I've considered myself a pacifist for a number of years now. I cannot tolerate violence, but more importantly I cannot see how fighting--war--solves anything in the long run. I'm neither a politically savvy person nor an historian, so I don't have a full repertoire of arguments to back my claim that pacifism is a better approach to the world, but I have been musing about why I feel so strongly about pacifism.
I'm the second of four children and while I don't consider myself to have been persecuted or mistreated as a child, there was a period of time when I was "picked on" by siblings on both sides. Most of my squabbles with my older sister were purely verbal, although she did haul off and sock me a good one occasionally. But my younger brother was quite physical, and I bore the marks to prove it--black and blue marks on my shins I remember in particular from the year that my brother wore heavy "work boots" every day. He must've been 7 or so, but he could kick hard, and those boots hurt! And he was always ready to punch whoever he happened to be unhappy with at the moment. My mother didn't like to intervene in our squabbles, believing rightly or wrongly that we would be better off to work it out on our own, and I can remember wailing plaintively to her about unfair it all was. "I can never get the last hit!" was my frustrated complaint, and it was true. No matter how hard or how often I hit my brother back, he would always come back at me. There was no end to it.
My parents believed in spanking for discipline. I wasn't spanked often, and I only remember being spanked by my mother, never by my father, but I remember again thinking how unfair it was that parents could hit children. And I'm not sure spanking ever had the desired effect on me, if the desired effect was to make me repentant for whatever my transgression was. I grew up swearing that I would never spank my kids, but it was hard not to, especially in the face of LOTS of criticism from my mother and sister for not disciplining my children properly. And I confess that I did swat the behinds of my kids out of frustration a few times--and felt absolutely awful afterwards. And realized yet again that responding aggressively is not a solution.
Neither of these experiences is really related to the subject of war, which is what pacifism is really aimed at for the most part. But they did sow the seeds for me, the belief that fighting back only encourages more fighting back, that aggression breeds more aggression, that the circle of aggression once started is difficult to break, and those notions are connected to war. But it took me a long time to put this all together and to articulate it. I grew up in the sixties when WWII was often the subject of movies and TV shows--both serious and comedic. War was romanticized, and besides, who could say that fighting the Germans in WWII was a bad thing?
I also grew up in the era of Martin Luther King,Jr. and witnessed as a child his example of non-violent resistance. But it wasn't until much later when I read as adult about his work, and about the work of Gandhi that I came to believe that non-violent resistance made a great deal of sense--far more sense that fighting back.
When the World Trade Center was attacked, I was incredibly sad, like everyone else. I knew that the world was changed, perhaps irrevocably. But in one way, my reaction was different from many others. I did not feel the need to seek revenge. I've thought about that a great deal, and I've realized that the lust for vengence seems to be missing in me. I don't say that to sound superior, just to note the fact that I don't seem to have the need to get back at people that seems so strong in others. And I don't see how making others suffer, killing others, really achieves justice (this is one of the reasons I am against the death penalty as well). What's more the notion that retribution should bring solace to victims' families is misplaced,and honestly not sound psychologically. So a war of retribution makes no sense to me either.
I was in seminary when the war in Iraq was launched, and we spent a great deal of time talking about just war theory and whether this war met the criteria as a "just war." But those arguments seem weak to me; how can we see any war as just?
The final piece of the puzzle, so to speak, fell into place for me when I heard someone say that pacifists don't have to justify pacifism by explaining how it would've prevented past wars. Often pacifists are asked if they would have refused to fight Hitler when Germany declared war, or refused to fight if they had known about the concentration camps and the slaughter of Jews.I don't know any pacifist who wouldn't have responded in some way to that situation. But in truth those are the wrong questions. The questions to ask are "at what point in history could things have been different so that the events that led to WWII (or WWI or any other war) would not have transpired. And even more importantly, what can we do to change world conditions to prevent future wars?"--because NOW is the time to do those things.
I don't believe that we should submit to terrorists. But I don't believe that war--especially the war we are engaged in in Iraq--is making us any safer from terrorism. On the contrary, this war has given terrorists new reason to fight. I think we should stop fighting in Iraq--and the sooner the better. Most of all, I think that we need to change our world view so that we no longer see war as an option. As the most powerful nation on earth we need to bring our considerable resources to bear on eradicating poverty and disease. We need to truly respect other religions and other cultures instead of expecting everyone to be like "us". Perhps we cannot end all wars immediately, but if we don't work to change the mindset of the worl, we shall surely destroy ourselves.
Perhaps this is all naive dribble, but it is what I believe.
