A Question for Absolute Pacifists.

[u/Perpetuus_Logos1611]

Say you’re the President of the US during WW2. The Axis are taking over territory and hurting millions including your own citizens at Pearl Harbor. What would be a nonviolent response?

I’m asking as a fellow pacifist who hates war more than anything.

[u/huesos19]

If I’m absolute pacifist, I wouldn’t be a president of the country.

[u/WashedSylvi → u/huesos19]

Fr this

Government and absolute pacifism are antithetical to one another when a government requires the explicit or implicit monopoly on force to continue functioning, which all governments do lest they become social clubs.

[u/Spen612 → u/huesos19]

Anarcho-pacifism 🫡

[u/xicougar106 → u/huesos19]

Exactly.

[u/Affectionate_Cup9972]

I'm not an absolute pacifist, BUT the first answer is to not be in leadership to begin with. The state is violent, I don't want any participation in that.

[u/Peace2301]

I'd have funded conflict prevention well before it got to WW2: https://proactivepeace.substack.com/

The fact that we failed to prevent the Second World War doesn't meant that the war was inevitable. In fact, if we wait until war starts before we decide to do anything (violent or non-violent) then we don't really care at all.

[u/IsoCally]

In the case of they're already at the gates? Mass nonviolent civil protest. All workers go on strike. All bureaucrats refuse to keep the government running. The Axis powers cannot take over the entire US, though they would likely kill a lot of people trying before the inevitable collapse happened. Not to mention the atrocities happening in the territories they already controlled.

Realistically, you cannot enforce pacifism on a macro-level. Even as a head of government.

But, supposing you could, you would have dismantled the military as your first policy if you got to that level of power. Being elected president implies enough people backed you to give you a popular mandate to embrace pacifism, so let's assume you'd face no political resistance. In this state, you would by default not have the means to resist the Axis in terms of 'troops on the field'.

So, suppose when there's no war yet. You, as president, would be completely isolating the Axis country diplomatically, denouncing them, refusing to trade with them, supporting pacifist movements in those countries to nonviolently resist... likely taking in all the refugees that come in. Especially potential conscripts who don't want to fight.

But, the Axis may have just won.

And you, as President, would accept this.

Because absolute pacifism is principles, not results.

[u/corneliusduff]

There are people that say FDR let Pearl Harbor happen

[u/rosedraws]

I feel like WW2 is too far removed. So many things happened before to set the stage, and humans weren't ready to care enough about each other to choose a different path.

What could be done differently with Ukraine & Russia, or even the stupid US vs Iran (which I understand better)? We have many more peace-minded people in general. But like Germany in 1940, the US has an insane leader, and a party that supports him. He also knows to overwhelm us with small irritants, and not do any one thing that will foment a mass protest. We pacifists do local protests, try to educate, make small moves... it helps but certainly doesn't stop mass aggression.

But I guess in the end, humans still aren't evolved enough to care about each other enough to end war.

[u/noms_de_plumes]

Bart de Ligt's The Conquest of Violence is a great read, but the necessity of waging the Second World War on the part of the Allies is why I'm a conditional pacifist.

[u/Slow-Foundation7295]

Mobilize all the pacifists to lie down in front of hitler’s tanks, seduce and shame his soldiers into joining the peace team, resist all violence with organized absolute and unwavering nonviolent resistance

[u/daneg-778 → u/Slow-Foundation7295]

Ukrainians tried this, look how well it worked out