghandi was a pure pacifist, given his actions and thoughts in context throughout his life, is a fool.
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Leaving Sharon feeling shafted when Arafat was invited to the coalition meetings. Sharon and Arafat work for peace talks but parties within Palestine have flat out stated that the peace talks are worthless and continue to fight on, just as they have always when Arafat made a peace they did not agree with, which is often.
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Iran holds moment of silence for US, then distances itself from both the US and Afghanistan (both enemies) and says it will not be pigeonholed into “with the terrorists or with us.” rhetoric. Lambastes the US, saying that the US is using this as an excuse to settle old scores.
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Taliban is NOT particularly listening to the US. They have given no indication of budging. They asked bin Laden to leave which is NOT what the US asked of them. They want evidence of bin Laden’s guilt, which according to all the news sources I have seen the US is completely and totally unwilling to give, but I admit I might be reading the wrong sources. Someone please correct me on this, if I am wrong.
If moving an armada into place and sending commando units into Afghanistan in any way indicates pacifism, I am going to beat the living shit out of the next guy that says violence is the answer to any of the world’s problems because, as a pacifist I abhor violence and will react harshly to anyone espousing it.
As someone said in another thread though, “It’s pacifism, not passiveism.” Just because someone is a pacifist does not mean they do not want action, nor have no ideas as to what action should be taken.
Erek
I thought I was quite clear. I did not state that all pacifism was apathy. Just that some do practice that form of pacifism and it was this form of pacifism that can be immoral. To do nothing in the face of evil is immoral. A pacifist that takes action to try and stop the evil, that action thus being nonviolent, is moral.
mswas,
So you’re a violent pacifist then? I’m not quite sure I understand that philosophy, but I suppose it might explain why some of the recent peace protestors fought with the police.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
It’s because they are hypocrites and rabble rousing troublemakers (and possibly even traitors IMHO).
I saw these left-wing nut-jobs (or maybe it was another group just like them) on CNBC. Basically it was just a lot of inflamatory rhetoric demonizing Bush, American foreign policy, corporate America, and so on. Much of it bordered on psychotic ranting (one black guy kept screaming “Bush is the devil” or some such shit over and over until he knocked his mike cable loose). They should consider themselves lucky that they live here in the Great Satan where we don’t shoot people for criticizing the government in times of war.
Those people who blew up the World Trade Center and killed almost 6000 people? I lost whatever sympathy I may have once had for their cause. In my mind, they lost their status as a persecuted people. Now they are simply a threat to my way of life (much like the Nazis) that needs to be neutralized.
I wonder what the pacifists would suggest as a course of action? These self-righteous ultra-liberal types always are quick to judge from atop their soap box. I would like, for once, for them to propose a reasonable alternative.
The Taliban is aware that bin Laden has been wanted for years for the embassy bombings, and there was plenty of evidence there. They could be presented with autographed copies of “I’m Going To Kill A Bajillion Americans And Deny It All The Way - The Memoirs of Osama bin Laden” and still claim that he didn’t do it.
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Stoid
Actually, if pacifism were everyone’s position, the world would be a much more lovely and wondrous place.
True, but it’s like communism, human nature would never let it happen. One thing that pacifism does not take into account is that some people are just plain evil. When Osama bin Laden says that America must be destroyed and that Muslims should kill any and all American males they can, I have a very difficult time figuring out how that is not evil. Does anyone think that any of the pilots, before crashing into the WTC or Pentagon, thought “I hope I don’t hurt any pacifists or conscientious objectors”? Chances are likely the only laments they had were that there weren’t more people in the targetted buildings.
This quote made me laugh:
“What are nonviolent folks to do, in actual fact, in the face of atrocious criminal acts?” wrote Rabia Terri Harris, coordinator of the Fellowship’s Muslim Peace newsletter. “Other, that is, than issue position papers and press releases, or maybe chum out a couple of sensitive poems. What are we to do that is not an insult to the real suffering of the actual oppressed?”
He’s right. It’s not easy.
I believe that many pacifists believe in non-violent but activist resistance to the forces of oppression. It’s not “doing nothing;” pacifism is not passivist. It’s doing something without guns, bombs, war, etc. Like the civil rights movement, like solidarity. That wasn’t a bunch of people sitting around, wringing their hands, turning away from the issues. They did something–it was just nonviolent.
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But I think the point of many is, a nonviolent solution appears highly unworkable against a group of people who are in “kill-mode” against you. This group has as its highest goal to inflict civilian casualties. Their people have died themselves to accomplish this. More are ready to do the same. And they don’t have a specific list of things we could do that would make it so they no longer want to kill and maim us.
What nonviolent solution works in the face of that?
We face a violent, oppressive, truly evil government that refuses to hand over the person whose network the West has implicated in the acts of Sept. 11. They know where he is, they are holding him, and they won’t turn him over. So how do we get bin Laden and the rest of al Quaida non-violently?
Expressing sensitivity for the views of others is all well and good. But when their solutions are unworkable on their face, and you need to act under an imminent threat … I’m glad the U.S. and its allies appear prepared to do what needs to be done.
And I’m glad thinking people of differing viewpoints have all recognized and commended the incredible amount of restraint and concern those that will undertake the ongoing and impending effort are showing to minimize the suffering of innocents. I, too, am gratified that it appears a large component of the American effort will be dropping to Afghan civilians food and other relief, and leaflets and information.
The more I think about what happened, and what’s going on here, the more it strikes me that this is as moral a cause as defeating the Nazis was in WWII. True, full pacifism in the face of terrorists like those of Sept. 11 is as wrong as it was in the face of Nazism.
So what would have been a good ‘non-violentl’ solution when the Nazis marched into Poland or started rounding up people to put on trains?
Sabatoge the engines. And make it obvious so that no one tries to use them and gets hurt. And then steal the parts sent to repair them.
I think there may be room for both pacifists and those willing to use violence to end an evil. There are many instances when reality requires the use of some violence to stop a greater horror, but pacifists can play an important role helping that end.
Obviously to stop the Nazis, violence had to be used at some point. But pacifists could have worked (and may indeed have) to cause all sorts of trouble for the regime without the use of violence.
If an active pacifists dedicates himself or herself to tracking down and freezing all of the monetary assets of a terrorist organization, they are doing a good and noble thing while still holding true to their beliefs.
But we cannot engage in a holding action forever. Sooner or later the terrorists will slip past us and strike again. So just as the pacifists ask us not to judge them harshly for their beliefs, I ask them not to judge harshly those who do what must be done to eliminate the threat.
Milo and msmith have me there–I really don’t know what the answer is. I suspect force may be needed if the Taliban won’t hand over Osama and Crew. I guess what makes a difference for me is that we gave them an opportunity, via peace and diplomacy, to do the right thing. I’m glad of that. They refused; it’s time to go in and see that justice is done. I’m okay with that. Perhaps some pacifists wouldn’t be. Still, I hope this is carried out with as little risk to innocent human life as possible.
Blacklaw, thanks for your thoughtful response – I agree with you. There is a role, at least as the world stands now, for both force and peaceful diplomacy. I’d like to work towards making a world where only the latter is needed. We’re not there yet–I mean, the world isn’t–but I think we can work towards that. That’s at the heart of the appeal of the peace movement, for me.