How to be a Pacifist

Full disclosure: I am not a pacifist.  Oh sure, I would like to be, I would like to face the world with calm and grace.  I would like to not react with anger to every inconvenience.  Unfortunately, I am saddled with a great deal of anger, for reasons that only professionals would be able to come close to pinpointing.  What does it really mean to be a pacifist, though?  What traits should we expect from a person who claims to follow this pattern of behavior?  Utah Phillips told the story of his awakening to pacifism in several interviews and performances, basically in this way:

"You've got to become a pacifist," [Ammon Hennessy] said [...] "You came into the world armed to the teeth. With an arsenal of weapons, weapons of privilege, economic privilege, sexual privilege, racial privilege. You want to be a pacifist, you're not just going to have to give up guns, knives, clubs, hard, angry words, you are going to have lay down the weapons of privilege and go into the world completely disarmed."

The pacifist does not only not use weapons and tools of aggression, but also refuses to use the tools that can put others in inferior or disadvantaged positions.  For most of us, our privileges do not act on our lives in ways that we normally perceive, but they do make many of our interactions easier for us. Privilege tends to pressure those who do not have it to behave in ways that benefit those who do, even if they are unaware of being privileged in the first place.  The pacifist must find ways to empower the people around her and not have the upper hand in life.  This is because people have a tendency to react violently when they see themselves in situations of unfairness, especially if they feel they have no other recourse.  The pacifist has to obligation to promote fairness and provide options.  In this way, violence is avoided.  The trick is giving up the privileges we have, especially because we do not realize just how much we benefit from them.  The major difficulty is finding ways to reject one's own privilege that also have the possibility of opening doors for others, not just closing them for the privileged.  The pacifist must live in a world of individuals, rather than groups.  Every person has a different blend of privilege that affects her and those around her in different ways, and requires a different manner of reworking to establish the most level playing field possible.  Even the people who are underprivileged in a given situation, or most situations, can have advantages in other circumstances.  The pacifist must look another person in the eye and decide not to be aggressive or violent, to insist on treatment of others as sentient beings, not as automatons that can only be rivals.

A Wavering Participant also emphasized the individual choice of pacifism, reminding us of the admonition to "turn the other cheek" when hurt.  However, we need the ability to make such choices and have access to the information which allows us an informed choice.  Many religions put value on pacifist action, or at least having internal calm behind our actions.  There are also degrees of pacifism, with some choosing to be as completely non-violent as possible, while others take a more "practical" stance of simply not being aggressive.  Self-defense is allowable for many pacifists, for example.  She wondered whether an entire country could be pacific, given the individual nature of pacifism.  She also admitted the difficulty in choosing peaceful action, which could even be impossible in some cases.  There is also the question of whether simply not attacking with violence is enough to a pacifist's behavior, since many people act in ways we call "passive-aggressive".  They do not act in overtly aggressive ways, but do commit "microaggressions" which can have the same effect over time as a single act of violence.  This Participant believed that most people who behave in this way are not aware of it, although I have to doubt that; this is a social strategy, and people have learned to use this behavior to get what they want, whether it is wrangling favors from others or creating problems for them.

The Educator agreed that education is at the heart of being a pacifist, but justice is also a key issue.  People should be able to live with dignity, out of poverty and with access to education and information.  The Leader had mentioned the need for skepticism in his writing, which she did not quite line up with.  Pacifists must be idealists, as they think a better world is possible and worth building.  Still, sometimes war is necessary to stamp out injustice, or for defense when another's fight against injustice spatters "innocents".  Can we be pacifists in the face of terrorism?  Is there any way to eliminate the need for violent reactions by individuals?

The Leader furthered his analysis of skeptical pacifists, saying no one is obliged to take action and a good skeptic does not believe something just because; we must find out information for ourselves and make our own decisions about what is best.  However, as he has often said, we do not have access to good information or accurate information, but are manipulated by governments and other authorities to behave in ways that benefit them, not necessarily us.  As for being a pacifist, he drew a distinction between physical violence and verbal violence, mostly limiting the pacifist to refraining from the physical variety but possibly indulging wholeheartedly in the latter.  He also mentioned that the lack of tit-for-tat reaction to violence can be seen as a form of aggression itself, in that it can be an infuriating response to an aggressor looking for excuses to continue their activity.  A few names were tossed out as examples of pacifists, one being Gandhi's, but the Leader pointed out that Gandhi benefited enormously from the circumstances in his non-violent protest.  The British had just finished fighting a costly war and were trying to rebuild their own country while fulfilling the promises made to their citizens in return for their wartime support, and were not really in a position to squash a peaceful protester.  Not only that, but other groups were using violent protest in the subcontinent at the time, so Gandhi was a convenient "alternative" to those who might follow more aggressive actors.  This same strategy has been used to play Martin Luther King Jr. off of more militant civil rights leaders as the example of the "good" protester.  The Leader came to the statement that pacifism has failed as an ideology, probably because it does not normally address the need for self-defense.  There are varieties that do, of course, but "pacifism" even as an ideology is not very well-defined and has become a catch-all term for any sort of protest behavior that does not rely on physical aggression.  We should know our limits in terms of how much pressure we can take when we want to take a stand, peaceful or not.  A certain amount of self-analysis is necessary and a will to solve our own problems instead of dumping them on society as a whole.  The Leader blamed the educational system, in part, for our aggressive tendencies, saying our system is competition based and encouraging of conflict.  We are taught simple cause-and-effect actions, but not how to analyze and avoid problematic behavior in the future or prevent it in the first place.  On the other hand, civilization does encourage its citizens to use less violence and more peaceful means of solving problems, and modern technology allows us to see others face-to-face, either by traveling or through communication technology, and it is easier than ever to see the similarities between all human beings.  The emphasis of differences come with vested interests that often have motives behind them that are not beneficial for humanity, but only a few individuals.

The Deep Thinker had only one short contribution, taking an almost Zen-like view.  He focused on the internal life of the person, saying that even actions that may seem violent can be taken by pacifists, but only in a state of inner calm.  Violent reactions are mindless reactions.  The pacifist can fight, but mindfully and only as far as necessary to prevent harm and damage.  To reconnect with Phillips, he also mentioned the acknowledgement of our own capacity for violence as a necessary step to curbing it.  We cannot stop behavior that we cannot control, and we cannot control it if we cannot accept it.