Kill for Peace
If…war is to be prevented, there must be a clearly expressed willingness to go to war for certain ends but not for any others. These ends should be resistance to aggression anywhere and against anyone, and as soon as possible this purpose should receive its appropriate organization in an international government. Wars will cease when, and only when, it becomes evident beyond reasonable doubt that in any war the aggressor will be defeated. – Bertrand Russell, “The Future of Pacifism” The American Scholar, 1943
I had the strangest dream the other night. For one thing I remember it, which seldom happens. In my dream, I was working on my computer. I had an icon that when you clicked on it, would open up a dialog labeled “Judge“, and when you’d clicked on that, it would open up another dialog labeled “Choose.” As I awoke, I couldn’t remember the name of the main dialog that starts you off, but it seemed terribly important to remember it, so I dove back into the dream. I’m pretty sure that I came back with that name, but I can’t remember it now!
Why did I have that dream? Why now? I think it’s because I’d been upset by a story I’d just read, “The Last Article” by Harry Turtledove. In this alternate history story, Gandhi comes up against not the British Viceroy in India, but Field Marshal Walther Model who’s just captured India.
Gandhi…continued sorrowfully, “I made the mistake of thinking I faced a regime ruled by conscience, one that could at the very least be shamed into doing that which is right.”
Model refused to be baited. “We do what is right for our Volk, for our Reich. We are meant to rule, and rule we do — as you see.”
The meaning of the dream is pretty clear: if I don’t remember the name on that icon, I won’t be able to judge and choose. I want to avoid getting to the point of judging whether things are right and wrong and choosing what to do. And the reason I want to avoid getting there isn’t just cowardice or inertia. If I choose as I’m inclined to, that choice may not always turn out well.
What if you’ve chosen the path of nonviolence, but you’re attacked by an aggressor who isn’t moved by conscience, or is moved by an alien set of values. What do you do?
Russell chose to fight. Pacifism isn’t a suicide pact, and resisting aggressive war, even violently, may be the best way to stop future wars of aggression.
Russell is no dope. He knows that the human capability for rationalizing is unlimited. I have no doubt at all that someone could use Russell’s statement to justify our invasion and occupation of Iraq. After all, “the terrorists” attacked us, and our elected leaders certified that Iraq was culpable.
And so he says in the same article that “very few wars are worth fighting, and that the evils of war are almost always greater than they seem to excited populations at the moment when war breaks out.”
The problem is, I don’t see how that prevents somebody from justifying his participation and our collective participation in this war — or in any “this” war.
If human beings were equally disposed to nonviolence and violence, then we might be equally disposed to rationalism and rationalization about using violence. And that might pose a fairly good barrier to warmaking. But our species is at the top of the food chain, and we didn’t get that way by being nonviolent. I’m pretty sure the only way we’re going to stay at the top of the food chain is by adopting nonviolence, but that isn’t how we got here. It isn’t our nature.
And so, even though we don’t want to judge and choose, even though our judgment may be wrong and the choice might turn out to victimize a nation of conscience at the hands of a nation without conscience, I think we have to come to the dialog box anyway: Judge.
I can’t judge war to be anything but wrong, consisting as it does of organized violence and harm, neither of which I would willingly suffer or cause others to suffer.
Can I be seduced by the glamor of violence? I not only can, I have been. I was an unabashed fan of Desert Storm. I cheered as our tanks slaughtered Iraqi tank crews and our planes destroyed military headquarters. I cheered as people died.
Can I be persuaded to justify my participation in organized violence? Again, I not only can, I have been. I justified my work on weapon systems by saying that my work increased the probability of our young people in uniform returning home safely. But if I’m going to look at probabilities, I have to acknowledge that my work also increased the probability of the Bush administration embarking on the aggressive war that continues to kill and injure so many people in Iraq.
So it’s clear that the people who can’t be trusted to just drift along and fall into the right choice about the use of organized violence aren’t just “them”. They’re me.
And therefore, I have to make a moral decision. Therefore, the third dialog box: Choose. The only choice I can make in which I have anything approaching moral certainty is not to participate in work that enables or abets the use of violence of any kind. In my own case, that includes work on weapon systems and classified work in general.
In fact, another possible reason for the dream is that I’ve been called by recruiters several times recently to do work that I’m sure I’d do successfully and that would be interesting enough to attract me out of retirement, but those jobs have been on weapon systems, and I’ve had to turn them down. Am I really sure I’ve made the right decision?
What if the Nazis attack (using “Nazis” to stand for an aggressor who is unmoved by nonviolence)? I think my answer will be that I’ll work energetically to do everything that can be done nonviolently to resist the Nazis. But as far as using violence myself to resist aggression, or supporting violent means of resisting aggression, no. I can’t do that.
I only “think” that will be my answer? Sure. Predicting the future is a mug’s game. What’s more, if you attack me, my instinct is to attack right back. If you threaten members of my family, there’s a very good chance one of us will not be alive at the end of the encounter. It isn’t just that we’re a violent species. I’m a violent person. But given the chance to ponder instead of react, I think I’ll choose nonviolence.
I can’t think my refusal to be violent will move anybody’s conscience. And if I use the criterion of whether it’s a choice I’d urge on everyone, I fear a bad outcome if only the people in my country follow my urging. I don’t think there’s much comfort to be had in my near certainty that there will be plenty of Americans who’ll ignore my advice and fight anyway: is what’s best in us to be saved by what’s worst in us? Are we to rely on that?
But I can be sure it’s the right thing for me to do. And that counts for something.
Perhaps we all need to find the name of the icon that leads us to Judge and then Choose. Perhaps its name is “Do the best you can.”
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Now playing: Blue Mitchell – The Folks Who Live On The Hill