Thoughts on War

[unspeakablehorror]

There is no such thing as a good war.  I'm not a pacifist because I don't view the violence of an aggressor as morally equivalent to the violence enacted to defend against them, but no one really wins in a war.  Wars are never glorious, but always brutal and destructive. 

Comments

[tobermoriansass]

I think that the definition of pacifism has been so diluted today we think of it as "always against war", but something I admire about conscientious objectors is that they found themselves personally unable to be involved with violence, while still understanding why war might become "necessary" (this is specifically within the context of WWI & II, bc I do think wars like Vietnam had a very different context and brought out a very different kind of conscientious objector).

TL;DR: I'd still call your position pacifism, its just not the stuff that gets presented as pacifism in pop culture (which I'd argue is a kind of ideology in itself). Or at least, this is the kind of pacifism I've grown up reading about from authors who lived through both world wars.

[unspeakablehorror]

I really don't know a huge amount about pacifism (or a lot of other ideologies) in a more formalized context. Looking up a bit, it seems there's something of a range of beliefs there, but I still don't know if I'd quite fit in that category. I probably do have a very pop culture understanding of it, and that conception of pacifism is one I am certainly very critical of due to how it seems to frame any act of violence as equally unconscionable.

I do know that I simply can't support the numerous atrocities the U.S. military is responsible for, including the ones committed during WWII (I don't mention WWI only because I don't know anything of substance about it, which seems kind of sad to admit, but it's true). I also do think that war is always terrible no matter what.

Presuming I did think a war was necessary, would I personally be willing to act in a military capacity myself? Probably not, but I also don't know that I'd consider that a moral decision in my case rather than a pragmatic one. I also have serious doubts about the overall efficacy of civil disobedience even if I don't think it is an entirely useless tactic, either. So I don't know that I could meaningfully call myself a pacifist, especially as I'm no longer quite certain what that term even means!