I struggle to consider myself a pacifist as the paradox of tolerance is a difficult thing to have to come to terms with and I’m fundamentally a flawed human being, but I so fundamentally hate the presumed human cost of “just doing business”. I am filled with a searing, incandescent rage at all times, fueled entirely by the hypocrisy of liberal ideology and the cruelty of conservatives. I’m burning up and trying to avoid melting down just getting through the day, surrounded by people who seemingly willingly refuse to understand nuance on hot issues or that complicated problems oftentimes require complicated solutions. I’m tired, boss.
The thing is, you can be full of rage and still be against violence. Expressing rage doesn’t have to be violent. People express rage in all sorts of non-violent ways, like writing or painting or sculpting.
What are you even talking about? Are you under the impression that the only way to take action is through losing your mind and raging?
Controlling your rage allows you to act rationally.
My biggest weakness and most toxic trait is wanting to see bad people face consequences. That person weaving through traffic at high speeds without a turn signal, with no concern for the safety of everybody else on the road? Please drive off the road, crash, do something that drives home how selfish you are acting, and I hope it’s expensive.
Politician campaigning on hate and saying that religion punishes ‘wicked’ people? I hope a loved one suffers some horrible disease and dies in pain.
Vote for an anti-abortion law? Watch your wife or daughter die of something entirely preventable. Refuse to provide exceptions for rape? Do unto others and all that, you know?
Nazi/christofascist/white supremacist? Worm food. Slowly.
I fix things, that’s my whole driving purpose in life, and basically the only thing I’m particularly good at. I have never been very creative, I suck at writing , I’m not a great artist or sculptor or musician. It causes me so much pain and frustration to not be able to fix something, and so much rage to see people deliberately breaking things, doubly so when they delight in the suffering it causes.
I call this the Paladin Perspective. I want to be a pacifist but I can’t in good conscience call myself that. Because I know that in order to maintain peace there must be not only the open palm of acceptance, but also the closed fist of justice. And I am perfectly willing to administer that fist to someone who has earned it. In order for peaceful folk to remain at peace, there must always be someone standing guard against evil who would seek to exploit them. This has been true throughout all of human history and I don’t exactly expect us to pivot now. So the world needs Paladins. It needs someone willing to wield violence, or at least the threat of it, in the name of Good. The police force is supposed to fill this role but they’ve fallen from grace. Religious leaders have filled this role before in the past, but they too have fallen from grace. Lacking either of those or a suitable surrogate, some people take matters into their own hands. Sometimes this leads to a glorious revolution in which power is seized from evil and the evil is ousted. More often this leads to a cell, in some fashion or another.
So it bothers me, because on one hand, I dream of a world without suffering. A world completely without suffering, where no sort of guardian would be required. But I feel in my heart that that is impossible. So instead, where that dream should be, is instead a wish to punish wrongdoers. At the heart of things when I sit down and inspect who I really am, I want to hurt bad people. I want to punch nazis. I want to defend my people from Proud Boys with my right to bear arms. I want to beat the ass off every sitting US politician except for Bernie Sanders and I want to host a cookout for everyone with a net worth higher than $5M. These things invoke a sort of sick schadenfreude that I didn’t really know was in me, and it’s hard to square that with my desire for a free and safe world where no one has to suffer. I’ve been watching myself getting radicalized in real time over the last 8 years, and if I were someone less attentive to my internal state, I might not have ever noticed and taken steps to reign it in. Sometimes I feel it would be more morally correct not to reign it in. But I do no good to anyone in prison so I stay out of trouble.
It’s just a weird dichotomy, wishing fervently for a world without senseless violence but knowing damn well we’re going to require some sensible violence if we want to make it there. I would hope that all those who choose violence in service of good would share my same desire that it not become necessary. I know that’s not true, but a man can dream. But what it comes down to at the end of the day is, folks who say “violence is never the answer” are incorrect. It absolutely is a solution, one that solves most problems in fact, it’s just the last solution on the list. I will make every effort possible to talk and debate and deal and wheedle and compromise within reason, but when it becomes clear that violence is the path forward, I’m not afraid of that path. Woe be upon he who stands in the way of progress.
Does this make me a bad person? Does this make me no better than those I claim to oppose? In my opinion, which I respect, I’d say no. But truth is I don’t really know. If raising the sword in service of those who cannot makes me a bad person, then I think I’ll just have to learn to live with that. Because I can’t not do it. I will not stand aside and watch torture fall upon the backs of the innocent without meeting like with like. And if that makes me evil then I will stand tall for my own punishment when it comes due.
I feel your last paragraph. I could maybe write but I don’t have time to develop that decently. Research is my purpose but fixing things is how I get by. It makes me feel a bit like a fraud as I figure out how to fix things but don’t have talent in it like I have seen in some.
Slightly off topic, but I find it interesting that in two of your examples it isn’t directly the oppressor paying for their crimes directly, but someone (presumably?) uninvolved. Is there a reason for that? I’m all for karma, but it feels like this is still targeting innocents…
Pacifism doesn’t mean you don’t get angry. It basically just means that you don’t think violence should be the first option.
Like, I’m a pacifist, but I wouldn’t think twice about using lethal force to defend my life or others if no other peaceful option existed. But I’ll always try non-violent approaches first.
Not to gatekeep pacifism, but I would really struggle to justify taking another human life, even when seeing red. It would probably take long enough to get over that hurdle for what I was trying to prevent to occur. I am a physically large man and could do a lot of damage, so when I’ve been hit in the past I’ve found other methods of de-escalating the situation. Not applicable in every situation. But it would be something I’d have to put a lot of thought into.
a pacifist as the paradox of tolerance is a difficult thing to have to come to terms with and I’m fundamentally a flawed human being
Don’t think of it as a paradox - tolerance is a social contract, once you break the terms you’re no longer protected by that contract because accepting that would nullify the contract for all of us.