The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

Pacifism: The Case Against, Distilled

By Phil Elmore

I thought about it during the last session of our class in History and Moral Philosophy. H. & M. P. was different from other courses in that everybody had to take it but nobody had to pass it -- and Mr. Dubois never seemed to care whether he got through to us or not. He would just point at you with the stump of his left arm (he never bothered with names) and snap a question. Then the argument would start.

But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: "My mother says that violence never settles anything."

"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn't your mother tell them so? Or why don't you?"

They had tangled before -- since you couldn't flunk the course, it wasn't necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, "You're making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!"

"You seemed to be unaware of it," he said grimly. "Since you do know it, wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea -- a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and thoroughly immoral -- doctrine that `violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."

He sighed. "Another year, another class -- and, for me, another failure. One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think."

- Heinlein, Starship Troopers

What is Pacifism?

Pacifism is the doctrine of non-violence. It is the philosophy that the use of force is always wrong. It is the credo that one may not hurt or kill another human being even when that person uses physical violence against you or those you love. Pacifists may engage in "nonviolent" resistance -- that is to say, they may actively resist even though they will not use what we would normally consider force -- but they will not fight.

A pacifist would attempt to place himself between his wife and his wife's would-be rapist, giving his life to "protect" her, but he would not actually hurt or kill the rapist. The logical outcome of this scenario is a dead husband and a violated wife (as well as an unbroken chain of violated women in the future).

A group of pacifists might gather together to stand before an advancing army and throw their bodies under the treads and wheels of the invaders' war machines, but they would not actually try to kill any of the invaders. The logical outcome of this scenario is a pile of dead pacifists and a sacked city (as well as an unbroken chain of sacked cities in the future).

False Moral Equivalency

The fundamental flaw of pacifism is that of false moral equivalency. There is a difference between initiated and retaliatory force. If you do not make this distinction -- if you do not see the difference between attacking someone and defending against that attack -- you are, in effect, declaring both attacker and defender to be morally equal. You are saying that there is no difference between the rapist and the raped, the mugger and the mugged, the murderer and the murdered. You are saying that there is no moral difference between the September 11th hijackers and those they slashed to death, no difference between Osama bin Laden and those condemned to be torn and blown to pieces in fiery collisions.

It is very easy to play the part of nihilist, of relativist, wandering in the forest of affected profundity, wondering aloud if a distinction between initiated and retaliatory force can really be made. Anyone actually applying philosophy to life in a practical manner will immediately perceive the difference. Our first social interactions with other children are marked by the distinction, something as simple as understanding who "started it" when two individuals come into conflict.

If we have a verbal disagreement and I strike you, I have initiated force. If we have a verbal disagreement and you tell me you are going to strike me as you take a step toward me and cock your arm, I am using retaliatory force when I strike you before you can complete your attack. All conflicts in life are permutations of these simple examples. While the complexity of these interactions on a national level can make moral judgment much more difficult, it does not make necessary judgment impossible.

Physical force is coercion exercised by a physical agency, such as punching a man or shooting him or stealing his property. Initiating force means to START the use of force against an innocent individual, one who has not himself started its use against others.

Since men do not automatically come to the same conclusions, no code of ethics can escape the present issue. The moralist has to tell men how to act when they disagree (assuming they do not simply go their separate ways). In essence, there are only two viewpoints on this issue, because there are only two basic methods by which one can deal with a dispute. The methods are reason or force; seeking to persuade others to share one's ideas voluntarily, or coercing others into doing what one wishes regardless of their ideas.

When you use force, therefore, you attack a person's body (or seize his property) and thereby negate and dismiss as irrelevant his mind (and his conclusions and wishes).

The function of the mind is to perceive reality by performing a process of identification, and integrating the identified evidence into a context in accordance with the rule of an objective methodology (reasoning). This process presupposes a sovereign, volitional consciousness and must be performed egoistically, individualistically, and independently. It cannot, therefore, be forced.

To initiate force -- to, essentially, order a man to accept a conclusion against his own judgment -- is to order him to accept as true something that, according to what he knows, is not true (is either arbitrary or false). This amounts to ordering him to believe a contradiction; it is like demanding him to believe read is green, or 2 + 2 equals 5. One can torture an individual and force him to say these things, but one cannot make him truly believe them. Volition pertains to the act of initiating and sustaining the process of thought. A creature of volitional consciousness -- man -- cannot will himself to accept as true that which he sees to be baseless or mistaken.

Force thus makes a man act against his judgment. The virtue of rationality requires one to think, and then to be guided by his conclusions in action. Force clashes with both these requirements. Force used to change a man's mind acts to stop his mind (and thus make it inoperative as the source of his action). Force used to change a man's action shoves his mind (and thus its process of cognition) into the trash heap of the purposeless.

