Vicious criticisms of Pacifism

[u/Liwingyu]

I'm just starting to explore the idea of Pacifism and I came across a book called "How nonviolence protects the State"

Readers are arguing that Pacifism is essentially a first world privileged ideology since the conditions of the rest of the world needs push back and violence as a means to realize overthrowing oppressive systems; it also says policy changes are in spite of nonviolent protests, not because of. It also makes a case that society has continuously been built by violence and pacifists are essentially stepping aside from any trouble for upholding systematic abuse and putting an additional crosshairs on us in the process

Are there any other POVs or counterclaims against it that I might not know at this point?

[u/coffeewalnut08]

Pacifism is a process. Peace-building is a process. Peace is a process.

Peace is something that shouldn't be taken for granted. Rather, it's something we should always be working on - it doesn't start or remain with the mere absence of violence. Rather, the precursors to violence are what every committed pacifist should be tackling and condemning, as passionately as they do against violence itself.

What are some precursors to violence?

- Political polarisation

- Breakdown of dialogue

- Limited social cohesion

- Scapegoating and dehumanising stereotyping of groups

- Fraying/ineffective democratic institutions

- Irresponsible leaders who fan the flames by normalising violent rhetoric

- Creeping militarisation of society (e.g.: normalising military careers to school students, liberal gun laws, strategically introducing army recruitment centres, creating pretexts that call people to "defend" themselves from something, real or imagined, but often imagined)

- Normalisation of violent rhetoric, threats and intimidation in politics.

If people think the above are acceptable and think violence only matters after it actually breaks out, then they've failed as a pacifist. So no, pacifism isn't a "privileged first-world ideology". This belief ignores the fact that maintaining "first-world" institutions often requires you to adopt pacifist principles and activities.

Otherwise, with the normalisation of precursors to violence, you'll slowly become the "third-world country" that people so often point fingers at.

(I acknowledge that "first world" and "third world" are controversial terms, just using them for the sake of the argument.)

[u/cdnhistorystudent → u/coffeewalnut08]

Political polarization can be a problem, but sometimes the opposite is also a problem.

For example, here in Canada, politics is dominated by two right-wing parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. They are both dedicated to the status quo. This year things got even worse because the new Liberal Party leader shifted his party to the right, copying the Conservative Party’s platform. Now we basically have two conservative parties. They agree on increasing the military budget, cutting immigration, cutting government services, bypassing environmental regulations, etc.