September 2011
50 posts
What Would You Do If?
By Joan Baez
Fred: OK. So you’re a pacifist. What would you do if someone were, say, attacking your grandmother?
Joan: Attacking my poor old grandmother?
Fred: Yeah, you’re in a room with your grandmother and there’s a guy about to attack her and you’re standing there. What would you do?
Joan: I’d yell, “Three cheers for Grandma!” and leave the room.”
Fred: No, seriously. Say he had a gun and he was about to shoot her. Would you shoot him first?
Joan: Do I have a gun?
Fred: Yes
Joan: No. I’m a pacifist, I don’t have a gun.
Fred: Well, I say you do.
Joan: All right. Am I a good shot?
Fred: Yes.
Joan: I’d shoot the gun out of his hand.
Fred: No, then you’re not a good shot.
Joan: I’d be afraid to shoot. Might kill Grandma.
Fred: Come on, OK, look. We’ll take another example. Say, you’re driving a truck. You’re on a narrow road with a sheer cliff on your side. There’s a little girl sitting in the middle of the road. You’re going too fast to stop. What would you do?
Joan: I don’t know. What would you do?
Fred: I’m asking you. You’re the pacifist.
Joan: Yes, I know. All right, am I in control of the truck?
Fred: Yes.
Joan: How about if I honk my horn so she can get out of the way?
Fred: She’s too young to walk. And the horn doesn’t work.
Joan: I swerve around to the left of her since she’s not going anywhere.
Fred: No, there’s been a landslide.
Joan: Oh. Well then, I would try to drive the truck over the cliff and save the little girl.
Silence
Fred: Well, say there’s someone else in the truck with you. Then what?
Joan: What’s my decision have to do with my being a pacifist?
Fred: There’s two of you in the truck and only one little girl.
Joan: Someone once said if you have a choice between a real evil and a hypothetical evil, always take the real one.
Fred: Huh?
Joan:: I said, why are you so anxious to kill off all the pacifists?
Fred: I’m not. I just want to know what you’d do if…
Joan: If I was in a truck with a friend driving very fast on a one-lane road approaching a dangerous impasse where a ten-month old girl is sitting in the middle of the road with a landslide on one side of her and a sheer drop-off on the other.
Fred: That’s right.
Joan: I would probably slam on the brakes, thus sending my friend through the windscreen, skid into the landslide, run over the little girl, sail off the cliff and plunge to my own death. No doubt Grandma’s house would be at the bottom of the ravine and the truck would crash through her roof and blow up in her living room where she was finally being attacked for the first, and last, time.
Fred: You haven’t answered my question. You’re just trying to get out of it…
Joan: - I’m really trying to say a couple of things. One is that no one knows what they’ll do in a moment of crisis and hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers. I’m also hinting that you’ve made it impossible for me to come out of the situation without having killed one or more people. Then you say, ‘Pacifism is a nice idea, but it won’t work’. But that’s not what bothers me.
Fred: What bothers you?
Joan: Well, you might not like it because it’s not hypothetical.
It’s real. And it makes the assault on Grandma look like a garden party.
Fred: What’s that?
Joan: I’m thinking about how we put people through a training process so they’ll find out the really good, efficient ways of killing. Nothing incidental like trucks and landslides. Just the opposite, really. You know, how to growl and yell, kill and crawl and jump out of airplanes. Real organized stuff. Hell, you have to be able to run a bayonet through Grandma’s middle.
Fred: That’s something entirely different.
Joan: Sure. And don’t you see it’s much harder to look at, because its real, and it’s going on right now? Look. A general sticks a pin into a map. A week later a bunch of young boys are sweating it out in a jungle somewhere, shooting each other’s arms and legs off, crying, praying and losing control of their bowels. Doesn’t it seem stupid to you?
Fred: Well, you’re talking about war.
Joan: Yes, I know. Doesn’t it seem stupid to you?
Fred: What do you do instead, then? Turn the other cheek, I suppose.
