The New Pacifism

[steepholm]

poliphilo recently published a post in which he declared that, although he had considered himself a pacifist, he now feels, given that he thinks attacking Gadaffi is justified, that he can no longer do so.

That seemed a fair analysis to me. If you believe that war is justified, then you may be right or you may be wrong, but one thing you're not is a pacifist. However, several people replied reassuringly, saying that pacifism comes in many "flavors", not all of which involve outright opposition to war. One commenter quoted from a longer definition: "the obliteration of force except in cases where it is absolutely necessary to advance the cause of peace".

I'd not heard this phrase, and wondered where it came from. A quick google shows that it appears in many places on the internet, including Wikipedia - and indeed several of the other places cite Wikipedia as their source - but I've not been able to find an author. (Perhaps someone out there can help?) The Wiki entry also distinguishes principled from pragmatic pacifism, noting of the former: "Principled pacifism holds that at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong."

Now, I'm no moral philosopher, but I have to say I think this all sounds like a load of hooey. Putting aside psychopaths, criminals and imperialists (three groups with a large intersection), pretty much everyone who goes to war thinks they're doing it to advance the cause of peace. By this definition Winston Churchill is a pacifist. Hell, George Bush Sr is a pacifist!

As for believing that "at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong" I'm not sure what that even means. Do principled pacifists think it's fine to kick the shit out of people one-on-one or to gun people down in small groups, but not to bomb a whole city? Or maybe it's the other way around? I've no idea - but it doesn't sound much like the pacifism I learned about as a wee Quaker.

It may seem trivial to get antsy about the meanings of words when people are dying, but as George Orwell noticed, words and mass-murder are intimately related. If we're allowed to call bombing pacifism now, can fucking for virginity be far behind?

Comments

[sovay]

If we're allowed to call bombing pacifism now, can fucking for virginity be far behind?

I'd like that statement on a T-shirt.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I agree. Pacifism is a belief that war is not justified, period.

Often in the course of sharing dismay over the Iraq war with fellow-travelers, I have found them condemning the war in sufficiently general terms that I wondered if they were against all wars whatever in any circumstances. If so, they would be poorly equipped to say what was wrong with this war in particular, and that might indeed why they were not addressing the specific problems with this war.

The opportunity to ask this rarely seemed convenient, however, and I suspect most of these people were not pacifists; they were just caught up in their feelings, and would be just as likely to defend war in general if it were one that they liked.

I have no interest in debating just war theory with a pacifist. They're both well-established philosophical positions, and there's little we could now add to them. By the same token, I do not wish a debate over whether a particular war is justified or not to devolve into a debate about war in general: that's not the question. If one holds that some wars are justified and others are not, one has to address the particular circumstances of the particular war under discussion.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Your wish is my command..

[gillo]

It makes little sense to me either. Re the spectrum, though, I imagine it's about the range from putting up an arm to block a blow, then grabbing your assailant, both in self-defence, which few pacifists would deny is acceptable, to military action attempting to stop an invading army, which few pacifists would accept. Somewhere on that line is doing something to stop a rapist attacking your neighbour - should a pacifist act if it takes fisticuffs to stop the attacker, rational argument having been ignored?

It's the sort of question that would provide an endless income for philosophers if anyone actually cared enough to pay for the answer...

Thoughts of Vroomfondle and Majikthise.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The issue of 'the just war' has bedevilled historical discourse for centuries.

I remain both a pacifist and a military historian however odd that may sound.

We perhaps sometimes forget that condemnation is needed of both war and the causes of war (and there's a complex matter for discusson!)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, I call myself a pacifist, but still have the niggling suspicion that attacking Gadaffi may be justified. It is a tough thing, and I'm not really sure what your wiki link is trying for, because it doesn't make sense. I do not think I shall call myself a 'principled pacifist', lord no. The way I see it, I think that violence is wrong, full stop, but also have come to accept that sometimes, to quote Gandalf, 'you have only a choice of evils.' It may be the right thing to do in this case, but is still morally wrong, does that make any sense? Cognitive dissonance is my friend.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

There are few areas of moral debate that don't allow for a spectrum of some kind, and it may indeed be that that's what the Wiki writer was trying to get at. It's very different from what s/he wrote, though! One spectrum runs from from self-defence (or not) to unprovoked attack,* the other runs from small-scale to large-scale violence.


* At this point I am reminded of the doctrines of the Welsh martial art of Llap Goch: "Therefore, the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU... Or BETTER... BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!"

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree with all this.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

ROFL

I've got the book with that in it somewhere :o)

'And if a homicidal lunatic comes at you brandishing a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me about it!'

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suppose the question I'd ask is, if you believe that attacking Gadaffi is justified, why call yourself a pacifist? What does the word mean to your mind?

To me, being a pacifist entails (for practical purposes) accepting that evil deeds will be committed that you could have prevented by committing other evil deeds. I think most pacifists will wish to resist entering into a kind utilitarian calculus about the relative evilness of said deeds, noting that they cannot easily be kept discrete (one evil begetting the necessity of another, etc.).

