Bronze-level articlePacifism

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Pacifism is the opposition to violence as a means of settling disputes. This opposition may range from the belief in peaceful resolution of international conflicts to personal rejection of a tradition of violent activity.

Contents

[edit] Some well-known pacifists

[edit] Pacifist movements

[edit] Religious

  • Buddhism is known for its strong emphasis on pacifism. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, was a member of the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Accords and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • The Society of Friends (aka. The Quakers) are the most well-known pacifist Christian group. Some Quakers have been prosecuted for their opposition to war and militarism. In the United States, they had great influence on the creation of conscientious objector provisions in the now-abolished draft laws, and many of the Quakers and other pacifists drafted for the Vietnam War consequently either served their commitments in non-military organizations or in nonviolent military roles, e.g. as combat medics.
  • Jehovah's Witnesses have been jailed throughout their history for rejecting conscription of any form, even as non combatant conscientious objectors. In addition they don't believe in blood transfusions, so they can't be medics.
  • Christian pacifism in general.
  • Jainism is so peace-loving that its adherents refuse to kill the smallest animal, even a mowse. They are even afraid of farming because it might kill organisms in the soil. Aww. :)
  • Sikhs might be considered pacifists. Though their faith requires them (the men, anyway) to carry at least a ceremonial weapon at all times, they adhere to the same principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) as the Jains, though in a utilitarian interpretation rather than the Jains' deontological one. The Sikh view of nonviolence rests on minimizing the consequences of violence that actually occurs, rather than absolutely avoiding a particular individual's participation in it.

[edit] Secular

[edit] Criticisms

Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.
—Gandhi, 1946, Interview with Louis Fischer[3]
Pacifism is not something to hide behind.
—Walter Sobchak

Pacifism, though often considered an unassailable position on morality, is not without its critics. Sam Harris believes pacifism is a system which allows millions to die for the hope that they might receive some benefit in the next life or that one day their murderers might doubt the goodness of their actions.[4] Such a system of course only gets worse as it becomes more prevalent, and those without moral scruples have more opportunity to continue their actions unopposed. In this way, a single sociopath with a knife could, in a world of pacifists, kill or force into hiding every other being on the planet without meeting any material opposition.

It has also been criticized as an inadvertent tool in the oppression of minorities, specifically being criticized as a system which advocates that those suffering under racism, sexism, or other forms of oppression in a society should merely peacefully protest and wait for their overlords to give them equal rights.[5] World War II was an especially difficult time for pacifists, leaving them in the position to either support a conflict that would lead to the deaths of nearly a hundred million people, or let the Nazis have a carte blanche.[6]

Even Gene Sharp, a major academic figure usually associated with pacifism, has expressed qualms about the very terminology itself, preferring to use terms like "non-violent conflict" instead.[7] The criticism here being that pacifism is more often than not presented as a moralistic and ethical principle that tends to conjure up feel-good idealism (if not utopian visions). And yet according to him, such a worldview disregards the socio-cultural contexts on the ground, the nature of power[8] and pragmatic realities like logistics, planning, organizing and so on; in other words, one doesn't have to even believe in pacifist ideals to use non-violence.[9]

[edit] Pacifist bashing

...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Hermann Goering[10]

In what should come as no surprise, anti-pacificism is sometimes taken to absurd levels, especially by those eager to go to war, for whatever reason. A favorite past-time of "pacifist bashers" is to treat pacifists like boogeymen who want to weaken the nation to both foreign and domestic threats. This is fairly common in authoritarian governments but it may happen in open democracies as well, especially among the hard-right. The political influence of pacifists may also be exaggerated, which is a cowardly tactic since pacifists do not have all that much influence in politics. In America it is common for wingnuts to conflate liberalism with "pacifism," which ignores the fact that most, if not nearly all liberals are not pacifists, they're just less hawkish than neoconservatives.

One may also notice that those that foam at the mouth over pacifists often forget to mention many of the above listed pacifists (especially MLK); and that many pacifists who were drafted in both World Wars served as medics, one of the most dangerous jobs in the field. Also, Ike.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. There is some controversy whether he is pacifist. Some critics say that he wants to enslave Tibet if it got free (Penn & Teller's BS). However, he has acknowledged that the Lamas' "getting their corrupt asses kicked out of Tibet" was a karmic correction, to be welcomed by the Sangha (lost in the mists of absfg, a Usenet "alt" newsgroup).
  2. This is hilarious in many ways: When War and Peace was published in 1869 it was largely criticized by the Russian left for romanticizing the Tsars, and at the same time praised by military generals for depicting an artful depiction of war. Neither of them probably read the full thousand pages.
  3. Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews
  4. Harris, Sam (2004). The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. W.W. Norton & Company.
  5. "In Defense of Revolutionary Violence"
  6. Take Albert Einstein, also well-known for his pacifist beliefs, who was mocked by those who believed he engaged in a double standard by warning the US of what Hitler represented.
  7. According to him, there would still be struggles and wars even in a world without violence
  8. Which for Sharp is less Mahatma Gandhi and more Machiavelli.
  9. Though ironically, he had a harder time convincing pacifists themselves on this.
  10. The full quote on Snopes
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