Why Are You Not a Pacifist?

THAT question is quite frequently put to me. At first, I was unable to give an answer — any more of an answer than merely, ‘I don’t know, but I’m not.’ As a matter of fact, my reasons were purely intuitive at first. Gradually they have become somewhat articulate. Would it be worth while, I wonder, to put them down on paper? If they manage to awaken in other minds a better articulation of reasoning, either for or against pacifism, they might serve some good purpose.

Pacifism arises from a variety of motives, some worthy and others unworthy. The only man who will deny that, is the man whose own pacifism is of so ardent a quality that he will find little patience for its analysis in others. Like the Kentucky colonel who affirmed that there was no such thingas bad whiskey, he will declare at once that there is no such thing as unworthy pacifism. The mere fact that it is pacifism lifts it in his eyes above the reach of the analytical critic.

I crave this man’s patience, which I know is a bold thing to do, if I refuse to grant that point. It seems to me there are several kinds of pacifism, some good and some bad. I desire to confine my attention to what I consider the good. The other kinds are beneath the notice of any self-respecting man.

When you examine its motives, pacifism is seen to connote, variously in various men, cowardice, selfishness, laziness, sentimentalism, expediency, or spiritual inertia. I have no quarrel with these forms of pacifism. They are symptomatic of various phases of ‘ human natur’,’ and are, I suppose, to be viewed as dispassionately as one contemplates red hair, warts, and crooked noses. I repeat, it is not to such pacifists that these remarks are addressed.

With another class, however, and, as I hopefully believe, with the largest class of all, pacifism connotes a very pure and a very lofty idealism. To such people pacifism is a religion, an interpretation of Christianity, a genuine spiritual passion. These are the people I myself have in mind when I say ‘pacifist.’ They have my utmost respect. True, they sometimes, more often than not, tax my temper; but then, I doubtless tax theirs, so we are quits. Putting tempers aside, strictly aside, I would like to bear my humble testimony to the question they raise, ‘ Why are you not a pacifist?’

I want to do this because such a question, coming from persons of such nobility of motive and purity of heart, seems to me to demand my most serious consideration. The very loftiness of their position puts me, I confess, upon the defensive, and lays upon me the burden of proof. I would like to do it in this way, too, because never as yet have I had the good fortune to encounter a true pacifist in verbal argument who will let me finish a single sentence of my apologia without breaking in upon me with some quick denial or some eager interruption. And that is bad for my pacifism, however it may affect their own.

Perhaps I can come at it best by raising the question, ‘Why are they pacifists?’ They are pacifists, first, because they consider it wrong to take human life; and second, because they dread the reactive effect upon themselves of opposing aggression by violent physical methods.

They hold that human life is a very sacred and a very mysterious thing. It is something they cannot explain, a heavenly property, to be given, and also taken away, solely at the discretion of Heaven. To say that there comes a moment, when, in their judgment, a human being has forfeited his right to live, and to say when that moment arrives, is to assume an awful responsibility —* a responsibility too awful in fact to be assumed. They prefer to distrust, their own judgment, and to give every human being, even the most ruthless, the benefit of the doubt. For a man to follow the dictates of his own faulty judgment, warped as it so often is by passion, prejudice, and ignorance, and arbitrarily to fix that moment of forfeiture, is to be guilty of a self-assurance at the hardihood and insolence of which they stand aghast. Of course there is the possibility that the human verdict may be right; but there is also the possibility that it may be wrong. Rather than incur that risk of deciding wrongly, in a matter involving so sacred a thing as human life, they themselves prefer to suffer abuse, persecution, ruin, and death.

What have I to say to this first point — the sanctity that attaches to human life? I note their reverence, their humility, their self-distrust, their passionate loyalty to a moral ideal — qualities which cannot be over-admired. Are they" right, and ought I to join them ? I think not; and for this reason: while I can admit that human life is a very mysterious and a very sacred thing, I cannot admit that it is the most sacred thing in the world. The core and essence of holiness is the thought of God. My thought of God takes the form of a Unity of Purpose: that is to say, I think of God as a self-conscious, intelligent, benevolent power, at work in this world toward the fulfillment of a purpose. The Will of God, the Divine Purpose, is therefore the holiest thing conceivable. And loyalty to that Divine Purpose is the highest moral duty. The Divine Purpose is intrusted to human hands, and is the factor in relation to which a human life must be judged holy or unholy. The amount of sanctity that attaches to a human life is to be measured by the degree to which that life is consecrated to the Divine Purpose. There is nothing on earth holier, more precious, than the human life utterly consecrated to the Divine Purpose — the Christ. On the other hand, there is nothing on earth so worthless as the human life which knows no consecration at all to the Divine Purpose; and there is nothing on earth so unholy, so detestable, as the human life that is given over to an active hostility to the Divine Purpose.

When therefore my pacifist friend asks me to agree to the sanctity that attaches to a human life, I reply, ‘Yes — provided. The sanctity of human life is a contingent property. It becomes real when, and continues real so long as, that life is informed by loyalty to the Divine Purpose. Its degree is to be measured by the degree of that loyalty. But it disappears as soon as that loyalty to the Divine Purpose disappears.’

Of course the question at once arises, but who is to be the judge of this loyalty to the Divine Purpose? How can you presume to say what the Divine Purpose is? And unless you can say what it is, how can you dare to affirm that a fellow-creature is or is not loyal to it?

