I've decided to overcome the limitations of the comments section by posting a response to Ed's, Ben's and Ironbear's comments on The Pacifist's Choice here. I think Donald Sensing makes a good case that Christ wasn't a pacifist, in the sense that he excluded the possibility of legitimate violence. But, as I said on these two HighRoads threads (here and here), I think there's a distinct difference between doctrinaire pacifists and "strategic pacifists." I think Christ and the early Christians were clearly the latter and not the former.
When a movement for religious or political freedom is confronted with an overwhelming and dominant force the best option may be to alter the mental, spiritual and/or political state of the aggressor. This is definitely a long term, even an epochal, strategy, and there's also no doubt that in the case of Christianity it worked. It worked even through Rome was a brutal tyranny. However I am not so sanguine about our options with respect to modern totalitarianism, which is an order of magnitude more corrosive than mere tyranny. As Hannah Arendt observes:
Total terror is so easily mistaken for a symptom of tyrannical government because totalitarian government in its initial stages must behave like a tyranny and raze the boundaries of man-made law. But total terror leaves no arbitrary lawlessness behind it and does not rage for the sake of some arbitrary will or for the sake of despotic power of one man against all, least of all for the sake of a war of all against all. It substitutes for the boundaries and channels of communication between individual men a band of iron which holds them so tightly together that it is as though their plurality had disappeared into One Man of gigantic dimensions. To abolish the fences of laws between men--as tyranny does--means to take away man's liberties and destroy freedom as a living political reality; for the space between men as it is hedged in by laws, is the living space of freedom. Total terror uses this old instrument of tyranny but destroys at the same time also the lawless, fenceless wilderness of fear and suspicion which tyranny leaves behind. This desert [tyranny], to be sure, is no longer a living space of freedom, but it still provides some room for the fear-guided movements and suspicion-ridden actions of its inhabitants..By pressing men against each other, total terror destroys the space between them; compared to the condition within its iron band, even the desert of tyranny, insofar as it is still some kind of space, appears like a guarantee of freedom. Totalitarian government does not just curtail liberties or abolish essential freedoms; nor does it, at least to our limited knowledge, succeed in eradicating the love for freedom from the hearts of man. It destroys the one essential prerequisite of all freedom which is simply the capacity of motion which cannot exist without space. (Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism)
In the absence of an external oppositional rival I'm not at all sure that it would be possible to oppose totalitarianism effectively, so from a strategic standpoint our first options have to involve the maintenance of an oppositional alternative. We have to prevent totalitarianism from becoming pervasive, which requires the recognition that all totalitarian movements seek universal control. Given the fact that the enemy is not tyranny but something far worse, and given the critical fact that we still have significant space outside of totalitarianism from which to maneuver against it, I simply can't see any role within the free societies for pacifism, doctrinaire or strategic. And in this sense I agree with the assertion that pacifism is morally indefensible. This is also the position taken by Reinhold Neibuhr.
But there certainly is a role for civil disobedience, a form of strategic pacifism, within a totalitarian state, if it's accompanied by a threat of force from without (Sakharov, for instance, was focused on changing the political conditions within the Soviet Union in the context of the Cold War). But even this strategic pacifism was a child of necessity, created by the dire consequences of the MAD stalemate. For twelve winters after the allied victory in Europe the Latvian Resistance waited in the freezing Baltic forests for a U.S. invasion that never came. Had it come, hundreds of millions would have been saved from enslavement, torture and death under Stalinism. This was the legacy of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the traitors whom wishful-thinking documentarians and dramatizers (including HBO and the BBC) have insisted on casting in a sympathetic light.
And I would go even farther, to say that the absence of a tradition of strategic pacifism within the Islamic world has crippled it, making it more rather than less vulnerable to totalitarian movements and regimes. Can there really be much doubt that had the Palestinians chosen civil disobedience rather than suicide terrorism as their strategy they'd have had a Palestinian state long ago? There is a fundamental weakness to the position that excludes non-violence as an effective strategy, because in a game theoretical sense the absence of a non-violent strategy limits options to the "dominant strategy" in the game theory matrix. In more conventional terms it leads to an "arms race" in which arms parity results in increasingly violent encounters, and ultimately in mutually assured destruction. And the best outcome of that situation is stalemate and a long drawn out "cold" war. Let's not even discuss the worst outcome.
And this is precisely why it would have been unwise to leave Saddam in power much longer, and why it's unwise to contemplate allowing Iran to continue developing a stealthy WMD program. Non-violence within Iran actually increases the overall options available to us, and plays a critical role in our strategies. But any commitment to non-violence on our part is not merely poor strategy, it's immoral... because it removes from the Iranian reformers any degree of protection they might have from their own internal totalitarian-trending regime. And once that regime acquires weapons-parity (not necessarily equality) the timeline for reform goes from years to decades and centuries.
