People Who Self Identify As Pacifists Are Dangerous

[Movingforward10]

Totally agree with you @whiteraven


And I think people who work in absolutes, (i.e. people who think that 1000000% of the time they will always, without any doubt, have a particular view or behaviour to any and all situations), are people in denial and misunderstanding nuance in life.

So, will there be or could there be a situation in my life where I think violence would be beneficial? Perhaps. Does that make me a liar in terms of calling myaelf a pacifist? I don't think so. I think it makes me human.

I agree that violence is a failure. Something has failed in decent interaction.

If someone was trying to kill me, would I be violent to them to try and stop them? I hope I would otherwise I would be dead. But I also don't know if I would.
If someone was trying to kill someone I love, would I be violent and try to stop them? I hope I would. But I still feel I am a pacifist. As my go to is non violence.

 

[Friday]

a) i don't believe i can KNOW how i will react to an extreme situation until the situation is at hand. i lost faith in my soothsaying skills a while back, not even when the element i am trying to predict is myself. "if" is a flag word for me. while i was a mobile vengeance machine, i routinely iffed my way into psychotic breaks. get the if out of that scenario and then i will have something to talk about. maybe. back in the day, i was typically beyond verbal capacity when my fists started flying. my actions spoke louder than my words.
b) violence is no longer my go-to solution for anything. when violence WAS my go-to solution, i thought my way into jail more than once.

pacifism is but a goal in my life. goals are not accomplishments. accomplishments do not erase our human nature.

Whoops! I phrased that badly, especially as I believe the same durn thing, and have been willing to take a lower grade in competitive programs, just because I feel that strongly about it. (You don’t know what you will do, until you’re in the situation & have done it. And even then? Only know what you have done, not what you will always do.)

I meant to ask about intentions.

Round my neck of the woods, somewhere between 1/3 to 2/3s of parents proclaim pascivism in the “violence is never the answer” vein, & back it up with voting both in legislation, as well as school policy (students who defend themselves are punished just as severely the students who attacked them; IE zero tolerance, expulsion from the district)… but maaaaaaaybe only roughly 10% back that up by refusing to

- Stop a fight between kids, by physically intervening
- Stop an adult from attacking a kid, by physically intervening
- Stopping either from happening by calling for help / so someone else (passerby or police) can physically intervene; as it’s committing violence by proxy.

The (roughly) 10% 33% 66% spread is because both intentions vary (where people draw lines morally) as do actions.

Most of that (roughly) 10%-66% SAY “violence is never the answer” but either intervene themselves, or call for someone else to, when a child is in danger.

But I’ve seen the 10% in action, asking nicely & waiting patiently until the fight/ beating/ rape is concluded. As they believe pulling one child off of another, and restraining them against their will until they’ve calmed down, shouting for help & tackling an adult, or calling the police is “two wrongs don’t make a right”.

So I was curious where you personally draw the line / what your intentions are when someone in your care is being hurt, or in life threatening danger?

 

[arfie]

my distinction may be one of degree. i believe that spanking or turning a water hose on a dog fight is pro-activism more than a violation my pacifist goals. disciplined use necessary decisive action is not violence in my book. slapping a child's hand to prevent them from pulling a boiling pot onto their heads is not violence, in itself. if i hit the child more than once before i dry their tears and explain the danger, i have graduated to violence.

rape or kid fight in action? where's my water hose? violence is not the only way to get perps re-thinking their actions. i bang a pot with a metal spoon to stop bull fights. it works like a charm. i thank the powers that be that they have not tested my resolve much further than that since i started my anger therapy work. what will i do I.F.? please, god, spare me that knowledge. i still feel substantial self-loathing from the too many times i passed such tests with skinned knuckles. works in progress. . .

 

[Rose White]

Pacifism sounds like code for manipulation to me. Covert operations could technically be pacifist when there is no direct invasion, maybe even no violence, but they can be sneaky and destructive as hell.

 

[Rose White]

I also tend to think of pacifism in political terms rather than personal terms because

It's like saying "I'd rather not kill." Uh, yeah, most people wouldn't.

practical pacifist, AKA a regular person.

me

Regarding “covert operations” I’ve been listening to this book
Overthrow Amazon.com
“America’s century of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq”. Understanding why my country’s foreign policies have provoked anger and division around the world led me to understand that “helping people be liberated from “communist terrorist dictators”” rarely to never provides peace or freedom for the citizens of that country. And a peaceful regime change done through propaganda does not mean peace and freedom for people. Peace and freedom are primarily for companies to have the freedom to do business how they see fit and peace from foreign states blocking them. The ideology being that everyone in the world benefits from American companies’ profits and investments.

I don’t trust pacifism or warmongering.

 

[sidptitala]

I find I have very clear opinions about this and don't lose much sleep over them. I think about it like this:

When I've seen soldiers shoot a kid, my whole job and being and purpose is to prevent that.

When a teenager came across a sleeping soldier (from the army that kills and oppresses everyone he knows) and took his gun, and shot the soldier with it- I was cheering for the teenager.

The army killed so many people 'searching for him' until they eventually tracked the teenager down and bombed a building over his head. The teenager is my hero in that story and I hate the army. I am always with those who resist oppression and don't feel like it's my right to tell anyone how to do it. Because:

The army I'm talking about kills kids for no reason. The kids I know there said they would be killed by that army whether they resisted or not- so of course they would try to take its soldiers down with them. That doing so was the best chance available at having their names in newspapers when they died, and at having their death noticed.

I can't tell those kids to die quietly in the name of pacifism, and I didn't.