Pacifism

“ If this were true, pacifism might as well resign. In truth, this interpretation of war as a mere expression of man's fighting instincts is no more adequate than is the personal devil theory. War has outgrown the fighting instinct. It has become deliberate, businesslike, scientific. It demands sacrifices from those to whom fighting is an abomination. How many red-blooded warriors could the German Emperor or the French President have enrolled, had there been no appeal to national interest, duty, justice, indignation? War is won to-day by peace-loving men, who abhor the arms in their hands. ”

“ It is useless to multiply examples; but it is plain that the very same vital energy which produces all that is best also produces war and the love of war. This is the basis of the opposition to pacifism felt by many men whose aims and activities are by no means brutal. Pacifism, in practice, too often expresses merely lack of force, not the refusal to use force in thwarting others. Pacifism, if it is to be both victorious and beneficent, must find an outlet, compatible with humane feeling, for the vigor which now leads nations into war and destruction. ”

“ So prevalent has such thinking become among pacifists, that it is not surprising that John Lewis, in his closely reasoned book, The Case Against Pacifism, bases his whole attack on the logic of the pacifist position upon the theory that pacifists must, as he does, hold other values above their respect for individual human personalities. Even in speaking of "absolute" pacifism he says, "The most fundamental objection to war is based on the conviction that violence and the taking of human life, being themselves wrong, cannot lead to anything but evil." ”

“ That is the whole case of Pacifism: we shall not improve except at the price of using our reason in these matters; of understanding them better. Surely it is a truism that that is the price of all progress; saner conceptions—man's recognition of his mistakes, whether those mistakes take the form of cannibalism, slavery, torture, superstition, tyranny, false laws, or what you will. ”

“ Although some of those who oppose participation in war still insist upon calling themselves "non-resistants" [8] many of the modern pacifists disclaim the term because it is negative, and insist that the essence of pacifism [Pg 6] is the element of active goodwill toward all men. [9] Yet when confronted with evil, even he who thinks of his pacifism as a positive attitude must decide not only what means he will use to oppose evil, but what means he will not use. ”

“ Advocacy by such types does not therefore constitute an argument of any weight against their doctrines, which can adequately be judged only by some purely objective standard. Judged by such a standard, pacifism, as we have seen, appears to be a natural development, and is directed towards a goal which unless man’s nature undergoes a radical change will probably be attained. ”

“ The Pacifist Research Bureau frankly bases its work upon the philosophy of pacifism: that man should exercise such respect for human personality that he will employ only love and sacrificial good will in opposing evil and that the purpose of all human endeavor should be the creation of a world brotherhood in which cooperative effort contributes to the good of all. ”

“ Behind, all engaged in tying the nation’s hands, lest it might strike promptly and forcefully, is Pacifism, cowardly and self-seeking, more anxious to avoid temporary suffering than to preserve the honor and safety of the nation ”

“ For pacifism does not simply mean, to be a friend to peace, but to be a worker in the cause of peace, an εἱρηνοποιὁς, as the New Testament has it. Pacifism signifies the activity of an effective will to peace, not merely the love of an easy life and a preference for repose. It signifies struggle; and like every struggle it demands, in the hour of danger, self-sacrifice and heroism. ”

“ There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; ”

“ SOCIALISTS AND IMPERIALISM
Peace impossible without solution of economic conflicts.
Possibly we shall learn nothing from the war; at the present moment it looks that way. For all the world, including Socialists, seem to be divided between militarists and pacifists. By pacifism I mean of course the movement Socialists have attacked for fifty years—up to the present war—under the name of “bourgeois pacifism,” the idea that disarmament, the Hague Tribunal, and similar devices could put an end to militarism and war. ”

“ Guy F. Hershberger makes a definite distinction between non-resistance and pacifism. He says that the former term describes the faith and life of those "Who cannot have any part in warfare because they believe the Bible forbids it, and who renounce all coercion, even nonviolent coercion." He goes on to say, "Pacifism, on the other hand, is a term which covers many types of opposition to war. Some modern so-called pacifists are opposed to all wars, and some are not. Some who oppose all wars find their authority in the will of God, while others find it largely in human reason. ”

“ Military nations are unintelligent nations, and militarism is always brutalizing.
Such pacifism and the dream of universal peace are no new ideas in the world. Like the philosophy of war pacifism has a long history. There have been pacifists everywhere and presumably at all times, since pacifism is quite as much a temperament as it is an idea or a philosophy. Cramb tells us that all recent centuries have had their doctrines of pacifism, each century having its own characteristic variety. ”

“ Perhaps no general expressions have been more common since the beginning of the war, in the mouths of those who have undertaken our instruction in the meaning of events, than the propositions that pacifism is now finally exploded and shown always to have been nonsense, that war is and always will be an inevitable necessity in human affairs as man is what is called a fighting animal, and that not only is the abolition of war an impossibility, but should the abolition of it unhappily prove to be possible after all and be accomplished, the result could only be degeneration and disaster. ”

“ During the last few years, however, the defence of war has been made for the most part on very different grounds. Peace, we are told by those who oppose the pacifist movement, may embody the material interests of men, but the spiritual nature of mankind will stand in the way of its ever being achieved! Pacifism, far from being branded as too idealistic and sentimental, is now scorned as "sordidly material." ”

“ She smiled at Barres and said:
“Several of my own patients who are suffering from the same form of psycho-neurotic trouble are also peace-at-any-price pacifists. They do not come to me to be cured of their pacifism. On the contrary, they cherish it most tenderly. In examining them for other troubles I happened upon what appeared to me a very close relation between the peculiar attitude of the peace-at-any-price pacifist and a certain type of unconscious pervert.” ”