Mind, I'm not saying that pacifism is necessarily correct, and I'm certainly not saying that it's the only position that decent-minded people can have - but I do wonder why people want to claim the word while still believing that war is justified.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think it's The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok. I have a well-thumbed copy somewhere...

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I agree. In fact one of the reasons I couldn't be a Quaker is that I can't be a pacifist, and that's because I can't believe that all wars and all warlike resistance are wrong. Though I completely respect that point of view.

I agree with calimac that it muddies the question about pacifism and about just war to mix them up. I think that's part of the reason people do it, because it gives them a shifting platform as events change.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

That is a fair question, and I'd answer it if I were actually sure I believed that, but alas, 'have niggling suspicion' is not really strong enough to be considered a full-blown belief worth defending. ;)

But the suspicion rests on a sort of tier of principles, since most people don't have only one that covers everything, and having to put them in a kind of priority order. Violence is immoral, but so is refusing to help someone who needs it. To take it to a smaller level, punching somebody in the face is bad, but if you see someone being punched in the face, not defending them is also bad. Defending them by non-violent methods is vastly to be preferred, but not always possible. Pacifism is an idealist position.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That is a fair question, and I'd answer it if I were actually sure I believed that, but alas, 'have niggling suspicion' is not really strong enough to be considered a full-blown belief worth defending.

Fair enough!

Pacifism is an idealist position.

Yes - though I think that to many of those who hold it, it's also a pragmatic one, in the sense that, in the long run, it leads to better results.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The Quakers are of course pacifist, but they're also pretty catholic (with a small 'c'). My father joined the army in WWII, having previously been a CO, and went to fight in Burma - but he wasn't 'kicked out' of the Quakers. Not judging is something else they take seriously.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree about your 'shifting platform' observation, by the way.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were from a Quaker family. I did once talk to a Quaker about my problems with pacifism and she said it was 'a teaching they struggled with'.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

My grandfather joined, I think in response to WWI, during which both he and his brother were COs. My father and his siblings were all given a Quaker education, with interesting results.

For myself, I'm afraid I've rather strayed, owing to my lack of any positive religious belief, but I do admire them greatly.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, yes; but if you don't take that idealist position, you're not a pacifist.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

The Llap Goch attitude seems to be held, quite literally, by most dogs, and it is the reason I dislike dogs so. I'll be walking along the street, minding my own business, and some dog whose entire existence I had been completely unaware of until that very moment will suddenly run up and assault me, barking with all the viciousness at its command.

And this is typical dog behavior. How anyone can like a species that's so prone to this sort of thing escapes me. (And no, humans aren't worse. No human has ever run up and assaulted me without cause. Even the night in west London when I was walking along minding my own business, the guys who ran up and mistook me for the man who'd come into their store a few minutes earlier and made racist remarks at them were more polite than that.)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Indeed, but alas, idealists still have to live in the world. ;)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

You're coming too close to inviting someone to run for office under the slogan, "Tough on war. Tough on the causes of war."

No. Please. Not again.

(Nothing wrong with being a pacifist military historian. There are good biographers of Hitler and Stalin who aren't ... you know ...)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Well, that's no fun. What will we argue about, then?

Seriously, have you had the same kind of interaction in discussions of the Iraq war?

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I know too many idealists who don't. Around here, they're mostly idealist libertarians.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's tough. I think there's a balance to find, between holding onto the ideal while still realising that sometimes you're not going to be able to live up to it because the world just doesn't work like that, that people can struggle with their whole lives.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, I've certainly witnessed them! I've been fairly successful in avoiding direct engagement in such arguments myself, I'm glad to say.

But when people suggest that a war might be justifiable if only it a) didn't involve civilian deaths, b) weren't motivated by other considerations than the ostensible casus belli (oil, perhaps, or geo-political influence), or c) didn't involve inconsistencies of the "If Libya why not Bahrain or or Saudi?" variety, then I have to wonder: "What war in recent history fulfils those criteria?"

[sovay]

Your wish is my command.

Dude.

[sheenaghpugh]

The only stance I've ever thought morally consistent was also the bleakest; my father, when he went to fight WW2, thought it absolutely necessary, but also wrong; "thou shalt not kill" having not been superseded (he stopped going to church because a bishop blessed his warship). When anyone pointed out that it would be a cosmic injustice if everyone aboard went to hell for doing what they couldn't and shouldn't avoid, he replied, more or less, that the universe was under no obligation to be fair.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...Now that you mention it!

Being a pacifist military historian is okay. For many in historical cirlces, it seems that being female is a far greater crime!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm what they call a 'Quaker by convincement'- that is I wasn't born into Friends but converted in my late teens and it was the Pacifist stance which took me in that direction among many other things I approved of- including the fact that no one will tell you what to think or believe. I was going through a difficult time in my life on which I could have been (and would have been by many sects and faiths) judged harshly and I wasn't.

That the Quaker 'book' is called 'Advices and Queries' speaks, I think, volumes :o)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Your father's attitude was clearly more consistent than God's.

[sheenaghpugh]

It's one reason I would hate to think there might be any such thing as God.