by Bytesmiths » Sat 21 May 2005, 15:05:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chocky', 'I') understand how weapons can be used for defence, but I still don't know what you mean by a pacifist defense.
Pacifist defense is a strategy, rather than a tactic, such as a gun under your pillow. It would be different in each situation. In most situations, it would include elements of fearlessness, community, and force without violence.
Although they've been backing off recently, Japan has a tradition since WWII of pacifist defense. Bob Murphy has a
nice modern essay on the topic, but the concept goes back through Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Tolstoy, Thoreau, and earlier.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', 'S')ome forms of passive defense are...
If you're responding to my posting, you're making a common semantic error: "pacifist" is nothing like "passivist". The former is about non-violence; the latter is about inaction. (I did not see any reference in the thread about "passive defense", and thus made the assumption -- forgive me if I'm wrong.)
A good strong gate or huge boulders in the path to impede vehicular entrance, or nets or other restraints would be both "passive" and "pacifist". A spiked pit or hidden garrote would be passive, but hardly non-violent.
(Going beyond defense, Ghandi's march on the salt factory, or King's march on Birmingham were pacifist attacks: use of non-violent force to actively achieve a goal, and could hardly be called passive.)
One can use force to restrain another and be non-violent. But causing someone bodily harm is not non-violent.
But most of all, pacifist defense rests on fearlessness and solidarity. Recall the last scene of the movie "Witness", where the Amish came and formed a human circle around the bad guys, while Harrison Ford shouted out, "What are going to do, kill them all?"
Now quite obviously, there are bad guys out there who <b>would</b> kill them all. (You've seen them on TV, so they must exist! :-) There are also people who kill their own entire families, who probably wouldn't if they hadn't had ready access to weapons. Touche. We can argue forever about which is the greater risk.
Of possible future scenarios, I see a pacifist defense strategy for a self-sufficient community (ecovillage) an ideal combination for a "slow meltdown" situation. With projected energy shortfalls of 3% to 6% annually, the "boiled frogs" are going to be sitting in their cities and suburbs after their unemployment runs out, looking for work, slowly starving and succumbing to disease. They will be in no shape to organize and attack an ecovillage -- especially if the area surrounding the ecovillage is dependent on that village for their food and energy.
Most people who argue for a strong defense based on mutual violence envision a "Mad Max" scenario, where roving bands of well-fed, well-fueled thugs pillage the countryside amid general anarchy. A pacifist defense may be less effective in this situation than in the "slow meltdown", but I believe it is still more viable than sitting on an arms cache -- the well-armed person will be an inviting target in such a case!
Regardless of what you see happening (no one can predict for certain), I hope you'll avoid confusing "passive" with "pacifist" -- the two are orthogonal.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind; you've seen too much TV for me to do that! The TV trains us for the world of violence that our "leaders" want us to believe is necessary. If you've swallowed that line, of course, you must have your guns.
But if you're still capable of independent thought, give some of that thought to how you might defend yourself while <b>minimizing</b> violence, then go over your plans and try to minimize it some more, and after a while, you just may see that violence is not really necessary.