It's easy to see that pacifism or non-violence on the level of states can play a role, but I don't see quite how strategic pacifism could play a similar role in individual crime situations, during a violent confrontation. The role of strategic pacifism seems to be limited to factions within the aggressor's sphere of direct volitional control. If we attempt to draw analogies from the behavior of groups, it's difficult to see which part of the aggressor could effect a change in attitude by adopting a strategy of nonviolence. Could his arm or his nose affect a change in his decision to commit violence? In what sense is the victim of an assault a component of the assailant's volition?
So we arrive at a kind of scalar where on one end of the scale the volition of individuals has "disappeared into One Man of gigantic dimensions" (or is, in fact, one man) and on the other where the volition of the group is actually a function of the freely expressed volition of individuals. The more things approach the first condition the longer or more epochal the strategy of nonviolence must become, and the less relevance nonviolence has to the immediate circumstances. And it would be rather mad to focus one's strategy on the "community of criminals" in the long term, when there is no such thing. With regard to individual crimes that are not part of a larger movement taking an epochal perspective toward the intent to commit homicide or battery makes no sense whatsoever. And even if it could make sense as a strategy employed against organized crime, where there is such a thing as a "community of criminals," that would only be the case if the alternatives were even more costly. Deliberately disarming, so that there can be no alternative, is equally nonsensical. It may make sense from an economical point of view, where the expense of being armed is high and the odds of a violent encounter are low. But it doesn't make moral sense.
And it likewise makes no moral sense to support disarming a society involuntarily, not so much because weapons parity with the state is required to preserve liberty, but because imposing citizen disarmament encourages an unrealistic or fantasy-laden relationship between the individual and the state. It moves the state in the direction of "One Man of gigantic dimensions:" a protector of perfect wisdom, knowledge and ability.
Posted by Demosophist at February 16, 2004 07:53 PM | TrackBackThe critical point, I think, is that pacifism is a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. Peace is a worthy goal (among many), but holding pacifism above all else inevitably requires one to sacrifice other goals that are just as worth, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If pacifism becomes an end rather than a means, it will inevitably come into conflict with these other goals.
As a means to an end, pacifism and non-violent resistance can be an effective tactic, but only when the opponent has a conscience and a free press. If the opponent is quite willing to murder the pacifist and suppress the account of his murder from press coverage, the tactic has accomplished nothing.
Posted by: Ben at February 17, 2004 11:27 AMThe critical point, I think, is that pacifism is a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself.
That's the essence of the distinction between strategic and doctrinaire pacifism. I'm not sure there is such a thing as "tactical pacifism" though, so I was reluctant to specify the needs/ends relationship. Theoretically it could be used as a tactic, I guess. Dog Day Afternoon? Could hostage negotiators be considered tactical pacifists?
As a means to an end, pacifism and non-violent resistance can be an effective tactic, but only when the opponent has a conscience and a free press. If the opponent is quite willing to murder the pacifist and suppress the account of his murder from press coverage, the tactic has accomplished nothing.
I'd be willing to say that it has accomplished less, but not necessarily "nothing." The scalar is that the less the opponent is amenable to conscience the longer the timeline of the strategy, all else being equal. It took a about three hundred years to change the Roman Empire. I just can't bring myself to believe that the strategy, used as a tactic in an individual violent encounter, has much facility.
Posted by: Scott (to Ben) at February 17, 2004 01:13 PMScott,
You briefly touched on pacifism as practiced by Quaker and Adventist medics with US forces in WW2. On thehighroad.org, Trebor said (1/22/04, 03:29):
I worked with a woman who was a "True Pacifist." ...[She] believed that the Spiritual Harm you did to yourself by harming another, even in self-defense, was ALWAYS greater than the physical harm they could do to you... [She believed] that she could miss out on her promised afterlife if she harmed another, AND was willing to accept the consequences of that while here on earth.
This strikes me as what "Doctrinaire Pacifism" is really about. It's not an end in itself, but a means for living a life according to deeply-held religious beliefs.
In narrow terms, such pacifists will be "free riders" on society as much as the less-admirable sorts. But only a small proportion of people will choose this path, and it has its own ennobling qualities.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this Doctrinaire Pacifism is that its aura of sacrifice and moral superiority has somehow transferred to secular pacifists who embrace appeasing violent predators (or push the dirty work onto third parties).
Posted by: AMac at February 17, 2004 08:24 PMThis strikes me as what "Doctrinaire Pacifism" is really about. It's not an end in itself, but a means for living a life according to deeply-held religious beliefs.
I guess it's a means for the practitioner to achieve their afterlife goals regardless of the consequences for anyone else. Their choice, of course, but it's not really genuine to cast it as a selfless act.
