Pacifism and anarchy

[RespectTradition]

Ok. So PKT_VOL and I (and others) were talking in another thread about pacifism, government, force and anarchy. I am starting this thread so we can keep talking about it without totally derailing the other thread.

So anyway...

I want to start by saying I am not a pacifist by nature, by philosophy, or by preference. I am a pacifist solely because of religious beliefs. It is one of the harder parts of my religion for me to follow.

I cannot defend why I am a pacifist to someone who does not share common religious roots with me and even then, many will disagree with my beliefs, so I am not going to try. I am going to focus solely on my belief that if one takes pacifism to its logical conclusion, then one arrives at anarchy.

To sum my prior arguments:

• Pacifism is the rejection of force in human interaction.
  
• Government is force. To quote G.Washington 'Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.'
  
• All government laws, mandates, prohibitions, regulations, etc are ultimately enforced at gunpoint. For example, a ticket results in paying a fine or going to court. What happens if I ignore a ticket? Eventually, people are sent to arrest me. If I don't want to voluntarily go with them, it will result in the use of force against me. Deadly force if they deem it necessary. All because I chose not to buckle up.
  
• I reject the idea that anarchy inevitably leads to violence.
  
• I reject the idea that society has any moral significance. We are all individuals. If you accept Philonous axiom that “Everything which exists is particular", then we can see that there is really no such thing as humanity, just humans. The idea of humanity is a convenient fiction we use to express certain concepts but it has no ethical or moral validity.

Okay, so everyone is caught up on my side of it. I won't try to state his side of it, I don't want to misstate it. He will chime in when he gets the chance. Let's discuss and see where it takes us...

[PKT_VOL]

Alright. I guess I should briefly articulate the detractor's side of RT's position. There are a few different routes one could take, but I will stick with the "conventional" route at the moment.

First, I agree with RT's first three points. If one takes the pacifist position to it's logical conclusion, one will arrive at anarchy as a tentative ideal government. However, I believe this is premature. This is due to the fact that I believe they abruptly stop at anarchy instead of continuing the same line of thought through anarchic life. Here is an outline of the argument:

• Premise One: There is x amount of resources to survive.

• Premise Two: There are greater than x number of people (obviously per capita).

• Premise Three: Life's soul purpose is to survive

• Conclusion: You end up with force/violence due to inefficient resources for everyone to live or live to a standard suitable for them.

* You have to bare in mind that technology has allowed the population to explode to it's current levels. So the resource level as a total is vastly different than that of the resource level in antiquity.

This argument is hardly new. Hobbs, Locke, and Rousseau all wrote extensively about it. Their solution was a social contract of various forms. This phenomena has been recorded several times throughout human history and in ecology.

To me, force is force. The only distinguishing factor is the relative amounts of force of each (government vs. anarchy).

As a Utilitarian, I believe in minimizing the amount of suffering while simultaneously promoting the maximum amount of happiness. I feel social force we experience currently in our representative republic is far less than if we were to be in a state of anarchy.

[PKT_VOL]

From the personal angle of pacifism, I would promote the philosophy of Confucius instead of that of Christianity.

Confucius believed the highest ("perfect") virtue of man was that of jen (pronounced "gen" as in genre). Jen is the ideal relationship among human beings. This is due to our innate nature of being social rational creatures. A man's actions should be in accordance to li (pronounced lee) which are rules of propriety. Li is what separates humans beings from animals. The ideal man is one who practices jen in accordance with li. If he does so, he will treasure and seek the tao, or right way.

Confucius stated that a man should die before he harms or wrongs another person (falling away from jen). Basically, if there is a famine, an ideal man will not harm another human in order to gain food for him or his family. He should valiantly die without, since that is in accordance with both jen and li.

The problem with this philosophy, as Confucius stated, was that out of his many, many disciples, only one always lived in accordance to jen and li at all times and under all circumstances. He basically said that it was nearly impossible for the average human to do so. This sets the stage for anarchic life which Hobbs eloquently described as being nasty, brutish, and short.

I champion Confucius's philosophy of pacifism over Christianity's pacifism because Confucius promoted his teaching for the sake of being civil and good to one another as human beings. Christianity does such, partly for humanity, but also for the individual's eventual judgement day. That I believe is a key difference.

[PKT_VOL]

Originally Posted by RespectTradition

[*]I reject the idea that society has any moral significance. We are all individuals. If you accept Philonous axiom that “Everything which exists is particular", then we can see that there is really no such thing as humanity, just humans. The idea of humanity is a convenient fiction we use to express certain concepts but it has no ethical or moral validity.[/LIST]

I have to vehemently disagree. Without society or other equal individuals, there would be no such thing as morality or ethics. It simply would not exist.

If one chooses to live with others, then inevitably there will be some form of hierarchy. There will be some form of ethics or morals. There will be some loss of individual sovereignty.

[gsvol]

Someone wrote that 'all pacifists are fascists' once and I thought that crazy on the face of it but a closer examination reveals that statement not far from the truth if one examines history closely.

What fascist leader didn't start out as a pacifist and end up starting a war?

As for reading about how Confucian thought has affected Chinese history, I recommend reading King's 'History of China'.