“ If the Resentful Employee provides the emotional impulse of the resisting pacifist, whose horizon is bounded by his one passionate desire that the particular social system that has treated him so ill should collapse and give in, and its leaders and rulers be humiliated and destroyed, the intellectual direction of a mischievous pacifism comes from an entirely different class. ”

“ The teaching of pacifism, enlarging upon the biological waste [206] of war, trying to present the realism of war in its worst light in order to overcome the warlike spirit and to assist the doctrines of internationalism to take effect upon the mind seems to be the wrong way of teaching peace. We seem to be obligated to teach war as it is. We cannot conceal its heroic side for fear of perpetuating war, and we must not conceal the brutality of war for fear of destroying morale and the fighting spirit. ”

“ Hershberger is here defining pacifism broadly to include the European meaning of opposition to war, but not necessarily a refusal to take part in it. In the United States, and generally in Great Britain, the term is ordinarily applied only to those who actually refuse participation in war. ”

“ What has been deemed, however, in Christianity the most unrealizable ideal is that which may be called pacifism—to resist not evil, to turn the other cheek, to agree with your adversary while you are in the way with him. ”

“ A dynamic pacifism, on the other hand, must assume that the world is in change, and that no peace is possible or desirable which does not permit great international transformations. These transformations arise from various causes. ”

“ The first we might perhaps call pacifism, liberalism, humanitarianism, democracy, though none of these words exactly defines the generous, somewhat ineffectual, peace ideal, which has grown up in a democratic people with no hostile neighbours. ”

“ Frequently, foolish persons, who meant well, have at the time said that it represented "militarism." Occasionally, knavish persons, who did not mean well, have, in retrospect, called it "pacifism." The first category unconsciously, the second consciously, said what was not true. I care for the facts of the matter, not for terminology. I am for righteousness. Ordinarily, I believe that peace serves righteousness. But if peace Serves unrighteousness, then I hold, with Washington and Lincoln, that it is our duty to stand for righteousness at the cost of war. ”

“ Until liberals are willing to think through on foreign policy, studying European and world history, defining the meaning of the State and visualizing its relationship to other States, we shall have a skimmed-milk pacifism as their largest contribution to the problems of nation-States, submerged nationalities, backward races, exploitable territory and international straits, canals and ports of call. ”

“ Possibly this book may lessen a little the effect of the pernicious propagandism of the pacifists—may somewhat help Congressional appropriations for defense—may place a few more men and a few more guns on the firing-line, and thereby save the lives of a few of our people—may save a few homes from the torch—may lessen the area of devastation—may, by adding a little power to our resistance, help to get slightly better terms from the conquerors for our liberation.
Pacifism has ringed the nose of the American people and is leading them, blind and unknowing, to the slaughter. War is inevitable. ”

“ But long before enough have been converted, the situation will enable some unpacific men to further their existing interests by profiting from the non-resisting behaviour of those who practise absolute pacifism. The latter will not fight for their own lives and possessions or for the lives and possessions of friends, children, and countrymen. In that case, others, perhaps from countries and regions in which the ideals of pacifism are held in scorn, will discover that it is truly to their interest to be aggressively militant and to cut down and enslave the pacifists. ”

“ I found them in Nationalism, in the value of personality, in the denial of reconciliation between nations, in the strength and power of individual personality. * * * If one rejects pacifism, one must put a new idea in its place immediately. Everything must be pushed aside, must be replaced by something better. ”

“ We cannot, then, escape the conclusion that as we have a responsibility to decide for the pacifist or non-pacifist position and to bear witness for pacifism, if that is the stand we take, so as pacifists we have a responsibility to decide whether complete non-cooperation with military conscription is the more consistent, committed and effective stand or not, and if we decide for the former, then to do what we can to make our stand and the reasons for it known. ”

“ We asked whether war is an inevitable expression of human instinct and whether anything less than war can move a man to supreme self-sacrifice. And we have found that the instincts lying at the heart of war can be converted to the uses of a strenuous and militant peace and that the instrument of their conversion is loyalty to the Great Society, a loyalty rooted in the deep-lying social instincts. ”

“ Four years ago a large part of the civilised world laboured under certain biological fallacies which may, in a sense, be held responsible for the extent and duration of the present conflict. These fallacies, which were the foundation of pacifism and other pernicious forms of social and political radicalism, dealt with the capability of man to evolve mentally beyond his former state of subservience to primitive instinct and pugnacity, and to conduct his affairs and international or inter-racial relations on a basis of reason and good-will. ”

“ The difference between the pacifist and the advocate of real-politik is an intellectual and not a moral one at all, and the assumption of superior morality which the former sometimes makes does the cause which he has at heart infinite harm. Until the pacifist can show that the employment of military force fails to secure material advantage, the common man will, in ordinary times, continue to believe that the militarist has a moral sanction as great as that underlying pacifism. ”

“ Biological considerations would seem to suggest that these gen­er­al­i­za­tions contain a large element of inexactitude. The doctrine of pacifism is {126} a perfectly natural development, and ultimately inevitable in an animal having an unlimited appetite for experience and an indestructible inheritance of social instinct. Like all moral discoveries made in the haphazard, one-sided way which the lack of co-ordination in human society forces upon its moral pioneers, it has necessarily an appearance of crankiness, of sentimentality, of an inaptitude for the grasp of reality. ”