Introduction to Non-Violence | Page 6

However, there would be few who consider themselves pacifists who would accept such a position.
We are again forced to the conclusion that it is violence as we have defined it to which the pacifist objects. At this point, the chief difference between the pacifist and the non-pacifist is that the latter defines violence as does Clarence Case, as "the unlawful or unregulated use of destructive physical force against persons or things."[15] Under such a definition, war itself, since it is sanctioned by law, would no longer involve violence. Thus for the non-pacifist it is ethically acceptable to use lawful violence against unlawful violence; for the pacifist, violence against any personality is never ethically justified.[16]
On the other hand, a very large group of pacifists insist upon discarding these negative definitions in favor of one that is wholly positive. Maurice L. Rowntree has said: "The Pacifist way of life is the way that brings into action all the sense and wisdom, all the passion of love and goodwill that can be brought to bear upon the situation."[17]
In this study, no attempt will be made to determine which of the many pacifist positions is most sound ethically. Before any person can make such a determination for himself, however, it is necessary that he understand the differences between the various approaches to the problem of influencing other people either to do something which he believes should be done, or to refrain from doing something which he feels ought not to be done.
It might be helpful for us in our thinking to construct a scale at one end of which we place violence coupled with hatred, and at the other, dependence only upon the application of positive love and goodwill. In the intermediate positions we might place (1) violence without hatred, (2) non-violence practiced by necessity rather than because of principle, (3) non-violent coercion, (4) Satyagraha and non-violent direct action, and (5) non-resistance.
We need, at the outset, to recognize that we are speaking primarily of the relationships between social groups rather than between individuals. As Reinhold Niebuhr has so ably pointed out, our ethical concepts in these two areas are greatly at variance with one another.[18] The pacifist principles are already widely accepted as ideals in the affairs of individuals. Every ethical religion teaches them in this area, and the person who rejects them is definitely the exception in our western society, until the violent man is regarded as subject to the discipline of society in general.
Our real concern in this study is with non-violent means of achieving group purposes, whether they be defensive and conservative in character, or whether they be changes in the existing institutions of the social order. The study is not so much concerned with the religious and ethical bases of these techniques as it is with a consideration of their application in practice, and their effectiveness in achieving the purposes which the group in question has in view. We shall begin at one end of our scale and proceed to discuss each type of action in turn.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Guy F. Hershberger makes a definite distinction between non-resistance and pacifism. He says that the former term describes the faith and life of those "Who cannot have any part in warfare because they believe the Bible forbids it, and who renounce all coercion, even nonviolent coercion." He goes on to say, "Pacifism, on the other hand, is a term which covers many types of opposition to war. Some modern so-called pacifists are opposed to all wars, and some are not. Some who oppose all wars find their authority in the will of God, while others find it largely in human reason. There are many other differences among them." "Biblical Nonresistance and Modern Pacifism," The Mennonite Quarterly Review, XVII, (July, 1943), 116.
Hershberger is here defining pacifism broadly to include the European meaning of opposition to war, but not necessarily a refusal to take part in it. In the United States, and generally in Great Britain, the term is ordinarily applied only to those who actually refuse participation in war.
[9] See Devere Allen, The Fight for Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1930), 531-540.
[10] On the origins of these terms see Haridas T. Muzumdar, The United Nations of the World (New York: Universal, 1942), 201-203.
[11] John Haynes Holmes, using the older term rather than "pacifist," has said, "The true non-resistant is militant--but he lifts his militancy from the plane of physical, to the plane of moral and spiritual force." New Wars for Old (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1916), xiii.
[12] Cecil John Cadoux, Christian Pacifism Re-examined (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1940), 15-16; Leyton Richards, Realistic Pacifism (Chicago: Willett, Clark, 1935), 3.
[13] Shridharani, War Without Violence, 292.
[14] John Lewis says, "We must draw a sharp distinction between the use of violence to achieve an unjust end and its use as