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Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901.
- Overview
- Early religious and philosophical movements
- Political influences
- Arguments for and against pacifism
- Types of pacifism
pacifism, the principled opposition to war and violence as a means of settling disputes. Pacifism may entail the belief that the waging of war by a state and the participation in war by an individual are absolutely wrong, under any circumstances.
In the ancient world, war was taken for granted as a necessary evil by some societies, while in others it was not even regarded as an evil. Individual voices in various lands decried the evils of war, but the first genuinely pacifist movement known came from Buddhism, whose founder (the Buddha) demanded from his followers absolute abstention from any act of violence against their fellow creatures. In India the great Buddhist-influenced king Ashoka in the 3rd century bce definitely renounced war, but he was thinking primarily of wars of conquest. In succeeding ages Buddhism does not seem to have been very successful in restraining the rulers of countries in which it was adopted from making war. This may be because the Buddhist rule of life, as generally understood, served as a counsel of perfection which comparatively few could be expected to follow in its entirety.
In classical antiquity, pacifism remained largely an ideal in the minds of a few intellectuals. The Greek conceptions of peace—including that of Stoicism—were centred on the peaceful conduct of the individual rather than on the conduct of whole peoples or kingdoms. In Rome the achievement of pax, or peace, was defined as a covenant between states or kingdoms that creates a “just” situation and that rests upon bilateral recognition. This judicial approach was applicable only to the “civilized world,” however. Thus, the Pax Romana of approximately the 1st and 2nd centuries ce was not really universal, because it was always regarded as a peace for the civilized world alone and excluded “barbarians.” And since the barbarian threat never ended, neither did the wars Rome waged to protect its frontiers against this threat.
Since the European Renaissance, Western concepts of pacifism have been developed with varying degrees of political influence. A great deal of pacifist thought in the 17th and 18th centuries was based on the idea that a transfer of political power from the sovereigns to the people was a crucial step toward world peace, since wars were thought of as arising from the dynastic ambitions and power politics of kings and princes. Thus was propagated the view that monarchies tended toward wars because the sovereigns regarded their states as their personal property and that, compared to this, a republic would be peaceful.
The offshoot of these theories was the creation of pacifist organizations in 19th-century Europe in which such ideas as general disarmament and the instigation of special courts to hear international conflicts were entertained. The theme of pacifism thereby caught the public interest and inspired an extensive literature. Some of these ideas were later realized in the Court of Arbitration (a precursor of the International Court of Justice) in The Hague, the League of Nations, the United Nations, and disarmament conferences and treaties such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) between the Soviet Union and the United States beginning in the 1970s. Pacifist ideals also played a significant role in the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas K. Gandhi, the U.S. civil rights movement, the worldwide movement to abolish nuclear weapons (see antinuclear movement), and the student movements in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and ’70s.
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There are two general approaches or varieties of pacifist behaviour and aspirations. One rests on the advocacy of pacifism and the complete renunciation of war as a policy to be adopted by a country. The other stems from the ethical conviction of individuals and groups that participation in any act of war, and perhaps in any act of violence, is morally wrong.
The arguments for pacifism as a possible national policy run on familiar lines. The obvious and admitted evils of war are stressed—the human suffering and loss of life, the economic damage, and, perhaps above all, the moral and spiritual degradation war brings. After World War II increasing emphasis was laid on the terrible powers of destruction latent in nuclear weapons. Pacifist advocates often assume that the abandonment of war as an instrument of national policy will not be possible until the world community has become so organized that it can enforce justice among its members. The nonpacifist would, in general, accept what the pacifist says about the evils of war and the need for international organization. But he would claim that the pacifist has not faced squarely the possible evils that would result from the alternative policy of a country’s nonresistance in the face of external aggression: the possible subjection of conquered peoples to regimes that would suppress just those values that the pacifist stands for.
Pacifism as practiced by individuals and groups is a relatively common phenomenon compared with national pacifism. Members of several small Christian sects who try to follow literally the precepts of Jesus have refused to participate in military service in many countries and have been willing to suffer the criminal or civil penalties that followed....
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jul 6, 2006 · Pacifism. First published Thu Jul 6, 2006; substantive revision Mon May 8, 2023. Pacifism is a commitment to peace and opposition to war. Our ordinary language allows a diverse set of beliefs and commitments to be held together under the general rubric of pacifism.
Pacifism is the theory that peaceful rather than violent or belligerent relations should govern human intercourse and that arbitration, surrender, or migration should be used to resolve disputes. Pacifism is as much an element of Western thinking as is the notion of Just War Theory, the argument that the state may legitimately or morally bear arms.
The meaning of PACIFISM is opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes; specifically : refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds. How to use pacifism in a sentence.
pacifism , The doctrine that war and violence as a means of settling disputes is morally wrong. The first genuinely pacifist movement was Buddhism, whose founder demanded from his followers absolute abstention from any act of violence against their fellow creatures.
Jul 6, 2006 · First published Thu Jul 6, 2006. Pacifism is a commitment to peace and opposition to war. Our ordinary language allows a diverse set of beliefs and commitments to be held together under the general rubric of pacifism. This article will explain the family resemblance among the variety of pacifisms.