Joan: No. Love thine enemy but confront his evil. Love thine enemy. Thou shalt not kill.
Fred: Yeah, and look what happened to him.
Joan: He grew up.
Fred: They hung him on a damn cross is what happened to him. I don’t want to get hung on a damn cross.
Joan: You won’t.
Fred: Huh?
Joan: I said you don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you are going to live. Now.
Fred: Well, I’m not going to go letting everybody step all over me, that’s for sure.
Joan: Jesus said, “Resist not evil.” The pacifist says just the opposite. He says to resist evil with all your heart and with all your mind and body until it has been overcome.
Fred: I don’t get it.
Joan: Organized nonviolent resistance. Gandhi. He organized the Indians for nonviolent resistance and waged nonviolent war against the British until he’d freed India from the British Empire. Not bad for a first try, don’t you think?
Fred: yeah, fine, but he was dealing with the British, a civilized people. We’re not.
Joan: Not a civilized people?
Fred: Not dealing with a civilized people. You just try some of that stuff on the Russians.
Joan: You mean the Chinese, don’t you?
Fred: Yeah, the Chinese, try it on the Chinese.
Joan: Oh, dear. War was going on long before anybody dreamed up communism. It’s just the latest justification for self-righteousness. The problem isn’t communism. The problem is consensus. There’s a consensus out there that it’s OK to kill when your government decides who to kill. If you kill inside the country, you get in trouble. If you kill outside the country, right time, right season, latest enemy, you get a medal. There are about 130 nation-states, and each of them thinks it’s a swell idea to bump off all the rest because he is more important. The pacifist thinks there is only one tribe. Three billion members. They come first. We think killing any member of the family is a dumb idea. We think there are more decent and intelligent ways of settling differences. And man had better start investigating these other possibilities because if he doesn’t, then by mistake or by design, he will probably kill off the whole damn race.
Fred: It’s human nature to kill. Something you can’t change.
Joan: Is it? If it’s natural to kill, why do men have to go into training to learn how? There’s violence in human nature, but there’s also decency, love, kindness. Man organizes, buys, sells, pushes violence. The nonviolent wants to organize the opposite side. That’s all nonviolence is - organized love.
Fred: You’re crazy.
Joan: No doubt. Would you care to tell me the rest of the world is sane? Tell me that violence has been a great success for the past five thousand years, that the world is in fine shape, that wars have brought peace, understanding, democracy, and freedom to humankind and that killing each other has created an atmosphere of trust and hope. That it’s grand for one billion people to live off of the other two billion, or that even if it hadn’t been smooth going all along, we are now at last beginning to see our way though to a better world for all, as soon as we get a few minor wars out of the way.
Fred: I’m doing OK.
Joan: Consider it a lucky accident.
Fred: I believe I should defend America and all that she stands for. Don’t you believe in self-defense?
Joan: No, that’s how the mafia got started. A little band of people who got together to protect peasants. I’ll take Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance.
Fred:: I still don’t get the point of nonviolence.
Joan:: The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, nuclear bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand. He’s been wallowing around in human blood and vomit and burnt flesh, screaming how it’s going to bring peace to the world. He sticks his head out of the hole for a minute and sees a bunch of people gathering together and trying to build a structure above ground in the fresh air. ‘Nice idea, but not very practical’, he shouts and slides back into the hole. It was the same kind of thing when man found out the world was round. He fought for years to have it remain flat, with every proof on hand that it was not flat at all. It had no edge to drop off or sea monsters to swallow up his little ship in their gaping jaws.
Fred: How are you going to build this practical structure?
Joan: From the ground up. By studying, experimenting with every possible alternative to violence on every level. By learning how to say no to the nation-state, ‘NO’ to war taxes, ‘NO’ to military conscription, ‘NO’ to killing in general, ‘YES’ to co-operation, by starting new institutions which are based on the assumption that murder in any form is ruled out, by making and keeping in touch with nonviolent contacts all over the world, by engaging ourselves at every possible chance in dialogue with people, groups, to try to change the consensus that it’s OK to kill.
