A Response to David Stolinsky on Pacifism

Dr. Stolinsky’s “house calls” are always welcome. But it’s a mixed bag he’s carrying.

Make no mistake, he’s right about the patient being sick. There’s a moral silliness in the land about the use of force, and it’s compounded with a “double-standarditis.” Some folks have an acute case of it, and the bug’s contagious.

Take a closer look, though, at the medicines our friend’s toting in that bag of his. The best of them are generic. The worst are snake oil. Swallowed together, they might cure some problems, but they’ll exacerbate others. The truth is, well, we need stronger medicine.

What’s behind my caveat? OK, cards on the table. First, I’m an aspiring pacifist, so I don’t like pacifist-bashing. Second, Stolinsky’s stingy in citing Exodus. (Besides, St. Thomas does a better job getting at what’s at issue there.) Maybe that’s why the good doctor goes wrong with many of his domestic and foreign prescriptions.

But note well: Stolinsky spotlights some of the worst symptoms of his patient’s syndrome. Compassion gets confused with sentimentality. The patient wants peace, but mostly “in our time.” Careful neither to hear nor see evil, the patient supposes that, if evil carries the day, negotiation will save our skins.

Still, I mean to detail my complaints against Dr. Stolinsky. Then I’ll prescribe a different sort of medication.

My first complaint is that Stolinsky’s muddled about pacifism. He suspects as much himself. “Pseudo-pacifism,” he says, “might be a more apt description” of the malady he means to cure. But any real pacifist (Dorothy Day!) would equally reject pseudo-pacifism or the bogus “new pacifism.” Logic 101 identifies the “straw man” fallacy; Stolinsky commits it with gusto. Sometimes, too, his actual target is isolationism. But Martin Luther King Jr. was a pacifist without being an isolationist. Isolationism is a historical tactic, not a moral principle.

So what is pacifism? In its root sense, pacifism (from pax and facere) is peacemaking. It’s in this sense that I’m an aspiring pacifist. And isn’t Stolinsky, too?

But I’m also an aspiring pacifist in a political sense, one with an “edge.” It’s a principle of ethics that’s honed this edge. We should reject military engagement when it uses weapons to violate, or threaten, innocent human lives. Given this criterion, there’s the heaviest of burdens on any government that claims to pursue a “just war.” Indeed, in recent wars far more civilians have been killed than combatants. Such wars, too, claim their own principle; it’s the terrorist’s slogan (surely you want to reject it, Dr. Stolinsky?), “any necessary means.”

My second complaint is that Stolinsky misreads Exodus — or doesn’t read enough of it. Check the whole of Exodus 22:2. “If a thief is found breaking in, and is beaten to death, no bloodguilt is incurred; but if it happens after sunrise bloodguilt is incurred” (NRSV). The key here is not so much whether it’s night or day, but what one’s intention is. In the dark it’s not clear what’s the minimal force needed to stop an intruder. But it becomes clear with the day, and so one can hardly plead that one intended, by such a beating, anything other than to kill the wrongdoer.

St. Thomas’s account of self-defense sounds a similar note. “And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful if it be out of proportion to the end [so] if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful…” (ST II-II, A. 7).

Does shortchanging intention weaken Stolinsky’s analysis? Yes, especially when the neglect gets linked to wrongheadedness about who is and who isn’t an unjust aggressor.

Let’s begin on the domestic front, where mistakes about who’s an aggressor can be tragic. Is a robber an unjust aggressor against one’s life? Very often not. Is that “someone” (relative? neighbor? peeping Tom?) who’s prowling about downstairs such an aggressor? Very often not. Even a looter’s chief interest is grabbing and running. To be sure, a drunken or deranged spouse might be an aggressor — but a less lethal one without a gun. Of course, gun control bills can be badly drafted; so can tax laws. But peace officers support gun control measures because they want to help us stay alive. And they know, better than we, how often our children kill themselves with the guns we’ve bought to defend them.

But what about Stolinsky on foreign policy? Our learned friend speaks of “rearmament” in the 1980s. Wasn’t Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) already in place? He waves a big stick at Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Iraq. But these have been the very killing fields where more innocent civilians were destroyed than combatants, where hundreds of thousands of landmines remain today to kill yet more children. It’s a bogus pacifism that says only the U.S. acts criminally. It’s a bogus “self-defense” that says only our enemies act criminally. Wherein lies our shared crime? The malice is in a use of force so indiscriminate, and a definition of the aggressor so elastic, that all who manage the machines of war have the blood of the innocent on their hands.

But enough rationalizations, whatever their stripe. Give the man his due. Stolinsky does expose our pious shams, even if he misnames them. Yes, his prescriptions are mistaken. But we can’t allow any hypocrisy (especially if contagious) to go untreated.

So what are we to do? And, as Hillel asks, “if not now, when?”

We are to take, right now, the stronger medicine. Gandhi spoke of it as satyagraha, a living in the truth. John Paul 11 speaks of truth’s “splendor.” Such a medicine makes it possible to speak up clearly and pay up personally. To this end, we need to explore three peacemaking proposals.

First, rather than festooning our homes with “Security: Armed Response!” signs, let’s practice racial and economic integration in our own neighborhoods. Second, let’s work to end capital punishment. The right to life rests on a God-given and inalienable human dignity, not on the social contract. Third, rather than trusting any regime that relies on nuclear blackmail, let’s build a United Nations capacity for armed humanitarian intervention.

Can we handle this “stronger medicine?” Not without the saving grace that heals our wounded nature. The Good News is that such grace abounds.