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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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 Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| The culture promotes the idea that the most effective resistance against evil is violence, particularly the more heinous the evildoers seem. However, a rational look at the evidence casts great doubt on this theory. |
What evidence?Any rational look shows that violence in certain instances stops even greater evil.The irrational view is the hope that somehow all evildoers will just stop being evil because the pacifists don't resist evil.This has been shown to be false time and time again.It was the violence of the Allied Forces that saved the millions of remaining Jews in Europe,not the pacifists.The pacifists succeeded in temporaily relocating a few thousand Jews to countries not controlled by the Nazis,but if the Allies had not defeated the Nazis,these Jews,along with the remaining millions still alive after Germany's defeat,would have been killed anyway.So ultimately even these relocated Jews were permanently saved by the violence of war.
On a more personal note,let me tell about an incident here in my hometown.I live in a medium sized town,small enough that people with the same occupation usually know each other at least in passing.There was a guy I'll call Joe.I knew Joe very slightly through our mutual jobs.We even worked for the same small company,but not at the same time.He worked there a couple of years after I left.One weekend Joe got his 2 kids from his ex-wife for visitation,drove back out to his mother in law's house where his ex wife was staying,and shot and killed both young kids and then shot himself.His ex wife got to go out and find her dead kids in the car parked in the driveway.My question is,will the pacifists here claim that a policeman or even a neighbor using violent force to stop this from happening is wrong?What explanation can you give for deciding that knowingly and willingly allowing someone to commit a violent and deadly act against helpless and innocent children,or women for that matter,in the name of pacifism, is more moral than choosing to use force to stop it?A police marksman using violence leaves one dead person and 2 live children.The supposedly more moral pacifist way leaves 3 dead people,2 of them needlessly.Exactly how is this more moral? |
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CelticNorth
Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 755
Location: East of Eden
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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| The agression of nation states, religious fanatics, economic tyrants, psychopathic despots and criminals may represent the tipping point for the use of deadly force in violent encounters to preserve innocent human life. I think far to many Christian ideologist misinterpet the non-violence and sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as a model of moral ethics and behavior for their interpetation of nonviolence. The defense of innocent life is not agression-it is individual sacrifice in the face of danger, whihc may result in the possible loss of ones life. It is heroic, noble, just, honorable- and moral. |
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Jason Evans
Joined: 15 Jul 2005
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Fri Feb 9, 2007 8:24 am Post subject: nonviolence |
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| For me nonviolence is an absolute, one that I am willing to die for. I believe that the more people assert this position, the more have a chance to come to it. |
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CelticNorth
Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 755
Location: East of Eden
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| Posted: Fri Feb 9, 2007 11:01 am Post subject: |
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| While I can understand and relate to that position intellectually and morally, in a time of individual or family crises, perhaps one cannot fully predict their reaction, or use of force, to protect ones self or family. Until the front door is actually being broken down, my argument is that most of us will not know until that very moment whether the love of family, and the primal urge to protect, over rides the philosophy of non violence. You are more certain than I. |
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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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| Posted: Fri Feb 9, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| For me nonviolence is an absolute, one that I am willing to die for. |
I understand and admire this position as it applies directly to defending yourself.But my problem with absolute pacifism is,are you willing to let innocent and defenseless women and children die for your beliefs as well,if you are in a position to defend them and refuse to do so because of your pacifism?If you say yes,I sincerely hope that no one ever has to depend on you for help. |
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CelticNorth
Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 755
Location: East of Eden
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:21 am Post subject: |
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| My history about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is very weak, but I sometimes think that the "Quaker State", founded by William Penn with Quaker principles in mind, faced the same dilema when confronted with choices regarding joining the American Revolution and throwing off the yoke of British Rule. We all owe immense gratitute to the people of Pennsylvania during the formation of our country, and I was curious if we have any Pennsylvanians' out there who can speak to that time- and that issue. |
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james
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 1108
Location: Minneapolis
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:16 am Post subject: |
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| oneputt wrote: |
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| The culture promotes the idea that the most effective resistance against evil is violence, particularly the more heinous the evildoers seem. However, a rational look at the evidence casts great doubt on this theory. |
What evidence?Any rational look shows that violence in certain instances stops even greater evil.The irrational view is the hope that somehow all evildoers will just stop being evil because the pacifists don't resist evil.This has been shown to be false time and time again.It was the violence of the Allied Forces that saved the millions of remaining Jews in Europe,not the pacifists.The pacifists succeeded in temporaily relocating a few thousand Jews to countries not controlled by the Nazis,but if the Allies had not defeated the Nazis,these Jews,along with the remaining millions still alive after Germany's defeat,would have been killed anyway.So ultimately even these relocated Jews were permanently saved by the violence of war. |
Lest you forget, the response of the Allies did not stop the Holocaust from happening--it happened. By the time Germany was defeated, most of the damage had been done.
