Pacifism and the State

[MagusYanam]

I have been rather bothered by a question of late regarding pacifism. Strangely enough, this was after watching Paul Verhoeven's rendition of R. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. For those not familiar with the film, the premise is a society in which citizenship is based on military service. The rationale behind this is that voting is an exercise of political force, and it is only the veterans of military service who have proven that they are responsible enough to exercise such force and participate in society. Supposedly, Heinlein got this idea from the Swiss government's mandatory public service.

And that got me thinking about the inverse - the birth of Christian anarchism during the Swiss Reformation, specifically after the disagreement between Ulrich Zwingli and Konrad Grabel. Grabel's followers believed that the Christian ideal should be upheld without any compromise to worldly demands: and this included pacifism.

The followers of Grabel would go on to become a large faction of the Anabaptists, called the Swiss Brethren. They refused to serve in the militias or the government and were baptised at adulthood, following the example laid down in the Gospel. They also believed in the complete separation of the state (which they saw as dealing with control over the unholy elements of society) from the church (which they saw as the embodiment of the holy elements), and vice-versa. This led to their widespread persecution, not only in Switzerland and Europe, but also later in the United States. Nowadays, the greatest Anabaptist enclaves are in rural America and Canada.

I, like my mother, was born a Methodist, but my father and mother were attracted to Anabaptism very early on because of their focus on the value of community and their pacifism. My father had several issues with the practises and beliefs of the Anabaptists in Madison, WI, however.

His attitude was thus: if pacifists are going to be responsible in their belief that violence is never justified, and refuse to take part in that violence, they should logically then do all that is necessary to prevent that violence. He surmised (in my view, correctly) that all war is fomented by injustice of some form or another, and that people can only be driven to commit violence (in groups or individually) when they feel threatened or when they want to satiate a need previously unfulfilled, at the expense of someone else. He believed that war can only be stopped through the active exercise of justice such that all people have freedom from want and freedom from fear. Once a critical mass of people neither want nor fear, there will be no call for violence or war.

Thus, the duties of the responsible pacifist are twofold: firstly, to resist the urge to violence and as a CO to abstain from fighting during times of war; secondly and more importantly, aggressively but non-violently to further the cause of social, economic and political justice during times of peace. And in his mind, this means not withdrawal from the state and the society, but active participation in both.

So, my question was, in regards to Heinlein's idea of responsibility versus my father's, what constitutes social responsibility? Can pacifism be exercised responsibly, and if so, how?

[Cephus]

Pacifism, at least complete pacifism, cannot be exercised rationally at all. Being a complete pacifist is the first step to being completely bulldozed by everyone else who realizes you're not going to fight back and takes advantage of it.

Humanity is not a pacifistic species, period. It never has been, it never will be. If we were ever to stop fighting, we'd stop being human.

While yes, the tenets of pacifism are admirable, they just don't work, just like communism. Sure, it's great to think that we'd all work together and all share equally in the rewards, in reality it's just not a concept that works for humans. We're not wired that way, any more than we're wired for pacifism. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a mental exercise with little if any application in the real world.

[palmera]

cephus wrote

Pacifism, at least complete pacifism, cannot be exercised rationally at all. Being a complete pacifist is the first step to being completely bulldozed by everyone else who realizes you're not going to fight back and takes advantage of it.

Humanity is not a pacifistic species, period. It never has been, it never will be. If we were ever to stop fighting, we'd stop being human.

While yes, the tenets of pacifism are admirable, they just don't work, just like communism. Sure, it's great to think that we'd all work together and all share equally in the rewards, in reality it's just not a concept that works for humans. We're not wired that way, any more than we're wired for pacifism. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a mental exercise with little if any application in the real world.

For certain, humans don't seem to be hard-wired for pacifism, which is why it has and can be such a powerful force for social change. Two great leaders of non-violent civil disobedience were Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., both ardent pacifists. The great success of both the Salt Satyagraha and the Civil Rights Movement in America is due in large part to the active, non-violent protest of the Indians and black Americans who would not stand for oppression at the hands of the state. In these cases, peaceful protest led to fundamental social changes.

If we're not hard wired for pacifism, then why do people behave in that manner? We're hard wired for altruism, so why not pacifism? Though it is a seemingly contradictory behavior, perhaps it is a byproduct of something else we're wired for. Either way, I disagree that pacifism cannot work, because it has already worked.

