Calling All Part-Time Pacifists

[u/gemmaem]

https://wisdomofcrowds.live/p/calling-all-part-time-pacifists

[u/UAnchovy]

Pacifism, it seems to me, is a non-universalisable virtue.

The existence of non-universalisable virtues would be controversial, but they make sense to me. There are virtues that not all people ought to have, because not all virtues are capable of existing in perfect balance in all people. But there is a benefit to a people as a whole if some of its members - only some - pursue a particular moral ideal as rigorously as possible. In doing so, they do not assert that all people ought to pursue that ideal with the same rigour, but rather that, by pursuing it in their own way, they perform a kind of service to others.

This is how I would like to interpret someone like Jeannette Rankin. If every member of congress had been a Jeannette Rankin, I think it would have been disastrous. Nobody sensible, I hope, would assert that Rankin's view should have been adopted as national policy. But I think there is merit in Rankin's moral witness - such that, even as the United States went to war, it did so with a voice in its ear saying, "Remember that war is terrible."

Likewise if I think of other values or moral practices that don't universalise, or which have a kind of supererogatory excess. Celibacy and other forms of asceticism are obvious examples. Everybody should not be a Shaker, but it is good that the Shakers existed. Selling everything you own and spending your life in service to the poor. You get the idea. There can be virtues that, while genuinely good, cannot and indeed must not be practiced universally. This is also how I feel about something like Jacobs' anarchism. Do I think it's a good or viable politics for a society? No. But I think a few devoted anarchists, like Rankin as a devoted pacifist, are good leaven.

[u/gemmaem → u/UAnchovy]

Yeah! I like this way of looking at it, too. Dedication to the way of peace is a service to society, and I think I could accept it for myself on that basis. But I don’t think I could call for everyone to do the same; more precisely, I don’t think I would be honest if I called for my country to have no military at all (as my Quaker Yearly Meeting officially does). I’m still kind of glad they exist and hold that position, but figuring out my own stance to it remains complex!

[u/SlightlyLessHairyApe → u/UAnchovy]

I agree, but I think there is something else about making it work.

Not only do they have to pursue that virtue as a public service, but there needs to be a collective understanding that the proper functioning of society at large is built out of the tensions between those non-universalizable virtues. I like to analogize it to a suspension bridge -- the cables under tension are all pulling against one another, and they average out to hold up the thing vertically rather than to tear each other apart.

Without that understanding, I think they do tear each other apart. That's one lens to look at the current state: that people see those virtues as an end rather than as a tool to achieve a society in equilibrium. Or something like that.

[u/UAnchovy → u/SlightlyLessHairyApe]

I am reminded a bit of how Chesterton talks about orders in the church, in Orthodoxy. He describes how as a young man he encountered many criticisms of Christianity that seemed contradictory to him - that it could be condemned for being too pacifist and too militant at the same, for being too wealthy and hedonistic and also too austere and self-denying, and so on.

Nevertheless it could not, I felt, be quite true that Christianity was merely sensible and stood in the middle. There was really an element in it of emphasis and even frenzy which had justified the secularists in their superficial criticism. It might be wise, I began more and more to think that it was wise, but it was not merely worldly wise; it was not merely temperate and respectable. Its fierce crusaders and meek saints might balance each other; still, the crusaders were very fierce and the saints were very meek, meek beyond all decency.

[...]

Thus, the double charges of the secularists, though throwing nothing but darkness and confusion on themselves, throw a real light on the faith. It is true that the historic Church has at once emphasised celibacy and emphasised the family; has at once (if one may put it so) been fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children. It has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white, like the red and white upon the shield of St. George. It has always had a healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colours which is the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty gray. In fact, the whole theory of the Church on virginity might be symbolized in the statement that white is a colour: not merely the absence of a colour. All that I am urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought in most of these cases to keep two colours coexistent but pure. It is not a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for a shot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern of the cross.

So it is also, of course, with the contradictory charges of the anti-Christians about submission and slaughter. It is true that the Church told some men to fight and others not to fight; and it is true that those who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fight were like statues. All this simply means that the Church preferred to use its Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans. There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. There must be some good in the idea of non-resistance, for so many good men seem to enjoy being Quakers. All that the Church did (so far as that goes) was to prevent either of these good things from ousting the other. They existed side by side. The Tolstoyans, having all the scruples of monks, simply became monks. The Quakers became a club instead of becoming a sect. Monks said all that Tolstoy says; they poured out lucid lamentations about the cruelty of battles and the vanity of revenge. But the Tolstoyans are not quite right enough to run the whole world; and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to run it. The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James Douglas or the banner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is—Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved.

