Introduction to Non-Violence | Page 7

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 police action in
defence of the rule of law." Case Against Pacifism, 85.
[15] Clarence Marsh Case, Non-Violent Coercion (New York: Century,
1923), 323. Italics mine.
[16] C. J. Cadoux has clearly stated his position in these words: "He
[the pacifist] will confine himself to those methods of pressure which
are either wholly non-coercive or are coercive in a strictly
non-injurious way, foregoing altogether such injurious methods of
coercion as torture, mutilation, or homicide: that is to say, he will
refrain from war." Christian Pacifism, 65-66.
[17] Maurice L. Rowntree, Mankind Set Free (London: Cape, 1939),
80-81.

II. VIOLENCE WITHOUT HATE
Occasions may arise in which a man who genuinely abhors violence
confronts an almost insoluble dilemma. On the one hand he may be
faced with the imminent triumph of some almost insufferable evil; on
the other, he may feel that the only available means of opposing that
evil is violence, which is in itself evil.[19]

In such a situation, the choice made by any individual depends upon his
own subjective scale of values. The pacifist is convinced that for him to
commit violence upon another is itself the greatest possible evil. The
non-pacifist says that some other evils may be greater, and that the use
of this lesser evil to oppose them is entirely justified. John Lewis bases
his entire Case Against Pacifism upon this latter assumption, and says
that in such a conflict of values, pacifists "continue to be pacifists either
because there is no serious threat, or because they do not expect to lose
anything, or perhaps even because they do not value what is
threatened."[20] The latter charge is entirely unjustified. The pacifist
maintains his opposition to violence in the face of such a threat, not
because he does not value what is threatened, but because he values
something else more.
Cadoux has phrased it, "Pacifism is applicable only in so far as there
exist pacifists who are convinced of its wisdom. The subjective
differences are of vital importance, yet are usually overlooked in
arguments on the subject."[21] This means that our problem of
considering the place of violence and non-violence in human life is not
one of purely objective science, since the attitudes and beliefs of
pacifists (and non-pacifists) themselves become a factor in the situation.
If enough people accepted the pacifist scale of values, it would in fact
become the true basis for social interaction.[22]
In our western society, the majority even of those who believe in the
brotherhood of man, and have great respect for the dignity of every
human personality, will on occasion use violence as a means to attempt
the achievement of their goals. Since their attitude is different from that
of the militarist who would place violence itself high in his scale of
values, it would pay us to consider their position.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York:
Scribner's, 1932). See especially his consideration of coercion and
persuasion in the two realms of individual and social conduct, pages
xxii-xxiii.

[19] As Cadoux puts it, "Broadly speaking, almost the whole human
race believes that it is occasionally right and necessary to inflict
injurious coercion on human beings, in order to prevent the
perpetration by them of some intolerable evil." Christian Pacifism
Re-examined, 97.
[20] Lewis, 62.
Revolutionary Anarchism
The revolutionary Anarchists belong essentially in this group. As
Alexander Berkman has put it, "The teachings of Anarchism are those
of peace and harmony, of non-invasion, of the sacredness of life and
liberty;" or again, "It [Anarchism] means that men are brothers, and
that they should live like brothers, in peace and harmony."[23] But to
create this ideal society the Anarchist feels that violence may be
necessary. Berkman himself, in his younger days, was able to justify
his attack upon the life of Frick at the time of the Homestead Strike in
1893 in these words:
"But to the People belongs the earth--by right, if not in fact. To make it
so in fact, all means are justifiable; nay advisable, even to the point of
taking life.... Human life is, indeed, sacred and inviolate. But the killing
of a tyrant, of an enemy of the People, is in no way to be considered as
the taking of a life.... To remove a tyrant is an act of