Whose Peace?

Peace, we all know, is one of those big abstractions, like Home and Truth and Mother and Freedom, that everyone is for, just as we are all against War, Tyranny, Crime and Sin. The universality of the attitudes proves them to be mere verbal reflexes, without significant meaning until we relate them to place and time.

A “pacifist” is, like you and me, for Peace. According to classic definition, what a pacifist means by this is opposition to war “as an institution.” If his pacifism is genuine, he is against war of any kind—international or civil, conventional or guerrilla—no matter by whom conducted; and applying his doctrine, he refuses to take part in, or support, any war. The genuine pacifist is therefore prepared to go to jail, or even to be shot, without whimpering, in witness to his truth.

JB

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James Burnham

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Peace, we all know, is one of those big abstractions, like Home and Truth and Mother and Freedom, that everyone is for, just as we are all against War, Tyranny, Crime and Sin. The universality of the attitudes proves them to be mere verbal reflexes, without significant meaning until we relate them to place and time.

A “pacifist” is, like you and me, for Peace. According to classic definition, what a pacifist means by this is opposition to war “as an institution.” If his pacifism is genuine, he is against war of any kind—international or civil, conventional or guerrilla—no matter by whom conducted; and applying his doctrine, he refuses to take part in, or support, any war. The genuine pacifist is therefore prepared to go to jail, or even to be shot, without whimpering, in witness to his truth.