Fred: : It sounds real nice, but I just don’t think it can work.
Joan: : You are probably right. We probably don’t have enough time. So far, we’ve been a glorious flop. The only thing that’s been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.
This reading is from The Class of Nonviolence, prepared by Colman McCarthy of the Center for Teaching Peace, 4501 Van Ness Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 202/537-1372
“Well,” says the objector, “I should like to know how you would manage matters if the ruffian should actually break into your house with settled intent to rob and murder. Would you shrink back like a coward and see your wife and children slaughtered before your eyes?” I cannot tell how I might act in such a dreadful emergency – how weak and frail I should prove. But I can tell how I ought to act – how I should wish to act. If I am a firm, consistent non-resistant, I should prove myself no coward; for it requires the noblest courage and the highest fortitude to be a true non-resistant. If I am what I ought to be, I should be calm and unruffled by the alarm at my door. I should meet my wretched fellow-man with a spirit, an air, a salutation, and a deportment so Christ-like, so little expected, so confounding, and so morally irresistible that in all probability his weapons of violence and death would fall harmless to his side. I would say, “Friend, why do you come here? Surely not to injure those who wish you nothing but good? This house is one of peace and friendship to all mankind. If you are cold, warm yourself at our fire; if hungry, refresh yourself at our table; if you are weary, sleep in our bed; if you are destitute, poor, and needy, freely take of our goods. Come, let us be friends, that God may keep us all from evil and bless us with his protection.” What would be the effect of such treatment as this? Would it not completely overcome the feelings of the invader, so as either to make him retreat inoffensively out of the house, or at least forbear all meditated violence? Would it not be incomparably safer than to rush to the shattered door, half distracted with alarm, grasping some deadly weapon and bearing it aloft, looking fiery wrath and mad defiance at the enemy? How soon would follow the mortal encounter, and how extremely uncertain the outcome? The moment I appeared in such an attitude (just the thing expected), would not ruffian’s coolness and well-trained muscular force be almost sure to seal the fate of my family and myself? But in acting the non-resistant part, should I not be likely, in nine cases out of ten, to escape with perfect safety?”
—Adin Ballou, Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments, 15-16
“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”
—Albert Camus (via socialistscum)
“Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies, and surroundings inspiring to live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no talk of wealth. What he gives to the world are only gray and hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence – too weak to live, too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening method of centralized production as the proudest achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we are to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete than was our bondage to the king. They do not want to know that centralization is not only the deathknell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clocklike, mechanical atmosphere.”
—Emma Goldman
“Look at yourselves. Some of you teen-agers, students. How do you think I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you - how do you think I feel to have to tell you, “We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its human rights - and you’ve got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight.” What did we do, who preceded you? I’ll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don’t you make the same mistake we made.”
—Malcolm X, December 31, 1964
“The stories in Genesis had a context within which they were first understood. And that context was not a modern scientific one but an ancient mythic one. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether YHWH, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship.”
—
Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation
Fantastic read if you are anything like me and have wrestled with the Old Testament text ever since you were in high school.
(via existtheblog)
Another book to put on my list.
(via kre-do)
Stop Prison Rape
Every year, over 90,000 women are raped in the United States.
You might know this already. You might even talk about it, argue about why it happens, the effect it has on people, how to stop it.
What is less well-known is that every year, over 140,000 men are raped in the United States.
No one talks about it because it happens inside of prisons. No one cares about it because it happens to prisoners. On the inside, guards use rape (both implied and actual) as a form of prisoner control. On the outside, people joke about it. Worse even, they see it as a form of punishment prisoners should endure, even though rape inside of a prison is an order of magnitude more likely to transmit a disease than rape outside of one.
This is what 140,000 people looks like:
Every time you hear about an Afghan village destroyed by predator drones, or a journalist in Iraq blown up by US missiles, or a school full of Libyan children with Down-syndrome annihilated by NATO bombs, these are the ever-growing victims of 9/11.
