Pacifism and other 'sissy' things

Its kind of bothers me that pacifisms, anti-arm, wanting peace and other things seem to be rather often considered 'hippie'(heck, to me it seems that hippies are hated for the "Love and peace" thing and not for drugs and sex) or wussy instead of being a good thing O_o

Should I consider it as a proof that humankind will never be able to gain peace because we consider violence much more fun? o.o

Short answer, yes. Long answer... is long.

Well, you have time to tell the long version xD

The reason why I consider pacifism and the ilk hippie is 1) incredibly long reason 2) I look down on hippies.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:05:13 PM by TheDeadMansLife

Talk softly and carry a big stick.

^^Ergo, you look down on pacifism?

edited 5th Sep '11 9:07:39 PM by kashchei

Neither of those is a proper reason.

Personally, I think pacifism is a lot braver than non-pacifism. "You're a pacifist because you're scared to fight" doesn't seem to be right to me because it just means that others can hit you and you won't hit back. How is setting yourself up for that 'cowardly'?

edited 5th Sep '11 9:09:21 PM by LoniJay

Pacifism is a nice ideal. Problem is, all it takes to ruin it is one person who doesn't go along. Someday, humanity will look back on today's pacifists and call them "ahead of their time".

Unfortunately, right now it just isn't workable.

Yeah I gotta say the whole pacifism thing is about the only thing I respected about hippies.

Because it isn't dramatic; true pacifism is a denial of struggle. Human beings are all naturally attracted to war, whether for good or bad. It gives people a higher purpose and allows them to feel as though they are a part of a higher drama (I've compiled a theory about this; it would take more time than I have here to fully explain it, though). Whether this is good or evil is irrelevant; undoubtedly, war is the cause of an untold amount of suffering. However, people are not drawn to pacifism because it is a rejection of the dramatic attraction that people find in war. From a rational standpoint, pacifism seems to be the natural result of good and evil; however, because it attacks the higher dramatic morality that is intrinsic in humanity, it does not attract many followers, other than those who have been blinded to their inner moral desires by their indoctrinated concept of good and evil. The only way pacifism could gain followers is if, ironically, it made its followers believe that their pacifism was done in the name of a higher dramatic struggle; otherwise, it will never come to a realization.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:18:38 PM by tropetown

@trope: well said. I'd not looked at it from that angle but now that I have, you are completely correct.

"true pacifism is a denial of struggle"

Not at all. True pacifism is the realization that the only way violence will stop is not to hit back.

I think you watch too much shonen anime.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:24:10 PM by kashchei

@Kash: and I think you didn't really read it. The (wo)man's right; people are attracted to the ease and drama of violence, and pacifism is difficult to maintain because of this.

A struggle against good and evil is still a struggle, which means someone has to get hurt.

The violence continues, and the most cruel and barbarous is assured victory because his enemy does not fight.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:33:04 PM by BigMadDraco

No I don't, though the fact that all fictional works emphasize drama over good and evil (if they didn't, we would not see villains committing evil acts in fiction; we would instead have books filled with nothing but Nice Guys doing Nice Guy things.) lends support to my theory.

Since pacifism is a complete denial of violence for any reason (violence for no reason at all, on the other hand, is a different story), and since violence goes hand in hand with struggle, then yes, it is fair to say that pacifism is a denial of struggle, which is what human beings are naturally drawn to. Just look at every major religion, for example; all of them draw followers by framing their philosophies and stories around a great apocalyptic or moral struggle: Christianity sees the world as a struggle against Satan, Buddhism sees the world as a struggle against desire, etc. It's also how radical ideologies and religious fundamentalists are able to get followers; Hitler, for example, framed his ideals around a racial struggle, communism framed its ideal as a class struggle, Islamic fundamentalists frame their ideals as a moral/religious struggle. Pacifism is a denial of all of this, which is why humans are not naturally drawn to it.

Pacifism makes semi-sense from a logical standpoint (though I would never advocate allowing someone to brutalize or destroy you), as well as from a standpoint of traditional Black-and-White Morality; however, because people need to feel as though they are part of a higher struggle and drama, they will be averse to pacifism because it denies them this impulse.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:41:49 PM by tropetown

Could you please break that up a little? I'm having difficulty reading it.

Wall of Text bothering you?

"people are attracted to the ease and drama of violence"

No, they aren't. Wars are fought because people are economically pressured to do so. The first domino is $$$, the others follow because now there is a genuine threat to your safety.

"pacifism is difficult to maintain because of this."

Not because people crave drama, but because you never know whether you will survive putting your arms down.

"A struggle against good and evil is still a struggle, which means someone has to get hurt."

Which is why I say this has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with shonen anime. Evil is not a common occurrence in real life. "Evil," in the real world, accounts for a tiny fraction of the tragedy caused by apathy, complacence, and selfishness.

"Christianity sees the world as a struggle against Satan"

...And advocates pacifism and meekness as a way to defeat him.

