Why You Are Not a Pacifist
Nov 13th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 15 Comments |
In the spirit of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, and CS Lewis’ Why I Am Not a Pacifist, I have another installment in my series on self-contradiction (e.g., here, here, and here) and what government is (e.g., here, here, and here):
“What should government do?” means the same as:
“What should be accomplished by force?” and
“Whose vision of society should be imposed at gunpoint?”
Thus, if you approve of government action on any issue, you cannot consistently be a pacifist.
Only anarchists could be pacifists without self-contradiction.
Do you think that all government action is accomplished through the use of force? Or that all action in general is accomplished through force, regardless of who does the action?
What about things that get accomplished through inaction? Why the emphasis on government = guns? Is this an American cultural thing I’m missing? Do you think government actions can be accomplished without the use of force? Are you drawing a difference between domestic issues and international issues?
Questions, questions …
All government action is guaranteed by force.
Governments make laws. Laws aren’t laws unless they’re enforced.
Laws are enforced by guns.
I don’t know . . . my gut says that something with what you’re saying is not right. Or that could be the lactose talking.
What about non-governmental laws? Physical laws, say. Or religious laws.
Think of the Jewish Law / other Biblical commands: there are 613 commands in the Torah alone. That’s not counting those originating from rabbinic rule (the oral Torah), those listed more than once, etc. That’s a lot of Law.
There are more commands in the New Testament, which are arguably harder to keep. “Do not commit adultery” becomes “do not even think about committing adultery” — and presumably, a command from God still counts as law. But God (through Jesus) says that “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:15). If you love me. Not because you have to.
Is God’s law enforceable? We’ve seen that it’s not widely enforceable by humans; theocracies always seem to end wrong (and, it’s true, often come about and go away again because somebody is using military force). And while God certainly would be “able” to enforce His law, He hasn’t — perhaps because that would almost certainly erase even the vaguest semblance of free will for us.
In its ideal form and interpretation, religious law is enforced by one’s self, not from external force. In its ideal form, it is internally motivated by love, not externally motivated by fear or weakness.
I know I’ve wandered away from the topic of governmental law… but it seemed as if you were speaking of a broader theory of law-ness anyway.
Am I making vague sense, or just blathering out my pie-hole? Frankly it’s too late in the night for me to be able to tell…
- C
I think Mr. Tillman is largely correct here. However, in keeping with what I think Christine was trying to say, a consistent pacifist can argue for laws which are voluntarily kept, forbidding the government from actually using force in order to enforce them. This will perforce mean that all laws (even laws against murder) will be merely suggestions rather than commands, but you wouldn’t have to be a thorough-going anarchist to remain a pacifist. You could still believe in democracy, the rule of law, etc., but make all of it entirely voluntary.
By the way, isn’t it the case that historically pacifists have been pretty consistent about this? I’m thinking of the Quakers, the Anabaptists, and Jain Buddhists. None of them have ever shown much interest in politics or enforcing their ideas through the force of government. (Though, of course, Richard Nixon did become President, but he clearly wasn’t a pacifist Quaker.)
Andrew–
Maybe so. I just happen to know several socialist pacifists. :-)
And it seems to me that a lot of people want all the goods of socialism without admitting that it all has to be done at gunpoint. As if socialism isn’t a kind of (latent) violence on a massive scale.
I’d suggest that most laws are not truly enforced by gun point. Most laws are only enforceable because nearly all of us follow them.
If we all decided we didn’t support a law, if we all violated it, there wouldn’t be enough guns to stop us. Would this confrontation be violent? Of course it would. But guns are really only necessary to enforce compliance from those on the margins of society. 98% of comply because we think it’s the right thing to do. (O.K. Maybe some of that 98% comply out of fear of getting caught. But can that be said of most of us?)
Could a lesser-of-two evils argument be run here? If we didn’t submit ourselves to laws then the world we’d live in would end up being much more violent. If a pacificst is pragmatic they’d recognize an imperfect, sometimes violent government is better than no government at all.