GreatestIAm wrote

So, my question was, in regards to Heinlein's idea of responsibility versus my father's, what constitutes social responsibility? Can pacifism be exercised responsibly, and if so, how?

As mentioned above, it can be exercised responsibly. If practiced, it must be exercised faithfully. By that, I mean that one must remain peaceful in the face of violence and oppression. It's hard to say whether it can work on a grand scale though. Surely, America as the only superpower left in the world could have made a bold statement by not bombing Afghanistan after 9/11. America could have sent a message to the rest of the world by directing it's efforts after 9/11 non-violently. Of course, this proposition may seem inane and out of touch with reality, yet that is precisely the same way people initially viewed African Americans repeatedly beaten, only to stand back up in protest, sacrificing their bodies as an example for a purpose far greater than physical retribution. After 9/11, America had the support of the world, yet lost it through its irresponsible and violent actions abroad.

[/b]

[Cephus]

For certain, humans don't seem to be hard-wired for pacifism, which is why it has and can be such a powerful force for social change. Two great leaders of non-violent civil disobedience were Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., both ardent pacifists.

And both dead without achieving any significant changes.

If we're not hard wired for pacifism, then why do people behave in that manner?

Because humanity has the ability to override their programming if they try hard enough. Unfortunately, we're programmed like that for a reason, it's a survival strategy that has worked for hundreds of thousands of years.

We're hard wired for altruism, so why not pacifism?

Where did you get the silly idea we're hard-wired for altruism? It's not true.

[MagusYanam]

Pacifism, at least complete pacifism, cannot be exercised rationally at all. Being a complete pacifist is the first step to being completely bulldozed by everyone else who realizes you're not going to fight back and takes advantage of it.

Well, it does depend on what kind of rationality you are using here. Being a pacifist begins when you realise that the moment someone does try to bulldoze you when they realise that you won't fight back, they lose their moral standing in the eyes of everyone around them (and eventually in their own). Shame and moral force can be as powerful as any weapon when bringing about change, either on a personal level or on a societal one. Obviously, with the 'maniac-with-a-chainsaw' scenario people like to bring up when discussing pacifism, being a moral force becomes much more difficult.

Humanity is not a pacifistic species, period. It never has been, it never will be. If we were ever to stop fighting, we'd stop being human.

While yes, the tenets of pacifism are admirable, they just don't work, just like communism. Sure, it's great to think that we'd all work together and all share equally in the rewards, in reality it's just not a concept that works for humans. We're not wired that way, any more than we're wired for pacifism. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a mental exercise with little if any application in the real world.

What kind of argument is this? It looks to me to be a form of the is-ought fallacy: pacifism ought not to be practised because humans just aren't built that way. Firstly, I question your point that humans have no pacifistic tendencies. Why do you think the military has to train kids to kill? Because killing people is hard - young soldiers have to first be brainwashed into thinking their enemies are subhuman and unworthy of moral consideration. The tendency to nonviolence is there; it simply needs to be noted and heeded.

Secondly, I question the analogy between pacifism and communism. Even taking into account that the first assumption you made is true, that humans are irredeemably violent, you still have to clarify your parallel. Communism failed because market forces, like the weather, cannot be completely predicted - and thus the economies were smothered under the burden of bureaucratic planning. Socialist principles, however, used to set basic boundary conditions for an already-responsive, critically-structured market economy, have been shown to work toward economic equality and higher standards of living.

Nonviolence only seems to fail when its practitioners give it up. The Albigensians used to be a peaceable sect of Christianity, but a few followers became militant and began the forcible redistribution of Church wealth. The church in Rome, (grudgingly) allowing the Albigensians to live in relative peace, responded to the physical threat by crushing the Albigensians out of existence.

As to pacifism's relevance to the real world, there are plenty of examples of it working besides the ones palmera already mentioned: satyagraha and the Civil Rights movement. There were also several instances of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis, which actually ended up saving the lives of far more of Europe's Jews than any military action by the Allies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews

There are other similar stories among nonviolent resistance elsewhere in Europe. Also, there is a growing theory that in addition to the great pressure on the Soviet economy by the Warsaw Pact, civil disobedience within Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia played a significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union. This punches significant holes in Niebuhr's little counterargument against organised nonviolent action as a significant force for social change (that it only works within the context of a liberal democracy).

And both dead without achieving any significant changes.

