Pacifism

[Deryl Owens]

I agree with people who call pacifists cowards. Pacifists exert great effort hiding their cowardice with the same labels they abhor when used for war resulting in hypocrisy. I'd be all too happy to let the violent destroy with no regard those who refuse to defend themselves as the alternative is to so burden otherwise industrious people that they can no longer be so. You may say I have a duty to protect them, your label "duty" is that same one you abhor when I say it of war, thus your hypocrisy raises its ugly head once again. Now if you mean to partake of conversation on this subject, I suggest that urgency be ignored and a slow measured response pursued.

 

[Jacco]

One of my core beliefs as a human being is that if you have the power to do something, you have the responsibility. As such, pacifism goes entirely against that.

 

[Vegosiux]

One of my core beliefs as a human being is that if you have the power to do something, you have the responsibility. As such, pacifism goes entirely against that.

So, if you have the power to mass-murder people (hey, it's "something"!), you have the responsibility to do so? Excuse me while I go pick up some chainsaws at the hardware store and make a fortune selling them to the highest bidder.

Now, you might say I'm being ridiculous. I am, because I think the principle you noted there is flawed. Just because you "can" do something doesn't mean you should be expected to constantly do it.

But maybe I misunderstood what you meant. In that case, however, I don't see how pacifism goes against your principle. Using "violence" responsibly - that is, only when absolutely necessary, is what pacifism is all about. Now granted, there's disagreements on what's "absolutely necessary", and "it's never necessary" is an extremist position.

Wait, people still think that "pacifism" = "tree-hugging hippies going 'Hey no violence ever, dude, that's bad karma maaaaan'"?

 

[Sarge034]

Snip

That's cool. But just remember, While you are sitting in your home, complaining about people who complain about pacifists, you are being protected by people willing to do violence on your behalf. Wanting to be a pacifist is a noble goal, but I personally feel anyone who refuses to fight against someone trying to take something from you is not worthy to have those things.

Also, I see your song and raise you a speech.

 

[Vault101]

That's cool. But just remember, While you are sitting in your home, complaining about people who complain about pacifists, you are being protected by people willing to do violence on your behalf. Wanting to be a pacifist is a noble goal, but I personally feel anyone who refuses to fight against someone trying to take something from you is not worthy to have those things.

but then your getting into those sticky arguments as to why those people are fighting at all

don't get me wrong, militarys are still an unfortunate nesscecity in this world

 

[AntiChri5]

That's cool. But just remember, While you are sitting in your home, complaining about people who complain about pacifists, you are being protected by people willing to do violence on your behalf. Wanting to be a pacifist is a noble goal, but I personally feel anyone who refuses to fight against someone trying to take something from you is not worthy to have those things.

but then your getting into those sticky arguments as to why those people are fighting at all

don't get me wrong, militarys are still an unfortunate nesscecity in this world

tbh, and im sure it's just unfortunate wording, but the last thing anyone should ever fight over is "things".

I strongly disagree. The last thing anyone should fight over is ideologies and religions. Fighting over "things" just seems natural to me.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm sure most if not all of us here live in a relatively safe country, free from any violent conflicts, so it feels very ignorant of me to judge on this subject. It's easy to claim you're a pacifist when you feel secure enough in your daily life to discuss your ideals on an online forum.

I think you need to strive for a balance between 'pacifism' and 'agression'. Don't go looking for trouble, but deal with it when it comes looking for you. But this can also backfire. When America got attacked, they were so with the means of dragging them into a war, which America felt jusitified in starting.

Again, I'm probably not one to talk, since I'm a big fat coward.

 

[Sarge034]

but then your getting into those sticky arguments as to why those people are fighting at all

don't get me wrong, militarys are still an unfortunate nesscecity in this world

Depends. Why someone is fighting is not always as important as what they are fighting for. It doesn't matter if I gain physical pleasure from the "rush" of fighting or not so long as I only use violence, in situational appropriate levels, in response to those who are aggressing.

As for the original assertions that pacifists were "pathetic, pretentious, cowardice" I read a post earlier in this thread that described it perfectly...

If a true pacifist refused to prevent harm to innocents because it infringed on their beliefs, then that would be either selfish, cowardly or pretentious as far as I'm concerned. If someone sticks to pacifism even when it harms others then they must either believe that the principle is worth more than the harm being done (pretentious), not want to feel bad about themselves for not being pacifistic (selfish), or just be afraid to act (cowardly). -Lunncal (post 21)

 

[Sarge034]

tbh, and im sure it's just unfortunate wording, but the last thing anyone should ever fight over is "things".

