I’d also like to see more imagery of Jesus smashing up the temple rather than him calmly sitting under a tree.
It’s easy for religious figures to be depicted as tranquil. They are often all-knowing, and if not, have faith in something all-knowing. They can blindly believe that everything will be fine, even if right now things look bad.
Because sky-daddy will take care of things.
Well, yes.
But by all-knowing, I meant the kind of view an omniscient god would have, accompanied by complete control of the universe.
Essentially, religious figures typically get to exist, knowing for sure that everything is going and will go according to plan.
It’s EASY to be tranquil, then. Even easier if you’re just a human, who genuinely believes such an entity exists.
This is nothing to do with actual tranquility (in the sense of passaddhi), which is basically the opposite of everything you are describing.
You don’t cultivate tranquility by not knowing “not caring” about worldly factors; you cultivate tranquililty by abandoning the five hindrances (covetousness, ill-will, sloth, agitation, and compulsive questioning).
The Upanisa Sutta says that tranquillity comes from rapture and leads to happiness (the Samaññaphala Sutta repeats this). The precondition for tranquility is rapture, not “not caring about the state of the world”.
Tranquility is a mind that maintains a spacious calm in the face of adverse conditions. It’s nothing like what you’re saying.
Your view is harmful because you’re saying that someone without tranquility (with covetousness, ill-will, sloth, agitation, and compulsive questioning, without rapture), will be better equipped to deal with worldly problems, but the exact opposite is true: tranquility creates the space to deal with worldly problems more effectively. It’s harmful to advocate for hindrances because you claim that means people “care” more.
We are using different definitions of the word.
You explain what your definition is, which affects mine (being the dictionary defintion) in no way whatsoever. We have nothing to discuss.
What you describe I would call stoicism, competence, composure or equanimity.
Most simply, level-headedness.
But not tranquility. Tranquility, by definition, being a state free of turmoil, cannot be maintained, if dealing with turmoil.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
I still like the Doctor Who take on it. “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”
Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demon’s Run, but count the cost
The battle’s won but the child is lost
Nothing good happens when a good man goes to war
But I also like the saying “If you want peace prepare for war”. War is not the right choice, but it’s seldom yours.
But I also like the saying “If you want peace prepare for war”.
It’s the cornerstone of the Security Dilemma: Increasing your own state’s security by increasing military strength may be threatening to other states that don’t know whether you’re just improving defenses or gearing up for an offensive war.
Particularly in pre-modern times where land was more valuable (compared to developing the land you already have) and battle wasn’t so destructive, war was more profitable, the threat was real. With the development of modern arms and mass mobilisation escalating the scale and destruction of war, the distinction between defensive and offensive militarisation is even harder to tell, and even though it’s not as lucrative, we haven’t outgrown the martial impulses so the issue remains.
So because you want to be safe, you improve your military. Because you improve your military, your neighbour fears for their own safety, so they improve theirs. This is why international relations and diplomacy are so important to prevent a runaway arms race.
Yes, its a very sad dilemma.
I believed for quite a long time (living in Germany) that this state of “peace by codependency” could be extended, even maybe applied worldwide, but I’m not so sure anymore. I still want this to be true, however.
But a defenseless state is still a very nice target. I’m not so blind as to miss both sides of the US protection, and the limitations and freedoms that come with it.
I once played D&D with a paladin who basically followed this. He was an Oath of Vengeance paladin. For the unaware, OoV paladins often have zero chill. They’re typically something akin to Batman with magic powers. My goal was to avoid that.
His oath had something along the lines of “Without the capacity for violence, pacifism is not a choice. Pacifism without choice is victimhood. I will choose pacifism whenever possible, but will not watch idly when people are victimized. I will ensure the victimized are made whole, and the victimizers know the pain they have caused.”
Basically, he would try his best to talk his way through encounters first. He would give enemies every opportunity to back down. He had incredibly high charisma to try and persuade, intimidate, or deceive others out of attacking. After all, he was attempting to choose pacifism whenever possible. But if he believed that a bully was victimizing someone, the gloves came off and he channeled all of his pent-up fury into making the bully regret their actions. And since paladins use charisma to cast their spells, his smites were painful.
The DM loved it, because it helped us avoid falling into the murderhobo trope that combat-oriented D&D players often fall into. It also gave him a chance to actually flesh out some of the NPCs who would have just been throwaway no-name combatants.
Yeah, although the Doctor is pretty hypocritical with his pacifism. Something which this quote sums up pretty well. He did kill several species after all.
The Doctor doesn’t call himself a pacifist, he just detests violence. If needed though, he will absolutely blow your shit up.
The other quote to go with that one was “Good men don’t need rules, you’re about to find out why I have so many.”
I thought Rory was the good man. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that episode.
I’ve expressed a similar sentiment as “it’s easy to be enlightened up on a mountain.” As in, big whoop to all the wise hermits who fled society to find peace: that’s not being above the problems of the world (except literally), it’s hiding from them and pretending that ignorance can be bliss again. The real work is maintaining peace and wisdom in the face of monstrous injustice.
Avatar does this great. Aang is a pacifist because that’s part of his culture, and he’s the last one left to embody his culture’s values so he doesn’t feel he can abandon them. But that boy has some anger issues. Especially when the bad guys hurt animals.