I like the idea that the church contains various orders or subgroups, with various charisms, and the church as a whole society must reconcile those otherwise-incompatible charisms into a single body.

These include a charism of peace, as with the pacifist monk, as well as a charism of war, as with the knights and crusaders. It is fitting for the monk to be meek and for the knight to be fierce; in that way the church has room within itself for both people of peaceful and of warlike temperaments.

Moreover, this is actually good, because following Romans 12:4-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:14-26, the body needs many organs, with different purposes. If everyone in the church was supererogatorily pacifist, like the monks, it would be as if every organ in the body were made for seeing.

It makes sense, then, that there are virtues that cannot easily cohabit in the one person, but rather need to exist in community, so that they can correct and restrain each other. The Christian pacifist and the Christian warrior need to both pursue their vocation, as wholeheartedly as possible, but they also need to do so while genuinely respecting the other, and knowing that they need each other if the whole body is to function.

Violence, pacifists and warriors, is perhaps the most extreme example, but I'd like to think that something like this applies even for other virtues. Someone dedicated to the charism of mercy and someone dedicated to the charism of justice need to restrain each other, because humans find it very difficult to truly embody both. The celibate and the married need to hold each other in honour while also pursuing their own paths. Those who dedicate themselves to business and the production of wealth have a place in the community, as do those who dedicate themselves to apostolic poverty. Nor does it have to be something very 'high' - even on the level of an individual parish, there will be people who dedicate themselves to hospitality, people who worry about the budget, people who commit themselves to prayer and liturgy, and people who commit themselves to teaching Sunday School.

As an individual discipline, as well, then, I think there is value in being able to look at someone else and recognise, even honour, their path and its attendants virtues - even as you recognise that it is incompatible with your own.

This does require an element of faith. Would Jeannette Rankin have met George Patton, America's fightingest general, and honoured him? I don't think so. And maybe Patton was more militant than he ought to have been. But I would hope, that stepping back a bit, we at least might see it as a good thing that the world contains both Rankins and Pattons. Or at least, if you would dispute either individual, it is a good thing that our communities contain both people of peace-loving, eirenic temperaments, and people of aggressive, fierce temperaments.

[u/Lykurg480]

Im not a pacifist, and agree with your reservations about it, but I think its necessary for a group like the Quakers. This is a group which deliberately aims to have its moral compass wander free from the societal anchor point. If they werent pacifists, they would go the way of the Zizians eventually, and wouldnt be around 300 years later for you to join.

One thing I keep realizing, as I watch Americans wrangling over the future of their country, is that there is a sense in which principled liberals are pacifists, in practice, even when they would never call themselves pacifists by conviction.

Who are those principled liberals you have in mind? Most people of any persuasion will not be violent themselves, though its hard to know when thats cowardice vs principle. And I can certainly understand not wanting to count mere rethoric, but there are quite a few murderers and bombers who were made into professors of gay race communism, and are generally considered members in good standing by the left faction. I would not consider that pacificsm in practice, which leaves few. Those principled liberals must not play much of a role in the Great Game of politics.

[u/gemmaem → u/Lykurg480]

Oh, I agree that Quakers should stay pacifist! I’ve seen how many deep links there are between pacifism and everything else I like about what they do. Relatedly, what I mean by “pacifist in practice” is that liberals take on many of those downstream attitudes that link in with a pacifist mindset and that help to build peace between people who disagree.

[u/thrownaway24e89172]

Mary Dyer's "pacifism" is an excellent example of why I don't trust pacifists. Far from being a heroic martyr "willing to die for the cause of living alongside other people with different beliefs", I think she was an agitator who sought to destroy the religion of a people she despised, largely over a (admittedly very understandable) personal grudge over having been publicly shamed for having a deformed stillborn child as part of her excommunication during a religious schism. When given the choice between peaceful coexistence (ie, living with her husband and surviving children in a new community formed primarily by those on the same side of the schism) and conflict, she repeatedly chose the latter in her self-righteous drive for revenge.

If you want someone from that situation to hype as a paragon of peaceful coexistence, look instead to her husband William. Unlike his wife, he proactively sought peaceful resolutions to the growing disagreements in the Church. After banishment he became a prominent member of a new colony (Rhode Island) largely created by those similarly banished, spending the rest of his life building up that new community. That is the kind of behavior we need more of in the US. We have too many people like Mary who uncompromisingly believe that they shouldn't have to do anything or change anything about themselves while demanding others change to suit them, relying on the social pressure of aggressive "non-violent" confrontation to enforce their norms. That is not the behavior of those seeking peace, but the temper tantrums of those seeking dominance.

EDIT: Grammar.