On Selective Pacifism & other Oddities

[Carrol Cox]

One other objection to the term "selective pacifism" is that it goofs up
the meaning of the word "pacifism" as used by 'real' and consistent
self-labelled Pacifists. Members of the Mennonite Church, for example.
And in anti-war coalitions it is really quite important to keep these
terms reasonably straight so that members of those coalitions can talk
to each other with some minimal clarity. Miscommunication could have
seriously disruptive consequences. I can work (have worked, am working)
with pacifists. They can work (have worked, are working) with me. But I
can't see any thing but utter chaos if one begin to throw around such
terms as "selective pacifism" (it's really bad writing; it's a confused
and confusing oxymoron -- a figure that can work powerfully when
conscious and under control but gives at least the appearance of
cretinism when sloppy).

Here is a case where an exception does test the rule. At an early
meeting of the coalition here I rose to note that it did not consist
wholly of adherents of "non-violence"; that I for example approved of
the Vietnamese use of violence to oppose the u.s. invasion and the U.S.
use of violence to suppress the insurrection of the slavedrivers. Later
on a woman from the ISU history department (speciality: Civil War
history) remarked to me in private conversation that she _was_ a
pacifist, but that she could not quite avoid feeling that Lincoln had
been right to call out the army. I think the rule survives the test: she
was quite clear in noting that her particular judgment clashed with her
general principle, and she was quite clear what the general principle
was. Accurate language -i.e., the possibility of communication -- is
maintained while ordinary human complexity and sloppiness is honored.

But Max is trying by sheer violence (and I think considerable historical
distortion) to apply the generic term "pacifist" (specifically qualified
with "selective") to persons who never were nor never called themselves
pacifists of any kind. They were/are just persons that independently of
any general principles about war or violence correctly thought this that
and the other war (e.g. the u.s. invasion of vietnam, the u.s. invasion
of the Dominican Republic; the u.s. assault on Afghanistan) were
criminal operations. If they can be called (selective) "pacifists," than
every single blooming homo sapiens ever born was a pacifist, and the
word loses all meaning.

I come back to my initial judgment: the phrase "selective pacifist" is
is seriously bad writing -- and one can't take seriously any discourse
which seriously uses the term. (How's that for using a word three times
in one sentence with a different sense every time.)

Carrol