There is a great difference between using non-violence as a response to violence, and simply doing nothing, or complying with the oppressor. Non-violent resistance against the Nazis was never seriously tried. I'll grant that the challenges of organized non-violent resistance against a brutally oppressive state like the Nazis are enormous, and many must choose to sacrifice their own lives for it to work. But, if there had been such a response, on a large scale, by justice-minded citizens throughout the regime, it's entirely possible the death count of World War II (about 62 million) might have been far lower.
Additionally, if peace- and justice-minded leaders had prevented the humilations of the Treaty of Versailles, and instead worked for reconciliation with the defeated Germans, Naziism may well have never emerged.
_________________
James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org |
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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Lest you forget, the response of the Allies did not stop the Holocaust from happening--it happened. By the time Germany was defeated, most of the damage had been done. |
Huh?This is like saying that the police are ineffective because they come in after the crime.But when they arrest a serial rapist or killer they end that particular crime spree and prevent the perp from committing future crimes.WW2 ended the Holocaust.It did not prevent it,but then neither did pacifism.But the war,and not pacifism,ended the Holocaust and the Third Reich.
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| There is a great difference between using non-violence as a response to violence, and simply doing nothing, or complying with the oppressor. Non-violent resistance against the Nazis was never seriously tried. I'll grant that the challenges of organized non-violent resistance against a brutally oppressive state like the Nazis are enormous, and many must choose to sacrifice their own lives for it to work. But, if there had been such a response, on a large scale, by justice-minded citizens throughout the regime, it's entirely possible the death count of World War II (about 62 million) might have been far lower. |
There are a couple of problems with this way of thinking.First,it is entirely predicated on ifs, maybes,possibles,and might haves.Just read your own post.According to absolute pacifism,the world was supposed to oppose Hitler with a bunch of maybes and hope that civilization as we know it wasn't ended by the Third Reich if these maybes didn't work.We know that violence,however terrible it may be,can and does stop madmen like Hitler.
Second,your response only addresses war.It doesn't address individual violence used to prevent criminal acts against weaker and helpless members of society.Should I let my neighbor beat,and possibly kill, his wife and children because he doesn't listen to reason from those who have tried to talk to him?I gave a real life example earlier in this thread of an incident that happened involving a man I knew in which he killed his children and then himself. Would violence be justified in preventing that from happening,or is the moral thing to do is let the kids be killed in the name of pacifism?No one ever seems to want to tackle these kinds of questions.The discussion kind of died when I brought this up last time.And while you may think questions like this are merely theoretical,they are not.I live in Texas.15 years ago in a town not far from me a guy walked into a Luby's and shot 24 people dead before police could stop him.If that were to take place today with the concealed weapon laws in Texas,someone,possibly even a number of people,would have weapons on them with which to stop him.Would the moral thing be to allow him to kill all those innocent people because only violence can stop him,or to use violence to stop him and save numerous innocent lives?Will anyone attempt to answer this time or will the discussion die again in the face of hard reality? |
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james
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 1108
Location: Minneapolis
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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Once again, you are confusing pacifism with doing nothing. That is not right. Doing nothing in the face of violence and oppression is ineffective and irresponsible. There are few if any pacifists who advocate doing nothing in response to violence, crime, oppression, war. Most advocate a strong, active, creative, philosophically grounded approach to resistance, including the intentional putting of one's body in the way of the violence, all the while refusing to do what the oppressor commands. It is in some ways as dangerous as war, it takes courage like war, but it doesn't require us to kill. It can work. It has worked.
A leading Quaker pacifist from my part of the country, Mulford Sibley was known for asking those who challenged pacifism, something like "Why do you challenge the pacifists when it's too late, once the war has begun? Why don't you ask for our advice now, to prevent the next war?" The sort of pacifism taught by Gandhi and M. L. King is not simply the refusal to employ violence; it is a whole philosophy of moral responsibility and justice, and an inversion of our view of conflict.