In narrow terms, such pacifists will be "free riders" on society as much as the less-admirable sorts. But only a small proportion of people will choose this path, and it has its own ennobling qualities.
A agree that they're free riders, and in the sense that it's self serving it's right in line with classical liberalism. They aren't obliged to act in any particular way just because it benefits others. It's also appropriate for those who bear the externalized cost to charge for the service in some way, if they can. They could, for instance, levy a substancial fine on someone who exercised such a choice. They could require a person who sacrificed another in such a situation to assume the financial and social responsibilities of the persons who they refused to defend. That might at least winnow the appeasers.
Posted by: Scott (to AMac) at February 17, 2004 10:05 PMScott,
I wouldn't think it wise of society to reward the courage and dedication shown by WW2 pacifist medics by billing them for externalized costs!
Religious freedom has meant that all sorts of fruits and nuts have converged on the US over the past two centuries. There are a few religious doctrines that can fairly be called real or potential threats to American secular democracy. As much as possible, our society accepts members of these sects as citizens, without considering their beliefs as a liability.
Seems we should do no less for Doctrinaire Pacifists, who are free riders but not menaces.
Posted by: AMac at February 18, 2004 12:37 AMI wouldn't think it wise of society to reward the courage and dedication shown by WW2 pacifist medics by billing them for externalized costs!
Well, they're paying their way so no remedy for free-riding is required.
There are a few religious doctrines that can fairly be called real or potential threats to American secular democracy. As much as possible, our society accepts members of these sects as citizens, without considering their beliefs as a liability.Seems we should do no less for Doctrinaire Pacifists, who are free riders but not menaces.
There isn't an "ethic" involved in a contract to internalize an external cost. What's "fair" is simply what the parties agree to. But if one were the bearer of an externalized cost it would simply be natural and rational to try some arrangement that internalized it. Presumably the beneficiar of the externalized cost knows he's getting a boon, and has an economic incentive to "deal" for some part of that amount. Sometimes the cost of making the contract exceeds the rewards of internalizing the cost.
Is this making sense? Sometimes I get caught up in "Public-Choice-Speak" and I don't even realize it.
Posted by: Scott (to AMac) at February 18, 2004 02:33 AM>Is this making sense?
Well, Yes. And No.
>Sometimes I get caught up in "Public-Choice-Speak"...
Perhaps that is an issue. Seems to me you're making the assumption that everybody involved does, or ought to, see things in these terms. Many don't. Many founding documents of our nation don't. Even sympathetic moi largely doesn't.
--Pacifist medics paying their way: no argument, of course. The question is about the people holding such beliefs today, who aren't (yet?) paying their way. Todd Beamer didn't assume the (not pacifist!) mantle of hero until Flight 93. Then he did.
--A contract's "ethic" and what's "fair". Two problems with this line of thinking. First: the Founders guaranteed freedom of religion not as a negotiating tactic or a boon, but because of their own views of the Inalienable Rights of Man. How can society guarantee a fundamental right, then expect "concessions" as part of a "fair" trade for its exercise? I know it's not that simple; per our example, the draft is a curtailment of the individual's rights, and marching to a different religious drummer didn't exempt one from responsibility.
Second: "What's 'fair' is simply what the parties agree to...Presumably the beneficiar of the externalized cost knows he's getting a boon..." No. Perhaps it would help to explicitly state the examples I had in mind in my earlier post: The Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)* and American Fundamentalist Muslims. Each group has beliefs that are in some ways hostile to the Liberal Democratic and secular order that defines American society. But there are a range of positions within each group, and there are strong forces in each case that work towards an accomodation with the larger society. Relevant to this argument and "public-choice theory" is that neither LDS nor Muslims see themselves as beneficiants whose beliefs impose costs on the larger society. Quite the contrary--it is the secular society that imposes unjust costs on them! (Imagine having this conversation with your commenter Abu Noor al Irlandee!)
*I'm mostly thinking of the church-state conflicts of the late 19th century, though these stresses haven't been wholly resolved; see Jon Krakauer's 2003 book "Under the Banner of Heaven."
Posted by: AMac at February 18, 2004 09:33 AMThis is fascinating, Dem. I'm going to link to it in my next "Blogistan Roundup" post, so hopefully it'll get a bit of wider exposure [if anyone picks up on my link and spreads it]
Wish I'd seen this earlier. And I'm honored that you found my essay and commentary on the topic thought provoking enough to use as one of your jump off points.
Getting towards the end of my day... I'm going to come back to this and read it a bit more thoroughly before commenting.
Posted by: Ironbear at March 5, 2004 06:27 AMThanks for the compliment. I had intended to add that post to my "essays" list, but had completely forgotten about it. Thanks for reminding me.
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