Beg your pardon? Do you live in a neighbourhood that's segregated by law? Is India still run by a British mandate? Well, I must beg to differ if you think these social changes insignificant. Just ask any black person.

And whose name do you think more people recognise: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, or Huey P. Newton's? What about the guy who led the Sepoy Rebellions? Is he nearly as well-known and -respected as Mohandas Gandhi?

[Cephus]

Well, it does depend on what kind of rationality you are using here. Being a pacifist begins when you realise that the moment someone does try to bulldoze you when they realise that you won't fight back, they lose their moral standing in the eyes of everyone around them (and eventually in their own).

Most people who are going to use force against you because you won't fight back won't care about "moral standing" to begin with.

Shame and moral force can be as powerful as any weapon when bringing about change, either on a personal level or on a societal one.

Shame doesn't exist in the modern world, no one is ashamed of anything, even things they should be. That's what the liberal mindset has brought us, a world without shame, a world where anything goes and there are no repercussions for doing things that, in previous times, would have been wrong, shamful and embarassing.

What kind of argument is this? It looks to me to be a form of the is-ought fallacy: pacifism ought not to be practised because humans just aren't built that way.

Whether or not you think it ought to be practiced, and that's purely subjective, the reality is that most people will never practice it because of how human brains are wired. You're trying to argue that you think people *should* do X, I'm arguing that people are not going to naturally gravitate toward X.

Firstly, I question your point that humans have no pacifistic tendencies. Why do you think the military has to train kids to kill?

They don't, they have to train kids to kill effectively, not to question orders and run into danger when their natural instinct is to run away. Kids know how to kill quite well, just look at street gangs. They kill just fine with no training whatsoever.

Secondly, I question the analogy between pacifism and communism. Even taking into account that the first assumption you made is true, that humans are irredeemably violent, you still have to clarify your parallel. Communism failed because market forces, like the weather, cannot be completely predicted - and thus the economies were smothered under the burden of bureaucratic planning.

No, the Soviet Union failed because of market forces. Communism failed because you still had the have/have-not mentality. Those with power lived in luxury, those without lived in squallor. Communism, at it's heart, is about no one having power and everyone being equal, working equally and having equally. Human nature demands that we try to get ahead. That's at odds with the very tenets of communism.

As to pacifism's relevance to the real world, there are plenty of examples of it working besides the ones palmera already mentioned: satyagraha and the Civil Rights movement. There were also several instances of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis, which actually ended up saving the lives of far more of Europe's Jews than any military action by the Allies.

But you're talking about tiny segments and individuals and most of them ended badly for those involved. Sure, you can say that people like Martin Luther King Jr. were non-violent, but what did it get him? A bullet in the head.

[MagusYanam]

I find the following two passages from your last post interesting, their juxtaposition even more so:

Shame doesn't exist in the modern world, no one is ashamed of anything, even things they should be. That's what the liberal mindset has brought us, a world without shame, a world where anything goes and there are no repercussions for doing things that, in previous times, would have been wrong, shamful and embarassing.

Whether or not you think it ought to be practiced, and that's purely subjective, the reality is that most people will never practice it because of how human brains are wired. You're trying to argue that you think people *should* do X, I'm arguing that people are not going to naturally gravitate toward X.

I see you applying the same sort of reasoning in the second passage that you decry in the first. 'Shame doesn't exist in the modern world' becaues 'the liberal mindset has brought us a world without shame, a world where [...] there are no repercussions for doing things that, in previous times, would have been wrong'. And what sort of things would these be? Sexual practises, perhaps? Sexual practises which the 'liberals' you speak of would tend to see as 'natural'.

Hmm... kinda like violence, huh?

Just because something is 'natural' doesn't mean that you should do it or that you should encourage it or that you should throw up your hands and dismiss it as a foregone conclusion.

They don't, they have to train kids to kill effectively, not to question orders and run into danger when their natural instinct is to run away. Kids know how to kill quite well, just look at street gangs. They kill just fine with no training whatsoever.

You might not see the kind of conditioning kids entering street gangs get as 'training', but in truth it is. Kids get hazed in gangs; they get conditioned into seeing human life and dignity as a struggle, something that you have to earn rather than something to which you have a right.

And another thing, just because I know how to kill doesn't mean I necessarily will or will feel comfortable doing so.

