5 ms·

I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that war is never a good option. I personally believe that part of the success of the

by phonz 8y ago

I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that war is never a good option. I personally believe that part of the success of the us post ww2, and part of the really nice culture we had (sans racism etc) is because a huge number of men walking around knew what the end result of violence is. Nowadays, men are very quick to get puffy and to provoke conflicts. They are fools. If someone forced all those belligerent idiots to hide in a fox-hole and watch their buddy’s head explode a few feet away, and all the rest, for months and months, they wouldn’t walk around acting like tough guys. I have seen the most profound violence imaginable, the worst you might see in a war. It has done nothing else than to make me an adamant pacifist. I can not articulate it correctly — all I can say is that at a certain level, violence does things to your mind that you didn’t know about. It’s just not comparable with human existence.

sigvirt 8y ago
Ben Ferencz says much the same. [1a] - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecutor-alive-wants-the-world-to-know/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecut... [1b] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437511 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Ferencz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Ferencz
philwelch 8y ago
> I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that war is never a good option. That is the exact opposite of the lesson of World War Two. The notion that war is not a good option and should be avoided by any means necessary is why it took six years and millions of lives to put Hitler down instead of what it would have taken to stop him before he finished building his war machine. The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of millions of innocents.
- prmph 8y ago
  > The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of millions of innocents. You know, the Germans said something similar about jewish "traitors" who supposedly caused their defeat in WW1, and this contributed to the build up to the atrocities of WW2. "That war is never a good option" is precisely the lesson of war, forget about who are supposedly the good guys vs the bad guys. The countries that comprised the allied forces in WW2 have waged aggressive, unjustified wars themselves since then. Are you saying such aggression is the result of them having learned the right lessons from WW2? (i.e., to not be pacifist?)
  - philwelch 8y ago
    The point I have to make here was made far more effectively by Orwell in 1945, so I’ll just quote him: > The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

by phonz 8y ago

sigvirt 8y ago

Ben Ferencz says much the same. [1a] - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecutor-alive-wants-the-world-to-know/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecut... [1b] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437511 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Ferencz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Ferencz

philwelch 8y ago

> I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that war is never a good option. That is the exact opposite of the lesson of World War Two. The notion that war is not a good option and should be avoided by any means necessary is why it took six years and millions of lives to put Hitler down instead of what it would have taken to stop him before he finished building his war machine. The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of millions of innocents.

prmph 8y ago
> The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of millions of innocents. You know, the Germans said something similar about jewish "traitors" who supposedly caused their defeat in WW1, and this contributed to the build up to the atrocities of WW2. "That war is never a good option" is precisely the lesson of war, forget about who are supposedly the good guys vs the bad guys. The countries that comprised the allied forces in WW2 have waged aggressive, unjustified wars themselves since then. Are you saying such aggression is the result of them having learned the right lessons from WW2? (i.e., to not be pacifist?)
- philwelch 8y ago
  The point I have to make here was made far more effectively by Orwell in 1945, so I’ll just quote him: > The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...