Honor the memory of the 3000 victims who died ten years ago today by demanding an end to the wars.
“It’s about time for you and me to stop running away from the wolf and right into the arms of the fox looking for some kind of help.”
—Malcolm X
Play
“The price of freedom is death.”
—Malcolm X, NYC, June 1964
I honestly can't believe people still say,
“I’m proud to live in America because it’s a free country.”
“Anarchists, I hate it when anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists/socialists get into fights about who’s a “real” anarchist. Do you actually comprehend the philosophy? Anarchy is not “left” or “right.” Anarchy is the absence of the state; it centers around fostering a society where people freely associate without the force of government. That’s all it is. It does not “believe” in capitalism versus socialism. It can support both the Goldmans and the de Cleyres of the world. You can believe in both, but you just can’t believe that any government has the right to control the economy or our lives. That’s crucial enough.”
—
Daisy Vo (via disobey)
This quote knows what’s up.
“Statism is the claim that institutionalized proactive coercion is justified.”
—bkMarcus, Isn’t Anarchism Unrealistic?
“When you fight evil with evil - evil wins.”
—
People will always believe what the media tells them, that is pretty obvious where i live, im pretty tired, its 3am so ill talk some other time, bye :)
Bertrand Russell once said, “Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.”
Wow. It’s 10:30 over here. That puts you in… the same time zone as London I believe.
Goodnight!
P.S. You don’t have to stay anonymous
I don't support any religion, I think it leads to corruption within the religion, I believe there is a God, but I choose to trust in myself, I younger than most people who are interested in politics , young enough for people to dismiss my beliefs as a phase, but I don't see the ''trendiness'' in anarchy. The way I see the world has depressed me but I still have a sliver of hope for the future, I'm rambling a bit, did I answer your question?
I don’t support any religion, either. Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. Every religion he saw he said was hypocritical and corrupt. He also said that when two people meet, “I am there, too.” When religion becomes organized, it loses its purpose.
You did, yes!
I don’t see anarchism as trendy, either. Actually, it upsets me when they look over it like that. There is so much deep thought and political philosophy behind it. People pass it off as being a violent revolutionary. But it’s really not that.
I have a few questions about anarchy. Maybe you could send me a link, suggest an author, or philosophy that answers them? 1- How do we sustain anarchy? 2-How do we stop murder with anarchy? 3- How do wee protect the helpless in anarchy? 4- How do we create a peaceful anarchy?/is that possible?5- How do we get others to understand the value of anarchy?6- How should an anarchist act in the states? 7- How do we most quickly explain tyhe value of anarchy to people who don't support it?
I can definitely do that! I must warn you that the answer you get is entirely dependent on the person you ask. Now, for me, I have two anarchist societies I think would be workable. One is Christian anarchism. The other is free-market anarchism (many people confuse free-markets and corporatism, so be sure not to).
Free-market anarchism is what I would support for secular communities.
So, to answer your questions.
1. I hope I’m not assuming too much - but I imagine you can see how things like schools would work without the state. It’s pretty easy to see how things that are necessary would work without the state (simply supply/demand theory will say that if there is a demand - if the product is necessary - supply will meet it). Most people only have an issue with two things: Law and Defense. For the answers to those two questions, I would suggest this book called, Chaos Theory by an economist named Robert P. Murphy. He’s incredible. It’s pretty short, too. Here is the link to the book: http://mises.org/books/chaostheory.pdf
2. This is answered in the book.
3. I’m not sure what you mean by helpless. Can you elaborate?
4. Yes! It’s very much a possibility! Chaos Theory does a good job dealing with this question.
5. I think most people really do see the value in it - they just meet a stumbling block. A societal construct that stems from a faulty understanding of anarchism. People just assume that it means you’re a molotov throwing violent revolutionary. Once you tell them you’re not (unless you are), then explain that we simply value freedom, liberty, non-agression, etc. they’ll usually agree that those are all valuable. Then they simply have to overcome the intellectual barriers (law, violence, defense, etc).