King is or was a prominent professor of history at Harvard, he said some complained that he was praising communism and others claimed he was denegrating communism but he reaches back to the beginning of Chinese history and brings us up to date quite fairly imo.

He shows how the thoughts of Confucius has had a tremendous effect all the governments of China, including the way communism was administered.

On the one hand it has led to some rather harsh administration of governments but on the other hand rather little anarchy has ever been experienced.

[PKT_VOL]

Originally Posted by gsvol

Someone wrote that 'all pacifists are fascists' once and I thought that crazy on the face of it but a closer examination reveals that statement not far from the truth if one examines history closely.

What fascist leader didn't start out as a pacifist and end up starting a war?

Your going to have to explain that further because I am too dumb to grasp that idea. I could get on board with "pacifists in illusion turn out to be fascist" or something along that line. If one starts a war, he violates the definition of pacifist.

Originally Posted by gsvol

As for reading about how Confucian thought has affected Chinese history, I recommend reading King's 'History of China'.

King is or was a prominent professor of history at Harvard, he said some complained that he was praising communism and others claimed he was denegrating communism but he reaches back to the beginning of Chinese history and brings us up to date quite fairly imo.

He shows how the thoughts of Confucius has had a tremendous effect all the governments of China, including the way communism was administered.

On the one hand it has led to some rather harsh administration of governments but on the other hand rather little anarchy has ever been experienced.

If Confucius's philosophy was implemented, in theory, the economic system would be communist and there would be no need for government (anarchy).

It illustrates the crucial difference between theory and reality.

[RespectTradition]

Originally Posted by PKT_VOL

• Premise One: There is x amount of resources to survive.

• Premise Two: There are greater than x number of people (obviously per capita).

What if one doesn't accept the premise?

I will agree that we have an inefficient allocation of resources. I don't believe that there are more people than our available resources can support.

I believe that government is the source of most inefficiencies. Absent government, resource allocation can more closely match the ideal.

Example:
The United States has far more resources than are necessary for us to survive. Parts of Latin America have less resources than they need to survive. Without government interference, those populations can migrate from areas of scarcity to areas of plenty. (This doesn't even begin to address the idea that the LA govts are the main cause of an artificial scarcity.)

[RespectTradition]

Originally Posted by PKT_VOL

• Premise Three: Life's soul purpose is to survive

I do not accept that.

A life whose sole purpose is survival is not a life worth living.

I do not believe that most of the people I know would accept this either.

Why does the fireman run into the burning building? or why does the man donate a kidney to a stranger? or why does a soldier enlist during a war?

Living for something other than our own survival is the only thing that makes life worth living.

Sometimes, dying for something is more important than living for nothing.

[OrangeEmpire]

Firemen save basements

[RespectTradition]

Originally Posted by PKT_VOL

I have to vehemently disagree. Without society or other equal individuals, there would be no such thing as morality or ethics. It simply would not exist.

If one chooses to live with others, then inevitably there will be some form of hierarchy. There will be some form of ethics or morals. There will be some loss of individual sovereignty.

I guess I didn't phrase it well enough.

Morality and ethics are only important as they relate to how we comport ourselves with and to others. I agree completely.

What I am saying, is that all valid ethics/morality are based upon how an individual treats other individuals.

'Society' does not exist. There are only individuals. This is one part of why I reject social contract theory.

To quote one of my favorite books:

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame. . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world. . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

"Professor, your words sound good but there is something slippery about them. Too much power in the hands of individuals--surely you would not want. . . well, H-missiles for example--to be controlled by one irresponsible person?"

"My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist--and they do--some man controls them. In term of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts."

(slightly edited excerpt from the moon is a harsh mistress)

I agree that any society will result in some abridgment of rights. I believe that if one chooses to join a society, then one has chosen to abridge his rights and consequently has suffered no loss of freedom. This is another reason I reject social contract theory. None of us were asked if we voluntarily joined society, we were drafted.

[RespectTradition]

Originally Posted by gsvol

Someone wrote that 'all pacifists are fascists' once and I thought that crazy on the face of it but a closer examination reveals that statement not far from the truth if one examines history closely.

What fascist leader didn't start out as a pacifist and end up starting a war?

I am not sure I followed all of this.

Let's accept this statement as true (for the sake of argument)

What fascist leader didn't start out as a pacifist and end up starting a war?

That does not lead to

Someone wrote that 'all pacifists are fascists' once and I thought that crazy on the face of it but a closer examination reveals that statement not far from the truth if one examines history closely.

Think of it as:

All squares are rectangles, but but not all rectangles are squares.

The correct conclusion would be

All fascists began as pacifists, but not all pacifists are fascists.

[RespectTradition]

Originally Posted by OrangeEmpire

Firemen save basements

I thought they burned books?

[OrangeEmpire]

Originally Posted by RespectTradition

I thought they burned books?

Nope, save basements and crawl spaces

[Gramps]

Originally Posted by OrangeEmpire

Nope, save basements and crawl spaces

and root cellars.

[trevols81]

Walter Sobchak: You know, Dude, I myself dabbled in pacifism once. Not in 'Nam of course.

The Dude: Then you know he's got emotional problems, man.

Walter Sobchak: You mean... beyond pacifism?