On the question of whether laws could be enforced if nobody obeyed them:
Hypotheticals that involve large-scale collective action are irrelevant here.
The fact is that if I decide to stop following a law, police officers carrying guns will show up at my door and invite me to go with them to jail.
On pragmatic pacifists:
A pacifist who accepts violence isn’t a pacifist.
I don’t actually know many socialists who self-identify as pacifists. I’m sure there are a number of them among the young, but youth is a time when you should be allowed to make mistakes like that. The political philosophy of these youths has never really gone past the “war is bad, sharing is good” stage. They’ll get past that eventually and realize that they aren’t any sort of pacifist (while still opposing virtually all wars, I imagine). I cannot name a single pacifist currently sitting in the United State Congress, for example.
Jeff is right that laws that aren’t obeyed by anyone tend not to be enforced at all. Or worse, they are enforced arbitrarily. I can name several examples of this. There are, ostensibly, laws against office pools on the NCAA tournament, but I’ve yet to see any arrests made about them, despite their ubiquity. I think these sorts of laws are a serious mistake and there are too many of them. When a society has laws it doesn’t bother to enforce, it breeds disrespect for the law in general.
Micah’s general point stands. Ultimately, all laws are enforced by violence or the threat of violence. One can’t endorse this and still call oneself a pacifist. A true pacifist would use no violence even to stop a mass murderer. However, I still believe there have been genuine pacifists in history — the Quakers, the Anabaptists, the Jain Buddhists. All of these groups have tended to be apolitical.
Interesting… How do those societies enforce conformity to their norms? It seems like in at least some cases it’s not overt violence, certainly, but a powerful social thing…
Is the power to shun a form of violence?
I suppose this just reinforces the initial point, that pacifism does not work.
Would most pacifists define themselves this way? Does a pacifist by definition refuse all violence or just unnecessary violence?
Of course, many who are called pacifists are against aggression but not against self-defense or against law enforcement. I think that some pacifists even support military defense of one’s own territory against an aggressor.
Some are more strict, and I think that you are right in saying that anarchy would be the only consistent political approach for them. Socialism is not consistent with strict pacifism, as you point out.
Even if you grant self-defense (and I do agree that pacifism can be defined that way — I don’t know what I was thinking when I posted earlier), I don’t see how one can make a socialist philosophy consistent with it. (A libertarian philosophy, sure, but not a socialist philosophy.) In order to make it work, you would have to have a theory that exempts the government from the pacifist theory (but, oddly, only against its own citizens, or else they wouldn’t be pacifists at all).
It’s a pleasure to read what y’all have to say. So much depth.
The pacifists I know are strict: “do no violence, period.” I’ve never met an “everything but self-defense is wrong” self-styled pacifist, though I would be honored if I ever got the chance.
Though it does seem to me that RonPaulian non-interventionism (or whatever his position is. I only hear what the media writes) might count as pacifism if we’re allowing that term to be consistent with an approval of self-defense.
The problem is, it seems to me, that if someone were to allow for violence in the case of self-defense, wouldn’t that put her/him dangerously close to thinking it’s okay to use violence to defend other people from violence?
And in that case, how would that position be any different from traditional “Just War” theory?
Not knowing any pacifists who accept self-defense, I don’t know who to ask that one.
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I agree with the basic tenant of this post. While laws may not ideally be enforced using violence, the threat of violence is there. The government ultimately is only a voluntary “club” if it does not have the ability to “en-force” its laws.
This is why, in order to maintain a free society, the government should be minimal. Only things which are worthy of using force if necessary should be done via government. Other values and goals should be pursued by the people themselves. If the “force” of government is added to things which should not be advanced by force (such as telling people what they should believe) tyranny of some sort becomes inevitable.
So… Should the government be in charge of individual welfare? Education? I don’t know.
National Defense? Roads that benefit all? Do not murder? Do not rape? Do not steal? These kinds of laws make sense.
:-)
ThirstyJon
freedomthirst.com
P.S. Fascinating post! :-)