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I still like the Doctor Who take on it. “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”
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.
Sounds like Maj. Dick Winters in Band of Brothers (and real life)
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.
It is, that was the twist - the Doctor is not the good man.
It’s resolution in my experience. My rage is the byproduct of belief made active. It is the choice every day to prove to those around me that a better world is possible and it begins with self fucking control
I’m no pacifist but I’m someone who believes humanity can be better and needs to seriously think when utilizing the power to harm
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.
be sure to paint your way out of a fascist dystopia.
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.
i’m not talking about rage, although i do think anger is a great motivator. i’m talking about calm, rational use of violence as a means to an end.
Yeah, you’re right. What did non-violent resistance ever achieve other than liberate India, give people of color in the U.S. civil rights, free the Baltic states from the Soviet Union, end one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, topple the former Ukrainian regime and other things I could probably come up with if you gave me time?
So, I’m going to suggest India was actually more complicated.
It was non-violent, but with a strong threat that ‘you can’t keep us, China went red, Russia will help us too’.
Gandhi’s pacifism was the face the British put on it to make it look less like they’d been beaten by communism (the congress party was vaguely socialist , but mostly in name only, far less so than other, more hindu parties, it stood for corruption more than anything really).
Also the partition guaranteed neither country would be a major international concern for decades, as they’d be too busy dealing with each other.
You can say a lot about the British, but they were great at IR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre gfy
mlk and malcom x were both assassinated.
you call this peaceful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytXnmp_I9I8 ?
try the velvet revolution in america today
you’re disingenuous and the worst person on lemmy. i’d really, R E A L L Y LOVE to. SHAKE. your hand.
So many hour-old troll accounts this morning…
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.
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.
that’s exactly it. i grew up naively believing in peace. i still do. i have tried every angle to make the world a better place in a non violent manner. i’ve exhausted my options.
- pacifism is cowardly when inaction enables bad actors.
- not everyone values peace. never assume that just because you’re chill everyone else is too.
- the paradox of tolerance is not a paradox.
- humanity is what you make it. what do you want it to be? MAKE IT THAT.
- don’t let the illusion of a peaceful society lull you into a vulnerable trance. plenty of past civilizations never saw their end coming.
- never play fair with your enemy. once you choose violence, your virtues have been compromised. there’s nothing noble about it. it’s simply what has to be done, so do it effectively.
we will never have the society we are capable of as long as we are caught in a tug of war between narcissism and altruism. as long as the narcissists are allowed a place at the table, they will undermine any attempt at utopia for their own interests.
i believe the 21st century began an era in which the utopia that most considered a pipe dream became a feasible reality. we have all the tools and technology now to create a world in which no one suffers, not even the other species of this planet. to have that reality within reach, and to let greedy fascists, shallow narcissists, and religious zealots derail that future, is to make yourself no better then them.
pacifism is cowardly when inaction enables bad actors.
But pacifism isn’t inaction. It is action with the intent to do no harm.
not everyone values peace
The value of peace is social, not individual. You value peace when you know you have everything you want from the status quo. You embrace violence as a means of shifting conditions in your favor.
But violence comes at a grander social price. Simply embracing it because someone else has only compounds the costs.
the paradox of tolerance is not a paradox
The question of a socially acceptable degree of tolerance is a difficult one to answer philosophically and even more difficult to implement as social policy.
It is not strictly a paradox, but it is an unsolved problem.
don’t let the illusion of a peaceful society lull you into a vulnerable trance
The cost of violent action is what dissuades a violent response. People aren’t in a trance, they are taking a calculated risk.
never play fair with your enemy
Violating a social compact erodes trust. You reap a short term gain while everyone pays a long term price.
“Playing fair” is about establishing a social compact that everyone recognizes as beneficial. Violating broadly beneficial norms means accruing more enemies with whom you feel compelled to play unfairly.
the utopia that most considered a pipe dream became a feasible reality
The utopian era ended with WW1 and the industrialization of modern warfare. The 21st century has seen wave after wave of new investments in warfare, while domestic improvements and social welfare advances have ground nearly to a halt.
If there is a utopian future, it can only come with the abolition of international militarism. Otherwise, we continue to descend into generation after generation of escalating conflict and unchecked immolation of life and property.
I tell people that I’m a pacifist in the same way that Bonhoeffer was.
Tempered rage might come across as tranquil, but it would be nice to have hints in the narrative. Reminds me of this line about Bruce controlling the Hulk: “That’s my secret, Cap: I’m always angry.”
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.
The absolute state of the religion-understanders in this thread.
If you’ve never read one work about finding peace thru mysticism, why voice an opinion about it? I’m not here voicing an opinion on Finnish politics.
Ghandi?
Nope.
It is not that I do not get angry. I don’t give vent to my anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as angerlessness, and generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice.
― Mahatma Gandhi
Tranquility is a real trait that some people have. It’s not a common one.
And those people are not necessarily pacifists. The issue is that the idea that you would get from movies and TV is that they are one and the same.
