Sunday, January 31, 2010


I just launched a new blog devoted entirely to pacifism, defined as a commitment to peace and opposition to violence and war. It's called and it's meant to be a place to discuss pacifism from the broadest standpoint, without focusing on any single tradition or framework. Here's part of my introductory post:

I see pacifism as a direction of thought and action rather than a fixed point, as I have illustrated below:

At the far right-hand side is what some have termed "absolute pacifism". In its strongest form such a commitment would prohibit violence even in self defense, and perhaps violence against non-human living things. At the other extreme is a total lack of concern about violence. Someone holding this view might oppose a given war, but not because it involves violence. For example such a person might object that this particular war is not cost effective.

I suspect that not many people hold to one of the views at either end of my diagram. Instead, most of us fall somewhere in between. If it were possible to formulate a "pacifism index", then someone with no concern at all about the use of violence would score a 0%, and an absolute pacifist would score a 100%. I would be interested in where readers would place themselves (or perhaps historical figures) on such a scale. Of course it's just a thought experiment, but it demonstrates how pacifism is not a fixed point, but a tendency. To the extent that you believe that your society is too ready to use violence, I would say that you have pacifist leanings.

What I find particularly striking however, is that discussions of pacifism so often gravitate towards debating the absolute pacifist position. Although I recognize the philosophical value in considering the boundaries of an issue, I think that one must not ignore the domain where most choices are actually faced. One shouldn't spend too much time worrying about scaling Mount Everest if one has trouble climbing a couple of flights of stairs. And yet pacifism is routinely dismissed based on this sort of reasoning!

I'd like to invite folks to visit, and join the discussion!
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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama

The links between Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama are hard to miss. Obama's historic election as the first African American President of the United States seemed to echo the stirring words of King's 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial:
Obama's inauguration took place on Tuesday, January 20th 2009, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This Monday—one year later—Martin Luther King Jr. Day will again be celebrated, and with the one-year mark of Obama's presidency imminent, connections between the two men will again be drawn—including the fact that both were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But an examination of Obama's December-10th acceptance speech suggests some striking differences.

The Nobel committee's selection of Obama so early in his presidency was controversial. Fuel was added to the fire when, just nine days before accepting the prize, he announced that he was sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. His acceptance speech was unapologetic:
Yet he went on to say:
Can you feel a "but" coming?
So there it is. King and Gandhi had great "moral force", but, apparently unlike them, Obama faces "the world as it is". This strikes me as a shocking distortion: King and Gandhi were deeply involved in practical action, and indeed were instrumental in bringing about change.

The rhetorical pattern we see here is repeated throughout Obama's speech. Moral principles are praised (as long as they remain principles), but "hard truth" is emphasized. Carefully crafted oratory is used to sell the Orwellian idea that "War is Peace". But the awkward fact remains that Martin Luther King Jr. was a proponent of non-violence. What does Obama make of that?
It would appear that non-violence can be dispensed with when required. What is apparently fundamental is something rather vague and comforting: "love" and "faith in human progress". Of course Martin Luther King Jr. did talk above love, but as a basis for moral decisions rather than a distraction from them.

King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech is strikingly different from Obama's, as this excerpt suggests:
Martin Luther King Jr.'s words apply to the world as it is in 2010, just as they did in 1964.

Update (18-Jan-2010): Jeff Nall has written an excellent piece on "How Obama Betrays Reverend King’s Philosophy of Nonviolence".

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