6. This one is difficult. I would suggest finding the perfect balance between not supporting the state and getting the word out about anarchy. For example, if you said something like, “Oh, well, the roads and sidewalks were paved through funds by the government - I’m not going to walk or drive anywhere” you really wouldn’t be very useful for spreading the good news of anarchism. So, I think that if you find a good balance between functioning in the world and subverting the state - you’ll be golden.
7. By value, do you mean values such as freedom and liberty? I think those are pretty universally accepted and valuable. Haha. If you mean value in the realization of anarchism - I like to use two examples.
A. Science. The field of physics, for example, has no leader. Physics is an example of anarchy. However, physics is extremely orderly. There are steps to take to publish articles, get it reviewed, etc.
B. (I like this one better.) Language. No one decides what words will mean. They become a part of society almost mysteriously. You might be saying, “The dictionary, duhhhh.” Well, what does the dictionary really do? All they do is codify the existing and accepted meaning. If Webster’s changed “down” to mean “moving toward the sky” you wouldn’t think, “Crap! We’ve been wrong all along!” No, you would just stop using Websters. This is how the society would work. Private law would just stem from the accepted norm. You might be wondering how law would work in anarchism. For that answer, read Chaos Theory.
Hope this helps!
Let me know if you have any other thoughts on the subject. =)
What I mean is how can you be an anarchist and serve a master, as you say in your description, ''follow Jesus''.
I see.
Anarchism, as I understand it, is against coercion. It’s against rule by the use of force. It would be oversimplifying things if one just said, “Anarchists cannot serve anything.”
Anarchists simply reject coercive rule and authority through force.
However, I choose to follow Christ - I am not coerced or forced to follow Jesus.
I hope that helps!
Are you a Christian statist?
How can you call yourself an anarchist while obeying God? No prejudice, just wondering.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? I don’t see the conflict. Haha.
I’m glad you’re a, “just wondering” person. Most people are all, “YOU SUCK YOU DON’T ACTUALLY LOVE GOD.”
So I’m glad you’re going to be different. =)
Do you like Justin Bieber?
I don’t like his music… if that’s what you’re asking.
But I love him. Gotta love my enemies, right? Haha.
You claim Anarchist and you love Love god? That's like saying I'm a vegatarian that eats meat...
No, it’s not.
Anarchism is the logical conclusion of Christ’s teachings. There are inherent aspects of Jesus’s message that lead to the rejection of the state (not resisting evil, not serving two masters, not judging, loving your enemy, not fighting evil with evil, etc.).
Just read the Sermon on the Mount then ask yourself, “Does the state meet these?”
(Hint: Your answer will be no.)
“The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.”
—Emma Goldman, “What is Anarchy?”
“I am a passionate seeker for truth and just as strong an opponent of the corrupting lies, through which the party of order – this privileged, official, and interested representative of all religions, philosophical political, legal economical, and social outrage in the past and present – has tried to keep the world in ignorance. I love freedom with all my heart. It is the only condition under which the intelligence, the manliness, and happiness of the people, can develop and expand. By freedom, however, I naturally understand not its mere form, forced down as from above, measured and controlled by the state, this eternal lie which in reality, is nothing but the privilege of the few founded upon the slavery of all. Nor do I mean that “individualistic,” selfish, petty, and mock freedom, which is propagated by J.J. Rousseau and all other schools of bourgeois liberalism. The mock freedom which is limited by the supposed right of all, and defended by the state, and leads inevitably to the destruction of the rights of the individual. No: I mean the only true freedom, that worthy of the name; the liberty which consists therein for everyone to develop all the material, intellectual, and moral faculties which lie dormant in him; the liberty which knows and recognizes no limitations beyond those which nature decrees. In this sense, there are no limitations, for the laws of our own nature are not forced upon us by a law-giver who, beside or above us, sits on a throne.”
—Mikhail Bakunin, a labor organizer, 1870, The Commune, the Church, and the State
