Ghandi...

even though his movement fell apart after his death and his main follower was shunned in general Indina society. I think Pacifism can work and has been shown to do so. All it neads is a strong enough leader who can inspire.
and anyway pacifism does not just mean sitting back and doing nothing, in a society it means things like peacefull disobedience.. on a national level it mean trade bans, sanctions etc etc.
and anyway in the modern world the monetry supply is more important that the weapons anyway so a pacifistic way of dealing with genocide could be to call the balifs in so to speak.

My own pacifism stems from my very nature. Even though I studied to Purple Belt in Ju-Jitsu, I was incredibly bad at sparring with actual opponents. Any attempt to hit a person, I somewhat pulled back from, focussing instead on defence.

That said, I'm not actually a great believer in pacifism as protest. It's great as long as everyone involved is a pacifist, or on a small scale. Many times in my school days, the everyday casual bullying that sometimes escalated to the point of actual physical violence, I managed to avoid very simply by not playing that game. Instead of getting angry, I simply deflected it with a casual dismissal. I have learned that it is surprisingly effective in a casual face-to-face encounter. Of course, had there been any true threat of violence, I'd have been fucked.

Sometimes people would throw little stones at us, and miss repeatedly. So we'd keep walking, or perhaps do a little turn and pull out a corny thumbs up, or the slow hand clap. They threw more stones. But man, those times were worth it.

Anyway, I genuinely believe that at a certain point, even in our day to day lives, violence is the answer. Sometimes people need to be punched in the face. See The Flaming Lips for a more articulate expression of this:


When it comes to a large scale, pacifism is kind of ridiculous - and yet, often it is the only option. Not to trawl up that horribly misappropriated "first they came for the..." line or anything, but I'm going to flip it around on you. Notice how in that line, they never came for the guys camping out in the hills with the guns? The kids at Tiananmen Square who died, basically died for almost nothing, and now China's too big for anyone to control. Sure, now we all know about China's appalling human rights violations, but kids in their own country can't even read about that. And all over wanting to eulogise one guy. Kind of a crappy thing to be killed over, but that's what you're dealing with when you can't back yourself up with equal force.

So basically, pacifism is groovy and all, but you can't put flowers into guns and not expect to be shot.

I think you're confusing pacifism for world peace. Pacifism is simply a stance of non-conflict, it's not a universal state.

Many societies around the world don't really care about morals for the good of the world and all the citizens of earth. The government officials almost everywhere mainly care about "how can this increase my salary?" Such as the new health care bill passed as a law in the United States. Everybody has to pay for health insurance and if you don't, you get fined heavily. And the reason was because they wanted to have every American "secured" when really the government just wants money. So was the entire H1N1 virus. I doubt it really was that serious. They made their money off of citizens on those prescription drugs. So, my point is, morals are meaningless to talk about because they are never used. So if you're going to be a pacifist, you are going to get nowhere.

You clearly dont have a lot of faith in the world do you?

The word "dilemma" is too weak of a word to describe their true state. Catastrophe would be better used, because morals aren't being the primary source in deciding decisions anymore. Personally I don't think this should be much of a debate, because in a world full of big business controversies, terrorism, and human trafficking, let alone all the wars, deprievement of public power, as well as meaningless public power i.e. American suffrage, morals have failed to solve anything. So, why should you be a pacifist in such a world? because you don't hurt your competition? well, isn't that what they're trying to do to you? The people who share similar interests as you are the people you should stick by, and still not being to relaxed because you don't exactly know their thoughts and goals. I understand pacifist. I was one a few years back, but I grew out of it because pacifists are weak and never get what they truly want. So, instead of asking how can pacifists survive, we should be wondering how can we make pacifists into stronger people.

It's bad enough there's one person ruining the thread :(

I believe at it's heart pacifism is a stance taken by someone who is trying to do the right thing. Which is the important thing. I wrote a few responses to this, and tied myself up a lot in the process, arguing for both sides etc, it's frustrating, but it's also the sign of a good question :P

To me the morally defensible position is to use armed/violent response only when it is necessary to defend yourself or others who are incapable of self-defence against those who seek to cause you harm. A warlike stance is wrong to me for reasons that are most probably obvious to most people, and a pacifist stance doesn't click with me either as my whole life I have been raised and trained to protect myself and others.

I am by no means pacifist. I am more than willing to defend myself and anyone around who finds themselves in need of it, and I have many years of training under my belt to ensure I'm capable of doing so. I feel that as I have the skills to protect myself and/or intervene to protect another then I am therefore bound to ensure that I do just that to the best of my ability. Anything less is what I would consider negligence. I adopt a similar stance when it comes to the larger scale of things. Most military forces are referred to as "defence" forces. Governments refer to the "defence" budget. It should be the case that those forces are used solely for defence, either of the home country or of a group who are not capable of defending themselves. Nothing else. Not to fight for resources, not to expand an empire.

Oh man that H1N1 bit really made me laugh.

Pacifism is about not adopting violence as a first option;it is not about standing there and taking a kicking cos the bully thinks hurting you is funny. pacifists can fight back (and do!). Its not about being a victim but knowing how to behave in a humane and decent way.
I'm sure there is something in the bible about treating people the way you want to be treated: i'm sure it'll be in most relgious tomes.
Isaac Asimov: violence is the last retreat of the competent.
John Lennon: give peace a chance