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.