“All we are saying…”

Walking to the student center the other day, I noticed an old couple on the library plaza selling beautiful handmade jackets, hats, and blankets.  It was chilly and windy, but they were themselves decked out in their wares and looked comfortable.  This brilliant blanket caught my eye:

From my photo album, Notes

In 1991, Rodney King, lamenting the riots that followed the police officers’ aquittal for the savage beatings they gave him, said; “Can’t we all just get along?”  It was, and remains, the most profound question that I have ever heard.  We will not agree on our religions, our economics, or our cultures or customs.  But the urge to violence is a common thread of failure that runs through the human tapestry.  It is the antithesis of the message woven into the blanket in the picture.

The peace sign was the symbol of a counterculture known as “the hippies”, though it found wider usage.  Then, as now, if an idea is held by an out-group, it is easy to dismiss simply by attaching the name of the group.  “That sounds like a French strategy” or “That’s a hippie approach” functions in place of any actual argument on the merits of an idea.

But is the idea invalid?  Strip away the brilliant colors, the drug experience that was part of hippie culture, and other easy-to-dismiss accouterments and what you have is this basic idea that will never go away: that violence often invalidates purpose, costs more than it pays, and says to history; “we could not bring our better selves to the times”. 

Many people hold pacifism to be impractical.  But for a moment, entertain the idea that in the long run, it is violence that is impractical.  Violence is the box in which we do almost all our strategic thinking.  The person who forswears violence must think far ahead to relationships and consequences, which is not something that countries with super-powerful militaries are inclined to do.  Even if we cannot become pacifists, we can recognize that violence is a failure to think ahead, to engage constructively, to pay what it costs for a better world.  Violence is something to resort to, not something to lead with.  And let’s not pretend that we have done otherwise.

Even our current President, who is no pacifist, recognizes that war and killing should be viewed as suspect.  When deciding what to do in Afghanistan, he took time to get expert opinion and actually considered that opinion.  For this caution he was derided as “dithering”, as if shooting from the hip were some kind of virtue.

I disagreed with our President’s decision to scale up in Afghanistan, though I must acknowledge that he might be right.  But kudos to him for at least thinking it over first.  There’s a gun on the table; think twice, and then again, before picking it up.  Imagine that it shoots both ways at once, because it does.

Posted by George on 12/05/09 at 01:20 PM

  1. Great thoughts George.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our world leaders would give pacifism a try?!!  There would be enough resources to build schools, hospitals, and give everyone free health care, then we could end this ridiculous health care debate!!!

    Posted by SueB  on  12/06/09  at  12:12 AM

  2. I may have related this before here, if so, I apologize.

    Shortly after the (most recent) war in Iraq started or was about to be launched, I was in an auto parts store.  As I approached the counter with my purchase, a grizzled, late middle age employee at the counter was chatting with a co-worker about how “our boys over there are going to be having some fun now”.  I was highly offended, to say the least.  Out of my mouth, almost of their own volition, came the words “War is a failure of imagination.”  I’m not sure where I had acquired that phrase, but it was there, and giving it speech helped sooth me. 

    Of course, it had no visible effect on my “target”, and I believe I left without making my purchase.  It wasn’t just that I found his position repugnant (there are plenty of people all around who have the same twisted attitude,) but that he was so unqualified as a customer-facing representative of the company.

    So when I read this post today, I was taken back to that event, and the confluence of your phrase “violence is a failure to think ahead, to engage constructively, to pay what it costs for a better world”, which I find to be astonishingly eloquent and concise.

    Posted by WeeDram  on  12/06/09  at  10:35 AM

  3. Sue:  Good segue.  I decided to respond on my own blog, rather than hijack this thread:

    http://weedram.blogspot.com/2009/12/segue-into-health-care-discussion.html

    Posted by WeeDram  on  12/06/09  at  10:52 AM

  4. Eloquent post.

    I think Mr. Obama missed a historic opportunity to perhaps change the course of our nation and that of humanity.

    It obviously scared him.

    Posted by gerry rosser  on  12/06/09  at  11:00 AM

  5. Gerry, I agree that this is a missed opportunity.  However, he’s a difficult position given the decisions made prior and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It will be interesting to see what transpires, though that sounds crass given that there are lives at stake.

    Posted by WeeDram  on  12/06/09  at  11:31 AM

  6. Hi

    I don’t remember it as a peace symbol first, but as the logo for nuclear disarmament. It was “cloned” from the signalling flags N and D and appeared at various air stations around Britain, mainly American as well as a few British ones, by protesters against the placing of cruise missiles, aimed at the USSR, in the UK. Hippies may have co-opted it but it was never a peaceful symbol but a challenge to parliament over something local people had no control over.

    Posted by JohnR  on  12/07/09  at  08:00 AM

  7. WeeDram: I don’t think the decision was all that difficult. I think a weak man made a typical weak man’s decision not to rock the boat. Sadly for me, and my fellow Americans, we are in that sinking boat.

    This nation will be sadder and poorer for his decision to escalate the war in the alleged “nation” of Afghanistan, that’s my prediction. Of course, in our era of spin doctoring, we will undoubtedly have some “victory” in hand when we finally leave that benighted region. As I typed that, I was thinking how much better spin doctoring has gotten since we lost the idiotic war in Viet Nam. Of course, it’s possible that was such an abjectly stupid conflict, and such a humiliating exit, that not even modern methods could paint it as a victory.

    Posted by gerry rosser  on  12/07/09  at  09:53 AM

  8. I love this. I do hope readers take a moment to embrace the breath of fresh air in your post, to become inspired to do more than jump on a new debate.

    Thank you.

    Posted by Justice  on  12/07/09  at  10:14 AM

  9. Very good article.

    ...your phrase “violence is a failure to think ahead, to engage constructively, to pay what it costs for a better world”, which I find to be astonishingly eloquent and concise.

    I completely agree with WeeDram, that is a beautiful phrase.

    Posted by gruntled atheist  on  12/08/09  at  10:27 AM

  10. It took me a while to get around to reading this post, but I am ever so glad I found it.  With remarkable eloquence and economy you’ve transformed a complicated argument into something strikingly simple and compelling.  Wonderfully done…  Thanks!

    -Chris

    Posted by Chris Rhetts  on  01/20/10  at  07:07 PM

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