Aye, there’s the rub. It all comes back to the question of the reliability of the human judgment. For after all, it is the human judgment that must attempt to define the Divine Purpose, and that must, through that definition, impute worth or worthlessness to human life. The Pacifist affirms that human judgment is too fallible to assume the stupendous responsibility of framing such a definition. I venture to reply that, if that is the case, then we are all at sea, and the sooner we give up the game of living, the better. I do not for a moment argue the infallibility of the human judgment. All I have to say is, that human judgment, such as it is, with all its narrowness, pride, passion, and bigotry, is still the best guide we possess. It gives us some headway, at least, some steerageway. And while that steerageway may be, and probably is, in a direction that only approximates the direction of true growth, it is still infinitely better than no steerageway at all. Dirigibility is a condition of fundamental importance for a civilization, as for a ship. And dirigibility depends on some sort of progress.

Therefore I approach this matter of defining the Divine Purpose, like Paul, ‘with a certain boldness.’ I miss the clear word of revelation, but I suspect that my pacifist friend has no more revelation than I. My human judgment, divesting itself so far as possible of all distracting obstacles, functioning at its best, corrected by the judgment of the great majority of my fellow creatures, and supported by the continuity of history, ventures to define the Divine Purpose, for the present, as the intention to establish in this world certain great principles of living — principles which shall have universal acceptance, and under whose guardianship human living may enjoy a better opportunity for the ultimate attainment of its perfection. These principles are, let us say, Honor, Justice, Service, Good-will.

Not for a moment do I claim that the establishment of these principles in universal acceptance is the sum and substance of the Divine Purpose. It is simply one step in the unfolding of that Purpose, and ‘one step enough for me.’ Nor do I claim, dogmatically, that it is a step in the right direction. It is only in a direction as near right as my best vision can discover. There is nothing left for me to do but accept this definition, and proceed at once to align with it my conception of duty, and my valuation of human life.

Thus, to coöperate with the Divine Purpose in establishing upon earth the principles of Honor, Justice, Service, and Good-will, becomes the highest duty. And the degree of consecration to that Purpose which any life presents becomes the measure of its worth, and of its right to continue. If, therefore, pacifism means a supreme reverence for human life, and a lofty devotion to the ideal of preserving human life at all hazards, I cannot be a pacifist. For at best I can feel but a conditional reverence for human life. I cannot make it a fetich. It derives its sanctity from its relation to something holier than itself. To preserve it at the expense of that something holier, — that Honor, Justice, Service, Good-will, which are the proper objects of its loyalty and self-expenditure, — is to preserve the instrument at the expense of the music which the instrument is designed to produce.

I frankly confess that my ideal is not the preservation of human life, but the preservation of a certain type of human life; and the establishment of those principles under which this type of human life can best survive seems to me more important than the preservation of human life itself. When the pacifist urges upon me his ideal instead, which, as he claims, takes precedence of mine, — blankets mine by ‘taking the weather-gauge,’ so to speak, — I can reply only that in my judgment the wind sits not in that quarter. He is asking me to be recreant to my duty as I see it.

This brings me to the second point. My friend is a pacifist because he dreads the brutalizing consequences upon himself of resisting aggression by violent physical methods. He claims that you cannot establish the principle of good-will among men by methods that are in themselves the opposite of good-will. He asserts that the agent sinks inevitably to the level of the methods he employs, and that if a principle of good-will cannot establish itself through the cogency of its own enchantment, but must be enthroned by the aid of coercion, it automatically ceases to be good-will, and becomes nothing but coercion masquerading in a false guise. The only way to bring pacifism into universal vogue is to practice it universally, beginning with himself. Therefore he is a pacifist, and he earnestly desires every one else to follow his example.

His position here is so sound and so high, that, I confess, I feel myself more than ever on the defensive. I gladly agree with him, making but one reservation. And in making that one reservation I realize that I am exposing myself to the charge of sentimentalism. I claim the right to draw a sharp line between the quality of my outward actions and the quality of my inner frame of mind, my mood, my motive. Physical violence does not inevitably connote spiritual violence. Stern, repressive, coercive measures of the hands may spring from inner fountains of unalloyed good-will. I might ask my friend to read the story of how Abraham Lincoln whipped Jack Armstrong — thoroughly, but without the least trace of malice. Kipling says something not only true, but almost prophetic, in his poem, ‘The American’: —

My contention is that good-will has its seat primarily in the heart; and that so long as it is enthroned securely in the heart, it is possible, and safe, and sometimes practically necessary, to protect it as a principle by means of outward coercion. I realize fully the danger of such a method, the difficulty of handling this pitch without getting defiled. I realize that almost every war that has been begun from lofty motives, and undertaken for the support of sacred principles, has tended to deteriorate into a mere welter of passions and retaliations. But at this point my sentimentalism gets the better of me. I believe in human nature. I insist that it is possible to do dirty work in a clean spirit, and to maintain the operation upon a clean level.

And right here I see the promise and the romance of our American life, its stern duty, and its possible idealism. What higher value can we attach to our traditions of national good-humor, to our many examples of the generous warrior, to our many instances of dispassionate warfare, than to find in them instructions and illustrations of the better way to protect our institutions and to confuse our foes? That is, by meeting their aggressiveness by a valiant defense, and at the same time by undermining the malice in their hearts by an unsullied good-will in our own.