Regarding violence outside of war: I am not opposed to the MEASURED use of force--even, in extreme situations, deadly force--to prevent violence, and neither are a great many of the real-world pacifists I know. And, in fact, there is a great difference between the violence of war and the violence used by police to stop a dangerous criminal. Most of the violence in war is aimed at people who have little to no influence over their country's policies; in fact they are usually draftees of one sort or another, either explicitly or through massive social pressures and intimidation. The people most responsible for the violence of war are the ones least likely to suffer from it.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org |
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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Once again, you are confusing pacifism with doing nothing. That is not right. |
When I use the term pacifism,I mean the absolute (deontological) pacifism which totally rejects the use of any violence,even in extreme situations.This includes refusing to use force to stop a violent crime against innocents,as well as a refusal to use force to stop aggressor nations like Nazi Germany or Iraq in Kuwait in favor of trying creative,philosophical approaches while the aggressor nation is actively killing those in their way.What creative approach could have made the Nazis quit gassing the millions they did,and how many more would die while you are trying it?I do not advocate violence in most situations,and I think that WW2 and the Gulf War are the only wars this century or last that had a moral imperative.
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| A leading Quaker pacifist from my part of the country, Mulford Sibley was known for asking those who challenged pacifism, something like "Why do you challenge the pacifists when it's too late, once the war has begun? Why don't you ask for our advice now, to prevent the next war?" |
That is a nice sounding quote,but rather meaningless.It is the responsibilty of dedicated pacifists to be working themselves before a war,not in response to a challenge given too late.War breaks out as a result of the failure of pacifism.War is a failure of peace.
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| The sort of pacifism taught by Gandhi and M. L. King is not simply the refusal to employ violence; it is a whole philosophy of moral responsibility and justice, and an inversion of our view of conflict. |
Ghandi and MLK had one important thing on their side that pacifists always fail to mention.They were working against a people (the Brits and Americans respectively) who were a democratic society that controlled,to a certain extent,the policies of their nation,and who were decent people at heart.It is one thing to use non violent means against wrong American policies.It is quite another to use them against a Hitler or Saddam,both of whom were madmen,and also were dictators who quelled dissension with death squads.Nonviolence depends upon your opposition having some moral depth to reach.Pacifism has absolutely no winning track record against such men.
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| And, in fact, there is a great difference between the violence of war and the violence used by police to stop a dangerous criminal. Most of the violence in war is aimed at people who have little to no influence over their country's policies; |
Quite true,and an unfortunate and painful fact of war.Even taking this into consideration,some wars are ultimately worth the cost.What would be the misery of a world in which Hitler had won?Would Jews even exist in Europe?Would genocide have been unleashed against the Russians?What about the gypsies,or any of the other groups that the Nazis felt needed "cleansing"?Could anyone have stopped Germany from moving into Africa and committing the same atrocities there that they did in Europe?Without WW2,all of Europe,and quite possibly Africa, is a big Nazi state freely committing crimes against humanity.Is that better than the Europe that nows exists after WW2,free from anything remotely resembling a Nazi Germany? |
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james
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 1108
Location: Minneapolis
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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As long as pacifists are a tiny minority, as they are, they will not have a great impact, for better or for worse. Their unwillingness to fight will not stop countries from going to war, and things will go pretty much as they have. The dangers of pacifism you raise, of Hitler not being stopped because of pacifism, are not real dangers.
On the other hand, if it gains real traction as a political philosophy for resisting injustice, if we see mass movements around the world of people willing to sacrifice themselves for what is right, it will prove to be far more effective at stopping things like Naziism than war has ever been.
Right now we are no more than a little bit of leaven in the lump. Over time that may change, along with the quality of life on earth.
_________________
James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org |
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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand, if it gains real traction as a political philosophy for resisting injustice, if we see mass movements around the world of people willing to sacrifice themselves for what is right, it will prove to be far more effective at stopping things like Naziism than war has ever been. |
The Jews were pacifist before WW2,and offered no real resistance to the Nazi's.Yet the Nazi's had no trouble gassing them as fast as they could collect them.Would the pacifism of the Jews ever have convinced the Nazi's to quit killing them?There is not a shred of proof for this.The Allies stopped the slaughter,and not through negotiations.This is the blind spot of absolute pacifism;refusing to understand that some people are just evil,or insane, and beyond any influence of humanity.No Ghandi or MLK is going to influence such people.
