Pacifist counter-argument

[NecroCommie]

This really caught me with my pants down.
"People, Class or the violence of others are no justifications to terrorize other people yourself"

This was used against Libyan protestors who, in her oppinion, have been too violent to be granted support.

I mumbled something about the right of anyone to defend themselves against an apparatus of violence (state), but would anyone happen to have a really coherent analysis? This is a new argument for me (first one for a year now, I'm becoming proud of my theoretical knowledge... :cool:)

[GPDP]

This really caught me with my pants down.
"People, Class or the violence of others are no justifications to terrorize other people yourself"

This was used against Libyan protestors who, in her oppinion, have been too violent to be granted support.

I mumbled something about the right of anyone to defend themselves against an apparatus of violence (state), but would anyone happen to have a really coherent analysis? This is a new argument for me (first one for a year now, I'm becoming proud of my theoretical knowledge... :cool:)

I'd love to see this person walk up to a Lybian mercenary and put a flower in the barrel of their gun.

[gorillafuck]

Ask her if she thinks people should literally let themselves die for an ideal of non-violence to the Libyan military. If yes, she is clearly on the side of the Libyan government.

[Proukunin]

hahaha, I too used to be a pacifist too, but in situations like Libya even Ghandi said that that when nonviolence doesn't work and cannot get rid of violent oppression. then you should use violence.

"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan's influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets." - Gandhi

If the Libyan army constantly kills Libyan people..Do pacifists even really have the least bit of an argument??

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Even Gandhi revered the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita. Some times you need to take out your sword.

[Proukunin]

I mean there is no way non-violence can work in situations like this. It is complete cowardice.

[sunfarstar]

WE WIN:cool:EVERY WAYS;)

[Omsk]

Fight fire with fire,in certain situation's,"all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".And good men must always act,sometimes,they must fight back.

[NecroCommie]

Done all that, but then she went on about "terrorizing the property of individuals and causing the grief of widows and children" and that none of that can be justified with self-defense. (Why aren't the women fighting there too? Isn't it important for them too?)

Now she has turned to saying that media cannot be trusted and because we can really know nothing about the situation we must halt all support from everyone and leave this for Libyans to fight. (This is a comment on news about european left just stating support for the protesters.)

Insane idealists are insane idealists. :rolleyes:

[Decolonize The Left]

This really caught me with my pants down.
"People, Class or the violence of others are no justifications to terrorize other people yourself"

"Terrorism" is the use of violence against civilians for the purpose of political gain. People protesting and/or rebelling against a government cannot be terrorists unless they commit acts which fit the definition above.

In contrast, every government is the definition of a terrorist organization. Police, military, secret service, etc.. all commit acts of violence (or operate under the threat of them) everyday. This is done, of course, for the political gain of the government.

The class war is not a terrorist war, as the vast majority of "people" (who would be terrorized) are the working class. It is an economic war and most importantly, the uprisings in the Middle East are not class wars - nor are they leftist revolutions. They are popular uprisings aimed at changing the political organization of their government.

This other person needs to get their terms straight if they're going to toss them around as arguments.

- August

[ComradeOm]

This really caught me with my pants down.
"People, Class or the violence of others are no justifications to terrorize other people yourself"That is the sort of logic that inevitably leads to Leon Emery's infamous phrase: 'rather servitude than war'. Those who unconditionally reject the use of violence are doomed to either slavery or collaboration

[Ravachol]

I'm just going to quote 'Against war and Pacifist bliss' from Killing King Abacus here, as I think it sums it all up pretty well:



The pacifist abhors war and blesses the state. In times of peace, he has been taught — and he has believed — that society is a vast system of communication where all controls itself by means of dialogue, in a nonviolent manner. It follows from this that only one who, living on the periphery of these communicating vessels, mocks the hopeless cornerstone of vain democratic chattering with blows is candidate to suffer brute force.

Though he implicitly recognizes in this way that this society is not only dialogue but also violence, the pacifist citizen is not excessively worried by this: the violence is destined for others, for the new savages who have not yet acquired a proper communicative humanity and who deduce from this that society is much more violent from the sweet force of words that support a round table. The pacifist elevates the nonviolent image to a supreme principle — in which the peaceful course of capitalist affairs reflects itself — which mediated society gives itself.

When a state starts a war, the pacifist citizen orders it, “in the name of the people”, to conform to this idealized representation of daily life. Imbued with that idea of Rights which the state imposes for worship, he refuses to recognize how the state monopoly on violence, that by which countries guarantee the respect manu militari of the law corresponds, with armies in state to state relations; and when two powers collide it is war that has the final word. Thus, as she glances with nonchalance on the police reduction of democratic dialogue in the affairs of internal politics, the pacifist citizen insists upon the exclusive use of words in foreign affairs: upon negotiation. He wants one without the other, as if one could be able to have Rights without violence, the state without war, the principle without the consequences that derive from it. Far from recovering from seeing these murderous consequences and from allowing the principle from which they emanate to be put into doubt, the pacifist invokes the principle of Rights against violence — which is the reverse side of it — and draws from this irrational process the moral superiority which he decorates himself with: “What stupidity, war!”

