Another good anti-war essay
Karin: “Did you trim your mustache today, Sweetie?”
John-Paul: “No, Sweetie.”
Karin: “I thought you might have left it long, to show your support.”
John-Paul: “You mean for Andy Reid?”
Karin: “Yes, ha, ha.”
John-Paul: “Yes, that’s right, and that’s why I got fat again, too.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Tonight’s essay, by Richard Norman, is “The Case for Pacifism.” It takes the “skeptical” approach: it argues, first, that in the absence of a compelling justification, large-scale killing can be presumed to be wrong; and then that the best purported justifications of large-scale killing are not compelling enough. Finally (pp. 208 and 209), it addresses the lingering conviction that there are situations in which fighting nonetheless cannot be avoided:
Norman’s reconstruction of this bellicist argument has other applications. The same pattern of reasoning helps to make sense of a popular “anti-racist” claim: that failing to actively resist racism is itself a form of racism: that a person who merely refrains from engaging in racial discrimination, disrespecting, harming (etc.) and does not actively try to prevent or counteract others’ racism is himself guilty of racism. The underlying idea, as in the case of war, is that refraining from doing an evil without trying to prevent or counteract others’ doing it is a form of acquiescence, and that acquiescence in this evil is tacit endorsement of it. Each of these steps might be contested; here I just want to point out that insofar as “anti-racism” and advocacy of war both rely on this pattern of thought, they are structurally similar, and there is a prima facie tension in endorsing “anti-racism” together with pacifism; indeed, there would seem to be a tension between accepting pacifism and insisting on the viciousness of failing to promote a number of causes. Pacifists who, by temperament or habit, are militant activists need to examine themselves closely.
I said last time that I’d discuss “the encroachment of politics upon the sporting world.” It seems to me that the best argument for stripping a locale of its opportunity to host or participate in a sporting event is the same sort of argument that Norman advances on behalf of warring, and that whether the argument succeeds in a given situation depends on whether the above-delineated sequence of steps should be accepted in that situation. If Qatar, say, commits an injustice outside of sport, does allowing it to host the World Cup amount to acquiescing in that injustice? If so, does this amount to tacitly endorsing the injustice? How does allowing Qatar to host the World Cup compare, as a matter of tacit endorsement of injustice, with traveling to Qatar, trading with Qatar, maintaining diplomatic relations with Qatar, and so on? I suggest that this is a useful framework for assessing the widespread, knee-jerk disparagement of Qatar’s World Cup (and FIFA) that has taken place during the last dozen years.
John-Paul: “No, Sweetie.”
Karin: “I thought you might have left it long, to show your support.”
John-Paul: “You mean for Andy Reid?”
Karin: “Yes, ha, ha.”
John-Paul: “Yes, that’s right, and that’s why I got fat again, too.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Tonight’s essay, by Richard Norman, is “The Case for Pacifism.” It takes the “skeptical” approach: it argues, first, that in the absence of a compelling justification, large-scale killing can be presumed to be wrong; and then that the best purported justifications of large-scale killing are not compelling enough. Finally (pp. 208 and 209), it addresses the lingering conviction that there are situations in which fighting nonetheless cannot be avoided:
If we can pin down the sense of the statement “We have no choice,” we may be in a position to understand why pacifism remains difficult to accept. …This is another case of a pacifist explaining more clearly than do most “bellicists” (war apologists) how warring might continue to seem good, or necessary, to do, even after the usual justifications alluding to rights and harms have run out of steam.
When people say that one sometimes has no choice, what they mean, I think, is that by refusing to fight, say, against aggression, or indeed against internal oppression, one is acquiescing in a very great evil, and by acquiescing in it one is tacitly endorsing it. Morally speaking, faced with that evil, we have no choice but to resist it, and if the only way to resist it is to fight, then we have no choice but to fight.
Now this reading of the situation might be challenged. … One might say: “I have not acquiesced in Nazism. I refuse to engage in military resistance to it, … but that does not mean that I accept Nazism. I reject it wholeheartedly, I will give no support to it, and if the Nazis order me to cooperate with their crimes I shall disobey even though I may be shot.” …
Nevertheless, even if many people had thought and acted thus, it could remain true that, in an important sense, Nazism had not been resisted. This is because resistance to a social phenomenon such as aggression or oppression must, if it really is to count as resistance, take a socially identifiable form. … What forms of resistance are available will therefore depend upon the institutions and traditions of the community; and if the only recognised and organisable form of resistance is military resistance, then not fighting will mean not resisting. This, I think, is the significant sense in which people could say “We have no choice but to fight.”
Norman’s reconstruction of this bellicist argument has other applications. The same pattern of reasoning helps to make sense of a popular “anti-racist” claim: that failing to actively resist racism is itself a form of racism: that a person who merely refrains from engaging in racial discrimination, disrespecting, harming (etc.) and does not actively try to prevent or counteract others’ racism is himself guilty of racism. The underlying idea, as in the case of war, is that refraining from doing an evil without trying to prevent or counteract others’ doing it is a form of acquiescence, and that acquiescence in this evil is tacit endorsement of it. Each of these steps might be contested; here I just want to point out that insofar as “anti-racism” and advocacy of war both rely on this pattern of thought, they are structurally similar, and there is a prima facie tension in endorsing “anti-racism” together with pacifism; indeed, there would seem to be a tension between accepting pacifism and insisting on the viciousness of failing to promote a number of causes. Pacifists who, by temperament or habit, are militant activists need to examine themselves closely.
I said last time that I’d discuss “the encroachment of politics upon the sporting world.” It seems to me that the best argument for stripping a locale of its opportunity to host or participate in a sporting event is the same sort of argument that Norman advances on behalf of warring, and that whether the argument succeeds in a given situation depends on whether the above-delineated sequence of steps should be accepted in that situation. If Qatar, say, commits an injustice outside of sport, does allowing it to host the World Cup amount to acquiescing in that injustice? If so, does this amount to tacitly endorsing the injustice? How does allowing Qatar to host the World Cup compare, as a matter of tacit endorsement of injustice, with traveling to Qatar, trading with Qatar, maintaining diplomatic relations with Qatar, and so on? I suggest that this is a useful framework for assessing the widespread, knee-jerk disparagement of Qatar’s World Cup (and FIFA) that has taken place during the last dozen years.