No, the Soviet Union failed because of market forces. Communism failed because you still had the have/have-not mentality. Those with power lived in luxury, those without lived in squallor. Communism, at it's heart, is about no one having power and everyone being equal, working equally and having equally. Human nature demands that we try to get ahead. That's at odds with the very tenets of communism.

There are elements of human nature that we have to overcome even in a free-market, democratic environment. Have you ever heard of the Milgram experiments?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

But you're talking about tiny segments and individuals and most of them ended badly for those involved. Sure, you can say that people like Martin Luther King Jr. were non-violent, but what did it get him? A bullet in the head.

... And while you're looking at his death, you overlook everything he helped to accomplish in life.

[ST88]

Can pacifism be exercised responsibly, and if so, how?

Firstly, the state should not be held responsible for enforcing ethics. Laws, sure, but ethics? That's a slippery slope to legislating morality. Ethics are best left as the marketable effects of maintaining standing in a trade association.

You ask a very interesting question because it reveals just how much of a pie-in-the-sky dreamer the answer might make you. The first answer -- pacifism at all costs -- will, as you say, get you cut down by the chainsaw. The second answer -- work to avoid non-pacifism -- is essentially the first answer because you have no bargaining chip when negotiating. Not all conflicts can be settled by trade tariffs or exchange of daughters.

The ultimate test for this question is: Can Hitler be appeased? What happens when Germany invades Poland? What happens when the U.S. is attacked? Am I to understand that the pacifist response is to negotiate with them?

I view pacifism as an ideal. Something to be striven for, but never fully achievable. You always have to have the threat of violence to make the peace enforceable. I think this is what is lost in the MLK and Ghandi discussion -- there was real fear on the part of the British that Ghandi would cause a violent rebellion, intentionally or not: Ghandi's pacifist effect was largely on the Indians themselves, that they did not need to show their ability to fight the British in their so-overwhleming numbers in order to shove the point home -- that they could mass so many people, peacefully or no. Not to mention the other violent protests that were going on at the time. You think the British were shamed into India's independence? With incidents like Chauri Chaura fresh in their minds (not to mention the 1857 uprisings), they no doubt viewed Gandhi as a viable if unwitting rabble rouser.

And then there's the Indian independence movement's dubious ties with the Axis powers in WWII:

Many historians have argued that it was the INA and the mutinies it inspired among the British Indian Armed forces that was the true driving force for India's independence
-- World War II and the end of the Raj

[MagusYanam]

Firstly, the state should not be held responsible for enforcing ethics.

No, the state should not be held responsible for enforcing any one person's own ethical mores. The state should ultimately be held responsible for cultivating justice among its citizens and in the world at large. Even if you take the Hobbesian model that the state should protect people from themselves, the state is still standing between its people and injustice.

You can say that fighting injustice is a matter of using force. In some cases, I would agree. But I think that eventually, when enough progress is made, a critical mass can be reached after which it isn't the threat of force that keeps people from committing injustices, but a cultivated internal sense of right and wrong.

The second answer -- work to avoid non-pacifism -- is essentially the first answer because you have no bargaining chip when negotiating. Not all conflicts can be settled by trade tariffs or exchange of daughters.

If every dispute among people boils down to a solution ad baculum, as you seem to be implying here, then what is the purpose of DC&R or any other forum devoted to the development and application of reason? (Sorry if I'm sounding painfully Victorian here. Call me a pie-in-the-sky dreamer if you want, but the fact that you're participating on this forum and abiding by the rules suggests that you think the same way I do about the power of reason.) I think that with the exception of perhaps a psychotic few, people, even world leaders, can be reasoned with without threatening to kill them, and diplomatic solutions achieved in that manner.

The ultimate test for this question is: Can Hitler be appeased? What happens when Germany invades Poland? What happens when the U.S. is attacked? Am I to understand that the pacifist response is to negotiate with them?

Ah, but what was the cause of Hitler? Think carefully before you answer about how the German people could have been brainwashed or hoodwinked into electing a leader that propounded irrationality and easy and violent solutions to problems. Think about how the Germans had been suffering humiliation upon humiliation after the end of World War I, how they were dealt repeated blows by the Great Depression, how their currency became worthless, how those with family in the Saarland listened to reports of their families being beaten and raped and taken into forced labour by the French who occupied it.

