lbo-talk-digest V1 #4326

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Fri May 11 07:08:30 PDT 2001


LeoCasey at aol.com:
> What you are saying here is that when faced with a choice of take life or
> have your life and the lives of your loved ones be taken, a choice of take
> life or be enslaved, the principle of take no life must win out. I have no
> objection to you holding to such a belief for yourself, on a purely
> individual basis, but I do not believe that it can successfully be put forth
> as an universal rule which others must accept. In my early political days on
> the Catholic Left, I held essentially that position, but only as a rule for
> myself and for similar like minded pacifists. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto
> had every right to resist and kill the Nazis who came to kill them. Spartacus
> had every right to kill the Romans who came to kill him and reenslave his
> followers. Toussaint had every right to kill the French who came to kill him
> and reenslave the Haitians... and so on. The alternative you pose is to
> accept slavery and/or death. If you want a philosophical basis for this,
> check Hegel's Phenomenology passage on lordship and bondage. Or remember
> Gandhi's addage, it is better to resist violently, than to not resist at all.

However, there is a considerable gap between resisting or evading immediate attack, and planning war. I am surprised you did not run across this important distinction while you were running around the Mahatma's neighborhood. People interested in _ahimsa_, non-violence, give a lot of thought to such things -- usually.

By the way, having "a right" to kill people, or to do anything else, introduces a whole new kettle of fish, the idea or issue of transcendental rights. (Surely no sublunary entity issued Spartacus any rights: if he had any, they came from beyond.) I don't know if you want to introduce it, since it is difficult to argue conclusively about the gods or the higher realms. But perhaps one is forced to try.



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