I strongly disagree. The last thing anyone should fight over is ideologies and religions. Fighting over "things" just seems natural to me.

Imma put this to bed right now. I used "things" as a catch all term, but I do tend to lean toward the physical definition. I would shoot someone just as dead that was trying to rob me with a lethal weapon as I would someone trying to murder somebody else as I would someone trying to use lethal means against my country. It's just the violence of action (how bad I hurt you) that will change depending on what the aggressor is doing. I'm not going to kill someone who is not leveraging deadly force, much like I'm not going to try to talk someone down who is advancing with a deadly weapon.

 

[Korolev]

Oh, Violence is always bad. Even when necessary, even when justified, it should always fill us with regret.

Having said that, sometimes it IS necessary. You know, it's not often talked about, but there was active Jewish resistance during WWII to the Holocaust. There were uprisings of Jews against the Nazis - often it was very unsuccessful, simply because they were outnumbered and outgunned, but there are a few cases of jewish resistance groups saving fellow jews and leading jews to safety. In my opinion, those jews who picked up a gun to kill Nazis and the SS were utterly, 100% justified and doing the right thing. A Absolute Pacifist would condemn the Jews fighting back for their lives, and that's why I cannot be a 100% Absolute Pacifist.

I like Pacifists, don't get me wrong, but they are a little delusional. One of the most famous Pacifists of all time, Gandhi, said that he could have successfully stopped Hitler through peaceful processes, and we all know that's a ridiculous statement. Had Gandhi ever had the chance to protest in Berlin during WWII, I can 100% guarantee you he'd have been kicked in the teeth by an SS boot, dragged to a concentration camp and shot within a day. Pacifism can work sometimes, but it doesn't always work. How would a pacifist have fared against Genghis Khan? How would a pacifist have fared against the Nazis? How would a pacifist have fared against Idi Amin?

Sometimes people just want to kill you and your loved ones for no good reason, and I believe a person has the right, the MORAL RIGHT to defend themselvees. If someone broke into my house and tried to kill, hurt or rape my family members, you are damn right I'm fighting back with everything I've got.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Pacifism is an overly idealistic approach, and not one I necessarily agree with either. You should attempt to avoid conflict if possible, but there are four circumstances where I think violence is absolutely acceptable.

1. Self defense/defense of others. Self explanatory.
2. Impending confrontation. If you see a situation escalating to a point of physical confrontation and you cant diffuse it, you want to be the one to throw the first punch.
3. When someone is trying to steal something from you.
4. When someone takes advantage of your avoidance to conflict. If someone is intentionally doing something that imposes on you and you can't get them to stop by nonviolent means, they're banking on you not getting violent, and it's going to keep happening unless you do.


Obviously on a case by case basis you have to assess what's worth fighting someone over or if you could even win in a fight in the first place and under what circumstances.

 

[MiskWisk]

I categorise pacifism the same as communism and a couple of other things, nice idea, impossible to execute. I personally cannot see the point of violence. Most of the time it sickens me to do things out of anger or any real desire to be mean. It is really hard to get me worked up and if you do, I will tend to take myself away from people to calm down and it baffles me that some people are incapable of doing this. That said, I do admire the ideals behind pacifism but there are some people who just render the entire ideal flawed. On the world of the pacifists, the man with the knife is king effectively because true pacifism will allow him to do whatever he wants. Sure, be nice to people, but when someone shows up without morals, someone has to stand up and oppose them directly rather than simply attempt to connect with humanity.

I feel like this is going to fail to get my point across but this is my eighth attempt at writing this and I don't think I will ever be happy with this so...

 

[AntiChri5]

in that case you're fighting the threat at hand not over "things" per se.

I strongly disagree. The last thing anyone should fight over is ideologies and religions. Fighting over "things" just seems natural to me.

jus wondering, and i'm not gonna expand on it, but are you by any chance an only child ?

Nope.

My point is that it is very natural, even basic to fight over things. Competing over resources. There are thousands of examples from the less developed creatures we share this planet with. We should be better then that, but unfortunately we aren't always, and so we resort to violence in the competition over resources. Just like so many other animals. I hope we can move past it someday, but don't underestimate the importance of things.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I won't instigate violence, but I like participating in it. Not going to try and justify myself here. I'm a reactive person, I don't have a problem with anyone who doesn't have a problem with me, and to be honest, I'm a bit of a pushover in regards to punishment and grudges if things can be resolved amicably. But if someone starts a fight with me I prefer to fight than flee. It's the challenge, and to reassure myself that I have integrity. I'm also not very self-confident, so I'd be ashamed if I backed down from a fight. I'd also use violence to protect other people or in support of a good cause.

