In response to a comment on a protected post in someone’s journal. It was discussing pacifism. Among many things, he said pacifists, by which he meant those unwilling to defend themselves, ought to be killed (I hope he was being hyperbolic). I replied identifying myself as a pacifist, and willing to defend myself. He said aversion to violence is normal, and shouldn’t be labeled pacifism…<\/p>\n
Yeah, I see what you’re saying, and it’s certainly a valid point, most people are averse to violence. I regard it as a question of degrees: How far does this have to go, before I react with violence? I use pacifist to mean someone who has a higher threshold for violent response than most. <\/p>\n
Now, to bring it a little closer to reality, let’s consider this as part of a richer world. In any given problem, there are multiple avenues of possible action. Someone starts badmouthing your mother, you a) slug the jerk, b) take it c) leave d) insult his mother e) tell him to shut up f) etc…. Alternate example, someone kills your best friend in front of you, do you try to a) kill him, b) run and hide, c) call the cops, d) negotiate with him, e) surrender, f) try to disarm him, g) etc…<\/p>\n
Obviously, there are a ton of circumstantial variables to consider. And more than one course of action can be taken in response. But if you have a high threshold against violence, maybe you’ll attempt to run and hide, or disarm your friend’s murderer rather than kill him, even if that is a riskier move on your part. Then call the cops.<\/p>\n
One can have a threshold on violent action that they would sooner die than kill, or sooner let thousands die than kill one person. I’m a pretty close call on the first one, but I’ll unenthusiastically choose my life over someone else’s if it ever comes down to it. I’ll definitely choose one life lost to 1,000 lives lost. <\/p>\n
But, I think I have a higher threshold than most on violent action. <\/p>\n
And I think pacifists serve a valuable function. I doubt either the civil rights movement, or the Indian liberation movement would have achieved the success they did without the (publicized) victimization of non-violent protesters. <\/p>\n
I likewise suspect those non-violent activists probably wouldn’t have made it anywhere without the violent resisters operating in parallel. Someone to scare people into paying attention and thinking it might be worth the cost to change, and someone to express the desired change in an understandable, sympathizable, non-threatening way. <\/p>\n
I may be blowing smoke there, and it may just be that these are two natural responses to being in an undesireable situation, so both spring up when people desperately want change, and, due to only one of these mechanisms, or, for that matter, divine intervention, the change happens. This is theory unsupported by hard evidence. It is plausible, but is it true? Is there any way to find out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to a comment on a protected post in someone’s journal. It was discussing pacifism. Among many things, he said pacifists, by which he meant those unwilling to defend themselves, ought to be killed (I hope he was being hyperbolic). I replied identifying myself as a pacifist, and willing to defend myself. He said … Continue reading “Pacifism and social change”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}