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I'm not a pacifist (combat veteran, actually) but I'll point out that you may be missing something on their side of the argument. There are some things worth d

I'm not a pacifist (combat veteran, actually) but I'll point out that you may be missing something on their side of the argument. There are some things worth dying for (for example, freedom as you point out). A pacifist has a similar mentality, but believes not taking a life is worth dying for. Both the pacifist and the non-pacifist want freedom, but the pacifist would rather surrender liberty than kill if that's what it comes to. By analogy, I want to keep my car, but I would not shoot anyone who tried to steal it even though it's legal where I live. I might hate what they're doing but I value their life more than my car.

leephillips 5y ago
Of course people with a variety of stances on the issue all call themselves “pacifists”, just as there are “vegetarians” who eat fish. I respect the choices that you describe, because they’re your choices, and don’t endanger other people. The pacifists I consider morally obtuse are those who refuse to see that they enjoy their freedom under the umbrella of institutions that are decidedly not pacifist. It’s a kind of philosophical parasitism. And the pacifists that I have real contempt for are those who would refuse to defend other people against violence. “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” -- John Adams
philwelch 5y ago
I think you're providing a charitable accounting of pacifists that might describe the best among them. Orwell (whom you are indirectly responding to) gives some acknowledgment to these types but is cynical towards others: > 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. "Notes on Nationalism", 1945 (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...)
klipt 5y ago
The point is that if you transplanted Amish society out of the protective USA and into somewhere more violent like Central Africa, they'd probably all end up dead, or the survivors would be the ones that abandoned pacifism.

leephillips 5y ago

Of course people with a variety of stances on the issue all call themselves “pacifists”, just as there are “vegetarians” who eat fish. I respect the choices that you describe, because they’re your choices, and don’t endanger other people. The pacifists I consider morally obtuse are those who refuse to see that they enjoy their freedom under the umbrella of institutions that are decidedly not pacifist. It’s a kind of philosophical parasitism. And the pacifists that I have real contempt for are those who would refuse to defend other people against violence. “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” -- John Adams

philwelch 5y ago

I think you're providing a charitable accounting of pacifists that might describe the best among them. Orwell (whom you are indirectly responding to) gives some acknowledgment to these types but is cynical towards others: > 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. "Notes on Nationalism", 1945 (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...)

klipt 5y ago

The point is that if you transplanted Amish society out of the protective USA and into somewhere more violent like Central Africa, they'd probably all end up dead, or the survivors would be the ones that abandoned pacifism.