Globally, I think countries should be using the money they spend in the international dick measuring contest that is maintaining a military for just about anything else, but that's not going to work, same as pacifism, because some people/countries just are assholes. A system of wariness is stable equilibrium. If someone starts shit they get put in their place. A system of trust is unstable equilibrium, everything works, and is better, until someone starts shit, at which point everything collapses.

 

[MrSchmeiser]

I'm a pacifist, i haven't been in a serious fight my whole life and i hope i won't. Fighting and violence is just dumb, there really is no purpose to it if people just used their brains a bit more. Unfortunately this isn't a perfect world and i do realize that for every good there must be an evil so i can't really judge violent people. I wouldn't shoot hitler in the head if i had the chance but i realize there are people who can and would and that's fine.

 

[thedoclc]

My view has been far more eloquently stated by others, so JSM on the topic, from his Discourses and Dissertations.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

Forgive the lengthy quote.

Although I mostly agree with this quote, we get into shaky territory when we start piling on the rhetoric.

If we do use violence, it should be for the most practical, utilitarian reasons possible, such as stopping someone going on a shooting spree, or organizations that desire to accumulate power to dominate over others.

Far too many people have died for rhetoric, though. When this guy starts talking about "regeneration" and "ascendancy" we start bringing abstract concepts into it, and god knows how many people have gone to war over concepts. Concepts like, "Jews are a dirty race," or "Germans need living room." Sounds completely ridiculous, but nothing facilitates violence faster than people trying to remove an imaginary cancer. That always leads to the most hellish conflicts. The true surgeon does not have to embellish his job with "duty" and "honor" and "freedom," he simply removes what is harming the overall organism and leaves it at that. That's why I get so concerned with people in this thread that are all caught up in labels rather than realities.

Wars begin in the mind, as concepts. Like the shooter in California, he wasn't killing people, he was killing ideas in his head, the ideas ABOUT people that were torturing him in his psyche. The fact that people died was incidental, in this case, it was his sick mind trying to remove painful concepts from his personal reality, concepts that we, with an outsider's perspective, can see clearly didn't exist.

Sums up why I will never kill for "freedom" or "justice."

It also handily brings up the fault of critiquing a quote without its context in the larger scope of the writing, as such things are addressed in Mill's further works. You've taken the works of a very famous individual (John Stuart Mill) whose writings and philosophy were at the core of the transition to Enlightenment liberal democracy, and painted him as a supporter of an anti-Enlightenment, anti-democratic view. It's like taking Dawkins out of context to say, "fundamentalism is wrong," then calling Dawkins a supporter of fundamentalism. Additionally, Mill was a student of Betham, the individual most closely associated with utilitarianism, and Mill himself described his writings as those of progressive utilitarianism. Whether he succeeded in defending those views is way beyond any scope I'd want to write about on an internet forum.

The presumption that "everyone else is caught up in labels, but I'm talking about realities," is itself a misconception. It is certainty of one's -own- rectitude while "everyone else" has an ideology. The irony should hit right about now.

The "Wars begin in the mind, as concepts," quote is either tautological or else superficial. "Yes, but why? Why those ideas?" is the obvious retort, at which point we realize nothing has been explained after all. "Why did the Hutu massacre the Tutsi in 1994? Well, they had a concept in their minds that they should..." See? Explained nothing. Now, a discussion of the ethnic hatreds between them based on Dutch colonial-era preferential treatment, about the danger of corrupt elections and nepotism within tribal groups in anocracies, about the role of the Catholic church in the massacre, about the role of in-group-out-group thinking in humans due to our evolutionary origins, about essentialism as a short-cut in the human mind...now we might begin to understand.

I could go on, but I'll just hit the obvious. Consider the hypothetical that a cop been on hand to stop the California shooter. Imagine the cop had drawn his sidearm after the shooter drew his knife. The cop tries to stop the shooter, but he still lashed out, so the cop fires and and kills the shooter. I am fairly certain you would agree that the cop's decision to terminate the life of that particular human being would morally permissible. Making that call -requires- an idea of justice. The fact that it's a fairly uncontroversial one in this case doesn't change the facts. You must have some idea of justice before you can start calling people "hurtful" and compare them to tumors to be removed by a surgeon. Therefore, you are in fact embracing some ideal of justice, and sanctioning a killing based on that theory of human justice. You can wrap "freedom" and "justice" up in scare quotes, but in the end, you are still sanctioning the death of human beings based on your perception of morality.