Weekly Music Posting - We Shall Be Free - Garth Brooks
So I was called a pacifist this week. It wasn't a label I assigned to myself, really, so it caught me off guard a little, which in turn made me think about it. With that in mind, I've decided that Garth Brooks' We Shall Be Free will be the music posting for this week.
So, lets start at the beginning, the definition. Pacifisim: opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes.
Entirely true. I believe war and violence as means to settle disputes is a flaw of human behavior. I'm not dumb enough to say that I believe we can just shut down war and military tomorrow, I know that to lay down arms when your opposition does not is to set yourself up for slaughter. However, I do not believe in being the aggressor. Defense is the only acceptable form of violence, for me, because it's not really violence.
I believe that greed, hate, prejudice, and ignorance are the roots of war, and if we come to our brothers and sisters of humanity with contentment, love, respect, and knowledge, we will be able to work toward peace and balance for everyone. We need to stop trying to control the world, because the world does not belong to us, it is not ours to control. We are just part of her history. If global warming goes to the extent that it wipes out humanity, it is just her way of finding balance for herself, purging herself of the impurity our "taker" culture is. We need to stop trying to change her, but rather fit into the world she has for us before she goes to the extent she needs to on her own. I don't believe this means learning to harness her, or manipulate her, but rather living with her, moving back to a "leaver" culture.
I digress. Pacifism. I believe violence solves nothing, not in personal, cultural, or national conversations or disputes, it just feeds the disagreement, creates victims seeking retribution. When Germany lost WWI it gave Hitler the opportunity to harness the feelings of destitution and humiliation of the German people to focus on his dream of the thousand-year Reich and WWII. If you fight the violence of current neo-Nazi's protest at a pride event with squirt guns of bleach, you will not persuade them to stop committing hate crimes, they will just feel more justified in their attacks and do so, more then likely, with more vigar. This is not to say you could also sit down with them, or to condone their behavior in anyway, but to say that your energy and planning would find more use educating the young and supporting the people at the pride event.
I do not believe to be a pacifist you must submit to every argument, or that healthy debate is not in a pacifists belief set, it is debate and disagreement that takes us further in life, but that the disagreement must be respectful and understanding, and with the knowledge that we are all human beings.
So now, with conviction, I can say I am a pacifist.
But, if you want to wrestle, any time, let me know. :)