Thoughts on Pacifism

[unspeakablehorror]

For me ethics needs to be deeply grounded in the situational context that someone is in.  I think for example that it isn't really any more pacifistic to allow oneself to be killed by another to prevent perpetrating violence on the attacker than it is to kill the attacker.  Either way, someone is being killed, and to me, pacifism needs to recognize the undesireability of violence, and seek to avoid either perpetrating or allowing it as a tactic. And it's certainly not more pacifistic to advocate that sort of approach for others.  Pacifists shouldn't be advocating for death, whether it be the death of non-pacifists or the death of pacifists.

In our world, harm is in many ways unavoidable, the only questions are how much or when or to whom. Ultimately, I think of pacifism as an aspirational ethics of seeking to prevent harm whenever possible.  So while there may in fact be tactical advantages in certain contexts to taking harm upon oneself rather than inflicting it, I can't recognize either approach as truly pacifist.  And in the case of someone advocating such behavior to a third party, such a thing is not even non-violent.