It's important to note that quite a few Quakers fought in the American civil war to end slavery through violence. Maybe they were wrong to do that, but it's important to note that Quakers are not...
It's important to note that quite a few Quakers fought in the American civil war to end slavery through violence. Maybe they were wrong to do that, but it's important to note that Quakers are not a monolith and their approach to pacifism isn't singular.
I identify as an atheist Quaker, which is an easy stance to take as the religion is fairly humanist as far as Christian religions go. So I don't really believe "there is that of God in everyone". Without a concept of God the statement feels meaningless to me. My dad has used that phrase in the context of Donald Trump. I don't really understand what utility it has in our discussions of the man. He's proven himself to be a narcissist. It seems there is only that of Donald Trump within Donald Trump.
I was raised on absolutist pacifism. And for individuals in almost all modern situations that's a good rule. But religion has a tendency to round up general rules into absolutes. I doubt you'd get many people to agree on a strong rule with a few exceptions. Once exceptions are allowed you invite debate about which are blessed. It's much easier to say "No, never." and now you can all agree on a very simple - but difficult - rule.
I am, strictly speaking, an “attender” and not a “member” of my Quaker meeting. Most of the time this barely matters, but I think about it a lot. I worry that I am not enough of a pacifist to officially join. I have been inspired by pacifists in many ways, throughout my life, but I don’t see how it can ever really work, as a general rule. [....]
Mary Dyer’s pacifism has been on my mind, lately, courtesy of an internet commenter who tried to convince me that women’s freedoms will always be dependent on the men who fight for them. Freedom was, in his view, the product of force and only force. I wonder.
Mary Dyer was born a Massachusetts Puritan in 1611. She was driven out of her community for heresy, went to England, and became a Quaker. When she returned to Massachusetts, she was imprisoned and then banished, on pain of death, for her religious views. She defied that banishment multiple times, and was eventually sentenced to death by hanging in 1660.
...
John Woolman would have liked to be a martyr like Mary Dyer. The Quaker history that he had been taught growing up had specific ideas about what heroism ought to consist of, and frequently it consisted of dying for your beliefs. But Woolman was born in 1720, and there were no longer any places nearby for him to prove his convictions by being executed for religious freedom.
Woolman had to content himself with other causes. Abolitionism was not yet an official Quaker position, and some of his neighbors still kept people in slavery. Woolman set out to persuade them. [...]
...
Did Woolman win? Slavery was eventually abolished, though Woolman didn’t live to see that happen even amongst Quakers, let alone in the wider United States that didn’t yet exist when he died. And slavery was abolished in violence and war — a war in which Woolman himself would certainly never have fought, devout pacifist as he was.
Pacifism can offer false moral clarity if you don’t think hard enough about it. Eschewing violence does not just risk martyrdom. It risks passivity, even complicity. The standard Quaker response to this is to continue to seek other actions besides violence that are possible and meaningful.
Pacifism at its best turns away from the shiny narrative power of violence, its justifications and its allure, and looks for something better beyond the conflict. It is said that liberty is bought with the blood of patriots, and sometimes it is, but liberty is invented by the peacemakers, scrabbling techniques out of the dirt for ways to live together without killing each other.
One thing I keep realizing, as I watch Americans wrangling over the future of their country, is that there is a sense in which principled liberals are pacifists, in practice, even when they would never call themselves pacifists by conviction. Like pacifism, liberalism is committed to persuasion as an alternative to violence. Like pacifism, liberalism is difficult in practice, risking complicity at every turn. And this is not surprising, because liberalism was at least partly created by pacifists.
...
You cannot put the good into people, or societies, or countries, but you can try to grow whatever good may already be there. I know that there is a lot of good in America yet. I have faith that, no matter what, some good will remain.
It's important to note that quite a few Quakers fought in the American civil war to end slavery through violence. Maybe they were wrong to do that, but it's important to note that Quakers are not a monolith and their approach to pacifism isn't singular.
I identify as an atheist Quaker, which is an easy stance to take as the religion is fairly humanist as far as Christian religions go. So I don't really believe "there is that of God in everyone". Without a concept of God the statement feels meaningless to me. My dad has used that phrase in the context of Donald Trump. I don't really understand what utility it has in our discussions of the man. He's proven himself to be a narcissist. It seems there is only that of Donald Trump within Donald Trump.
I was raised on absolutist pacifism. And for individuals in almost all modern situations that's a good rule. But religion has a tendency to round up general rules into absolutes. I doubt you'd get many people to agree on a strong rule with a few exceptions. Once exceptions are allowed you invite debate about which are blessed. It's much easier to say "No, never." and now you can all agree on a very simple - but difficult - rule.
From the essay:
...
...
...