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Right now we are no more than a little bit of leaven in the lump. Over time that may change, along with the quality of life on earth. |
I sincerely hope you are right. |
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james
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 1108
Location: Minneapolis
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| The Jews were pacifist before WW2,and offered no real resistance to the Nazi's.Yet the Nazi's had no trouble gassing them as fast as they could collect them.Would the pacifism of the Jews ever have convinced the Nazi's to quit killing them?There is not a shred of proof for this.The Allies stopped the slaughter,and not through negotiations.This is the blind spot of absolute pacifism;refusing to understand that some people are just evil,or insane, and beyond any influence of humanity.No Ghandi or MLK is going to influence such people. |
Once more, the kind of pacifism I'm talking about, and which was taught by Gandhi, King, and others, is not simply refraining from violence. It is resistance, of a sort that really didn't happen very much in Nazi Germany. It is refusing to go along at the same time as refusing to return violence with violence, thereby challenging the henchmen of the regime to commit their crimes right there on the public streets, in from of the populace, in front of the world. You are right, the ruthlessness of the Nazi regime was exceptional, in most ways far beyond the British colonial powers or the American South. And it is that very ruthlessness, exposed to public view, which would have been the fuel for undermining the power of Naziism.
I understand that such resistance would have amounted to the suicide of thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of resisters. With courage, though, it would have brought the regime to an end far more effectively than guns and tanks. It just makes sense.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org |
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oneputt
Joined: 28 Dec 2002
Posts: 232
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Once more, the kind of pacifism I'm talking about, and which was taught by Gandhi, King, and others, is not simply refraining from violence. |
I understand,without the need for your snarkiness,the difference between pacifism and compliant nonaction.But in the examples I've given,you are trying to draw distinctions where none exist.The pacifism of the Jews had no real difference than that of Ghandi or MLK.They just had a more receptive and humane opposition.
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| It is resistance, of a sort that really didn't happen very much in Nazi Germany. It is refusing to go along at the same time as refusing to return violence with violence, thereby challenging the henchmen of the regime to commit their crimes right there on the public streets, in from of the populace, in front of the world. |
They did commit much of it in full view.Sitting down in the street, to where they had to be loaded into trucks was going to stop the Holocaust?Are you serious?You seem to operate on the assumption that evil people have a conscience and must do their deeds in the dark.Your assumption that mass resistance would have brought down the Nazi regime is merely that,an unfounded and unprovable assumption.There is nothing to indicate that a Hitler,or a Saddam fear or respond to anything but the threat of a greater force than themselves bringing them to justice.Where that threat doesn't exist and they are utterly without forceful opposition,their insanity will know no bounds.
However,this is really not the point.You are describing a person practicing pacifism relative to his personal safety,or with a group of likeminded people. A group of people choosing to respond as you suggest would be something noble,if ineffective.What I'm opposed to is refusing to stop violence directed at others who can't defend themselves.I'm talking about the Jews,or another people in the same situation,wanting help,wanting someone to stop the slaughter,but the people in a position to help refusing them any real help (we strongly protest the actions of the Nazi's to the UN Security Council,and insist that a memo be sent to them at once demanding they shut down Auschwitz) on the grounds that they are pacifists,and so the persecuted must suffer and die for the religious principles of others that have the capability to help them,but won't.
Last edited by oneputt on Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:08 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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james
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 1108
Location: Minneapolis
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:06 pm Post subject: |
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| The pacifism of the Jews had no real difference than that of Ghandi or MLK.They just had a more receptive and humane opposition. |
That's simply not true--there was very little non-violent resistance, though a great deal of non-violent cooperation. What Gandhi would have advised--in fact did advise--was that the Jews refuse to cooperate with the Nazis. Refuse to move to the ghettos, refuse to wear the stars, refuse to get on the trucks, refuse to report to the train station. Refuse to cooperate, period. Act as if the racial laws had no legitimacy, because they did not.
This is a kind of resistance that sympathetic non-Jews can take part in as well. German gentiles could have chosen to stand with the Jews in their resistance.
This did not happen in Nazi Germany, with a very few exceptions. I do not blame those who did not resist--it is a terrifying thing to do, and it requires a mental and spiritual and physical discipline and faith that needs to be learned and practiced. If you're just caught in the middle of it, with no such background, you're not likely to find the courage and faith to do such a thing. Now is the time to learn such lessons, not after the concertina wire is laid down.
P.S. My grandfather died in Dachau, and my father and grandmother barely got out a few months after my grandfather was arrested, in late 1939. Through pure luck, they found a relative in Minneapolis willing to sponsor their immigration. So, this discussion is not theoretical for me.
_________________
James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org
Last edited by james on Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:26 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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