"communism framed its ideal as a class struggle"

What? No, that's not the ideal. The class struggle is a result of capitalism. Communism seeks to bridge the gap between the labor, the capital, and the product.

"Since pacifism is a complete denial of violence for any reason (violence for no reason at all, on the other hand, is a different story), and since violence goes hand in hand with struggle, then yes, it is fair to say that pacifism is a denial of struggle, which is what human beings are naturally drawn to."

I have no idea what you mean to say by this. What denial? A refusal to commit violence isn't a denial of anything.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:50:33 PM by kashchei

Yes, Wall of Text was indeed bothering me. Thank you.

You could, perhaps, see pacifism as a struggle against yourself and your own instincts.

edited 5th Sep '11 9:46:56 PM by LoniJay

^ Well put.

I still say tropetown's onto something here. Everyone wants to be The Hero; we vicariously live it through our myth, we effect it in small ways throughout our daily lives. And we dream of righteously smashing the faces of people who hurt us.

Yes, and it's only a dream because we realize it's a shitty instinct that helps no one. Violence happens because people believe it's their only recourse, not because they want to play Superman.

Individual conflicts are fought for practical reasons. War as a concept, however, will remain forever because humans will always find it appealing. Saying that there is no ideological struggle going on in war is completely untrue; for a war to become accepted by both the people fighting it, and the people at home on some side, there will be some sort of an ideological conflict.

Take World War II, for example. On one side, you had the Allied nations, all with deeply personal reasons for wanting to fight; they were faced with marauding conquerors hell-bent on crushing them into the ground: their very livelihoods were at stake here, and their larger than life enemy was working non-stop to destroy them. On the Axis side, you had Adolf Hitler, a Dark Messiah who had made his people believe in a global, insidious, Jewish conspiracy to unseat the German people from their rightful place as the Master Race; every victory that Hitler gave the Germans was seen as working toward the end of allowing them to spread out and conquer a world that rightfully belonged to them. Both sides fought tooth and nail to win, and in the end, the Allies came out victorious; at last, the long struggle was over, the mad dictator toppled, and the world would never be the same again. Highly dramatic: almost sounds fictional, doesn't it?

Contrast that with the Vietnam War, which was less of a titanic struggle, and more of a routine obligation. The average American did not feel invested in this war, and yet, they were being forced to go and die in the jungle, something which did not sit well with many Americans. Every soldier fought bravely, and to the best of their ability, but to the Americans, it was simply a war fought for an inadequate reason; as a result, the American public lost interest in the war, and the US soon withdrew, since their war lacked a higher dramatic purpose. The Vietcong, on the other hand did have a purpose; they felt as though they were defending their homeland from invaders, and ultimately, many were drawn to their cause due to the drama that it possessed. Many Americans were even sympathetic to them, because they possessed that dramatic attraction that war often gives.

To reduce war to simply its parts is ignoring the meaning of the whole. Nobody is saying that war is good; only that it is attractive, and will forever remain so. For pacifism to ever catch on, it would need to frame its ideology as being part of a higher struggle, which arguably defeats the point of pacifism.

edited 5th Sep '11 10:04:39 PM by tropetown

American civilians lost their support for the Vietnam War because, being televised, they realized what war actually was. So, nice try, but it's the very opposite from the point you're trying to make.

"For pacifism to ever catch on, it would need to frame its ideology as being part of a higher struggle"

As Christianity does, you mean.

I'm sorry, I find your views highly sociopathic, and do not relate to them one bit.

edited 5th Sep '11 10:09:18 PM by kashchei

To continue: yes, communism does frame its goal around a class struggle; the idea of being oppressed in a class struggle is why people were orignally drawn to communism.

Christianity does not advocate pacifism in order to defeat Satan; it advocates undoing his works in all their forms, which is arguably not pacifism.

Denial and rejection mean the same thing here; pacifists reject violence, therefore they are denying it in their lives.

What the American people saw was that the war had caused unneccessary suffering; unnecessary suffering, as well as unnecessary violence and death, are all expressions of nihilism, which human beings as a whole are naturally opposed to. The ultimate undesirable state is not evil, but death; therefore, the ultimate undesirable moral state is not evil, but nihilism, which is moral death. Nihilism in all its forms are abhorrent to humans, who seek meaning and life rather than meaninglessness and death. The inherent nihilism that the Vietnam War represented is why the American public was so opposed to it (War Is Hell had been around before Vietnam; World War I being the big catalyst for this idea that war wasn't glorious, mainly due to the meaninglessness of that war, as well).

No, sociopaths are the ultimate nihilists: they see value in absolutely nothing, and they have no moral center to speak of. They would not be able to differentiate between any moral concept, and they find meaning in nothing (not family, not friends, not love, and not life), which is why most people would consider them insane.

edited 5th Sep '11 10:20:44 PM by tropetown