He who initiates force to change another's mind, therefore, works to detach his victim's consciousness from reality and therefore from life. He who initiates force to change another's action works to detach his consciousness from life and therefore from reality.

-- Leonard Peikoff

Attackers and defenders are not morally equivalent. A moral difference exists between initiated and retaliatory force. That same moral difference exists between initiated and preemptive force (force taken to preempt a credible threat).

Contempt for All Life

Pacifists claim to want peace and believe they adhere to the doctrine of nonviolence because they respect life. The practical results of pacifism, however, are exactly the opposite: a total contempt for life. This contempt extends beyond the individual pacifist to encompass all other human beings.

Anyone who would die rather than use force, particularly when he or she is more than capable of applying the force necessary to preserve his or her life, shows contempt for the gift of that life, for the potential wasted when that life is thrown away. By itself, then, pacifism is a self-immolating doctrine whereby the logical standard of "good" -- to promote and sustain rational individual life -- is discarded in favor of "peace" at any price.

This peace would more accurately be termed unilateral surrender, in which aggressors may hurt and even kill the pacifist before he or she will do more than throw his or her body onto the sacrificial altar of passive resistance. Few invading armies stop invading and go home out of disgust at the overwhelming ease of conquering victims who will not fight back.

This contempt for life extends to the pacifist's fellow human beings. Aggressors are, by their natures, more likely to initiate force against others if they demonstrate a willingness to initiate force against you. If, when confronted with this evidence, you do nothing to preserve your own life, you do nothing to make it more difficult for the aggressor to seek more victims. If all you do is passively resist, throwing your life onto the pyre of symbolic gestures, you are enabling the aggressor through your inaction. The blood of any subsequent victims is on your folded hands.

If an aggressor knew that it was quite likely each victim he chose would fight back, making his aggression an action fraught with risk, he would be more reluctant to strike. If, on the other hand, he could expect his victims to die nobly while resisting him passively, he could take his actions with impunity, knowing that there was no danger to him in his predations.

Are Pacifists Cowards?

Some speculate that pacifists' unwillingness to fight is indicative of cowardice. There are many types of cowardice, however -- some obvious and some deeply buried. I think most pacifists actually believe themselves to be very brave, in that they believe it is much more difficult to refuse to use violence than to hurt or kill another human being.

This is true, in a way. It is much harder to refuse to use force to protect yourself and your loved ones, to guard jealously the gift of your life. This is because it is hard to fight your nature as a human being, to actively resist the logical standard of value for rational human life.

Fundamentally, pacifism is a doctrine, a philosophy, of inaction. What is inaction, then, if not cowardice, however deeply rooted and obscured by the layers of our beings? A given pacifist might indeed be brave enough to speak out and to die, might indeed possess the "courage" of his or her convictions. This is the "courage" to throw one's life away for a given cause, however noble.

Life, however, requires more than a willingness to die. It requires the strength necessary to go on living, to stand and to fight against evil, to actively oppose through forceful action the depredations of society's destroyers. It is not enough to throw one's body under the wheels of the advancing tanks. One must be willing to cover those tanks with fire, lead those tanks into concealed pits, pry open the tanks' hatches and shoot and stab to death those who would seek to subjugate others by force.

Religious Motivations

Some adhere to pacifist doctrines in the belief that this is required of them by the Divine. One may indeed labor under the notion that a goddess, a god, or the God (however one chooses to look at it) would ask you to die before standing up for the life that is rightfully yours, before protecting those you love from others who would violate them. What manner of evil, soul-destroying gods would these be?

The gods love us and take an interest in human affairs. They are not cold creatures who would ask us to lie down and die simply because one or more of our fellow humans demanded it. To think they could ask this is to show contempt for the Divine itself, to embrace a delusion so antithetical to human life that it is almost a preemptive plea for death.

Religious motivations are irrelevant in considering the practical outcomes of pacifism. Pacifism is both evil and morally bankrupt specifically because it is self-destructive and contemptuous of human life. No rationale, no alleged dictate from the Divine, can change this.

The Alternative to Pacifism

Life is a struggle, but not a bleak one. To live life actively, to live to the fullest of your being, is to stand your ground in the face of the myriad forces and individuals who might oppose you, dominating every space you occupy and driving forward to do what you must, what you will.

To fight those arrayed against you, it is necessary to embrace the arts of war. These are neither evil nor good in and of themselves. They are simply the means to certain ends. You must reject the doctrine of pacifism. You must embrace the alternative. You must steep yourself in the knowledge required to wield the tools of war. You must train your mind and your body in the skills required to accomplish this successfully. You must be prepared to fight aggression, to oppose evil, to take action. You must be willing to settle things.

You must be a martialist.