Thus, questioning his own rulers and accusing them of unawareness and irresponsibility, the pacifist would be candid as advisor to the prince with the purpose of shedding light upon the real interests of the nation. And the less he is listened to, the more satisfied he is to have accomplished the proper duty of the citizen: to tell the government what he thinks of public affairs — and so much the worse for the head of state, if he finds himself condemned by moral conscience. As long as the citizen, addressing herself to government, recognizes the legitimacy of the state, the state is able to act more as it pleases because, unlike the pacifist citizen, it does not deny the possibility of compensating for the gaps in its discourse, when necessary, by putting forth its own potential for destruction, flying squad included.

It is in this way that the pacifist has drawn up a separate peace with capitalist society, in which he denounces the “drivel” without ever putting it forth for discussion. To this secret complicity corresponds a purely symbolic activity. With his feverish activity, lighting candles, signing call after call, petition after petition, taking his own opinions for a walk on the city sidewalk, the pacifist accomplishes absolutely nothing. The pseudo-activity of the pacifist and of the other propagandists of the “right to...” imitates, more or less consciously, advertising techniques: it assumes that the incessant repetitions of symbolic acts and of reduced slogans able to create an opposition to war and to “ mobilize the citizens”. Notoriously, gratuitous morality sells well in times of war.

The pacifist practice is an extension, by other means, of the Live Aid Concert against world hunger. Placed outside of the production centers of capitalist society, opposition sets itself up in the sphere of entertainment, and of “political pastimes”, where the citizen believes in acting as a responsible and autonomous individual, raised from capitalist contrition to earn a living. This kind of opposition is not able to get a grasp on social reality because the encounter unfolds itself in a mediated unreality which pretends to be the only reality: while the pacifists produce the images of opposition to war, the mass media reduces this same war to a technological operation, covered with base sentimentality. There are two interpretations, two images of the clash; war and capitalist society, which in the meantime, are left alone and proceed. The curious ease with which the pacifist is transformed once again the next day into simple labor power that must carry out determined tasks results from these images. Moralizers abstain: there’s work going on here.

Thus, the atomized individual — who doesn't have any occupation of her own except that of staying aware of the balance of their own pecuniary and emotional bookkeeping — wears the mask of the pacifist citizen from time to time. There, on the public square — or rather on the square of publicity — he proclaims his own high morality against the softness of daily life that she continues to reproduce simultaneously in private and at work. The pacifist is a moralizer in the sphere of mediated unreality and acts without any moral considerations when she is in the production centers of a state, whose warlike defects she denies. This double character of the pacifist is called impotence in the best of cases, in the worst, hypocrisy.

[Mather]

NecroCommie, who is this idiot that you were talking too?

Ask her the following questions:

Would she use violence to defend her child if her child was being beaten or tortured by someone and faced the very real possibility of being killed?

If her answer is no, then she is not even fit to be a mother.

Would she kill a single inidividual if that said individual was about to kill many people?

If her answer is no, then she is complicit in the murder of numerous people who's lives she could have saved, thus her pacifism actually causes more deaths than had she taken action.


Done all that, but then she went on about "terrorizing the property of individuals

So she admits she values personal possessions and private property over human life.


and causing the grief of widows and children"

Again, she admits that the grief (an emotional state) of the relatives of Gaddafi's thugs is more valuable than human life.

Also, what if the person who is killing people has no relatives/family, would killing them be okay as technically there would be no one to mourn their loss. On this point her arguement falls apart and is incoherent. Then again pacifism per se is incoherent.


Now she has turned to saying that media cannot be trusted and because we can really know nothing about the situation we must halt all support from everyone and leave this for Libyans to fight.

She sounds like an arrogant, know it all, twat.

[Mather]

@ Ravachol:

Excellent article and so very true.

The pacifist is both a hypocrite and a coward, all rolled into one.

[Zav]

Non-violence works in most situations, and I advocate it where it applies, but unfortunately there are occasions like this where the government is not afraid to use excessive violence against the people, and the people must use violence to gain their freedom. The force used by the Libyan government is certainly enough justification for violent retaliation.

[#FF0000]

Uggghhh there's this great interview with Arundhati Roy on the topic of non-violence and I can't find it.

Anyway, she said "non-violence in a perverse way is violence on behalf of the status quo" or something like that and it was awesome.

[Mather]

Non-violence works in most situations, and I advocate it where it applies, but unfortunately there are occasions like this where the government is not afraid to use excessive violence against the people, and the people must use violence to gain their freedom. The force used by the Libyan government is certainly enough justification for violent retaliation.

Of course, but this is a tactical question.

The woman in question was opposed to the use of violence as a matter of principle, even in self defence.

[Mather]

Uggghhh there's this great interview with Arundhati Roy on the topic of non-violence and I can't find it.

Anyway, she said "non-violence in a perverse way is violence on behalf of the status quo" or something like that and it was awesome.

Arundhati Roy is spot on.