My answer would be: injustice. Political, economic and social injustice. If the Allies had dealt fairly with the Germans at the end of World War I instead of trying to drive the point home, Hitler would very likely have been dismissed an obscure, crackpot right-wing racialist. My opinion is that the failures both we and the Germans made prior to Hitler were Hitler's cause. Once Hitler came to power, war was inevitable. (My grandfather thinks differently, but I haven't heard of any peaceful solution to Hitler yet. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that some of the most effective resistance movements against the Nazis were nonviolent.)

Perhaps complete pacifism isn't the answer... at the moment. Not while we're still making messes of human societies and trying unsuccessfully to clean them up. But I think we should start by viewing war - any war, even wars we've won and thought were 'just' - as failure, or the result of failure. Failure of diplomacy and failure to administer social and economic justice to those who felt the want of it.

You think the British were shamed into India's independence?

I know it may be bad form to answer a question with another question, but just out of curiosity, why do you think the British didn't crush Gandhi's later movement out of existence with the same kind of brute force they used at Chauri Chaura? Violent uprisings the British were extremely capable of dealing with, and could simply defend themselves morally by saying that 'they started it'. But killing unarmed men, women and children got them very bad press back home. So yes, I think the British were shamed out of India.

[ST88]

Response Part I -- I've broken up these responses to deal with the two issues of theoretical pacifism and the practice of historical pacifism

You can say that fighting injustice is a matter of using force. In some cases, I would agree. But I think that eventually, when enough progress is made, a critical mass can be reached after which it isn't the threat of force that keeps people from committing injustices, but a cultivated internal sense of right and wrong.

Personally, I don't think this will ever happen. The human species is caught -- in perpetuity -- between the intellectual need to rationalize events and the reptilian need to control the immediate environment (barring genetic alteration, of course). There are many more people who are suspicious of this type of "progress" because the right/wrong dichotomy isn't nearly as universal as you seem to imply. I would argue that the vast majority of people on this planet have an internal sense of right/wrong, but what actions and effects are on which side is wildly different among individuals. Plus there is the further problem of the difference between knowing what is right and doing the wrong thing anyway for the sake of [insert mode of expediency here].

The second answer -- work to avoid non-pacifism -- is essentially the first answer because you have no bargaining chip when negotiating. Not all conflicts can be settled by trade tariffs or exchange of daughters.

If every dispute among people boils down to a solution ad baculum, as you seem to be implying here, then what is the purpose of DC&R or any other forum devoted to the development and application of reason? (Sorry if I'm sounding painfully Victorian here. Call me a pie-in-the-sky dreamer if you want, but the fact that you're participating on this forum and abiding by the rules suggests that you think the same way I do about the power of reason.) I think that with the exception of perhaps a psychotic few, people, even world leaders, can be reasoned with without threatening to kill them, and diplomatic solutions achieved in that manner.

Piffle. I don't come back here year after year because I think I'm going to be converting people. This is a forum of ideas. Period. I do not expect any action to be taken by anyone, do not expect anyone's mind to change because they even grudgingly accept my remarkably well-reasoned arguments and spectacular turns of phrase. I don't even think that the OP questions even apply here -- aren't we all on this site, by default, pacifists? Are there real-world consequences for posting to this site and disagreeing with people using rhetorical violence? If we were all world leaders (which would mean we would at least know of one other both online and in the real world), wouldn't our language be more diplomatic (in the diplomatic sense of the word) exactly because there could be real-world consequences? I think any citizen of the U.S. at this present moment, with our current administration in charge, knows the value of diplomacy (except for those who are actually in our current administration) for the example of the lack of it.

Even pacifists should understand that violence is a tool of diplomacy for police work and among nations. North Korea was not taken seriously until it had a nuclear weapon. Reason does not work all the time because humanity is not governed exclusively by reason -- I would even argue that people make more decisions based on gut feelings and emotional responses -- how else do you explain the continuing success of Ferrari S.p.A.? The American media/commerce engine values emotional decisions over intellectual ones and pushes these ideas on the population. Reason is cold and ivory tower-ish. Emotions are warm and homey. Rason is hard. Emotion is easy. Just go with your instincts: how many times have you heard that one?

Certainly, many disputes can be argued through. I'm not a complete ad baculate. And violence is the absolute last option -- but it is an option. And the threat of violence is often all that is needed in order to avoid it. The problem with our current state of affairs is that people are too quick to violence, they don't use this tool correctly and everyone suffers because of it.