Pacifism is a Naive Belief System

As PRO has chosen not to advocate any moral merits of pacifism (which is unexpected since the operating definition of pacifism is specific to religion or morality), I will put that argument on ice and instead pivot to a discussion on violence in general and bring up a scenario that will encapsulate and demonstrate my arguments. ArgumentsViolenceV1) What exactly is violence? Merriam Webster (. http://www.merriam-webster.com...) gives several renditions: 1. exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse 2. injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation 3. intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force 4. undue alteration (as of wording or sense in editing a text) As one can see, violence is quite broad. There is the typical politico-military usage present in #1 where there is some sense of "harm" or "wrong-doing", violence in the natural sense in #3, and then the more commonplace usages that can pervade everyday life as found in #2 and #4 (example: "violent language"). I will argue that there is simply no reason to confine a discussion of violence to physical force, that #1 and #3 are inadequate for this discussion and that #2 and #4 must also be taken into consideration. Why is such a broadening not only appropriate, but absolutely required for this discussion? Consider any international conflict. Those that are typically found "most guilty" of war crimes and etc typically do not ever fire a gun. They do not ever engage in any "violence" per #1 or #3. Are such people truly "non-violent"? That is where #2 and #4 comes in. .. these generals, bureaucrats, and politicians do injury by distortion, infringement, and especially in the case of someone like Hitler, profanation. You may say that these people caused the physical force to come into being, and so they are part of the violence, regardless of whether or not they actually fired a gun. This then creates an exceptionally grey line in regards to separating violent from non-violent behavior. What about auto workers, who manufacture Civics and Cadillacs one day, only to manufacture tanks and humvees the next? Is this not a "distortion" of the auto worker's labor to cause injury? What about the restaurant owners who feed these auto workers? Where do you draw the line between violent and non-violent behavior, once you remove the requisite condition of direct "physical force"? V2) A more existential analysis reveals even more problems with advocating non-violence. What about breathing? Eating? Drinking? Are these not also, at an extremely basic level, exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse? You may ask, what are they injuring? Even if we were to exclude whatever organisms are being destroyed by the act of consumption and digestion, the answer lies in asking "what about other people who were thus denied food, water, and air due to our selfish needs? " Is their deprivation not injury? Is this not violence? You may say "this is absolutely absurd, I don't deprive anyone of anything just by eating or drinking or breathing. " Is this true? Food markets are global, and food is an absolute necessity - without food, people will die. When the US and other nations manipulate food prices, people on the other side of the world die:"Oddly, there had been no drought, the usual cause of malnutrition and hunger in southern Africa, and there was plenty of food in the markets. For no obvious reason the price of staple foods such as maize and rice nearly doubled in a few months. Unusually, too, there was no evidence that the local merchants were hoarding food. It was the same story in 100 other developing countries. There were food riots in more than 20 countries and governments had to ban food exports and subsidise staples heavily. " The explanation offered by the UN and food experts was that a "perfect storm" of natural and human factors had combined to hyper-inflate prices. US farmers, UN agencies said, had taken millions of acres of land out of production to grow biofuels for vehicles, oil and fertiliser prices had risen steeply, the Chinese were shifting to meat-eating from a vegetarian diet, and climate-change linked droughts were affecting major crop-growing areas. The UN said that an extra 75m people became malnourished because of the price rises. " [1] This is violence. Even had these poorer countries not rioted, not even lifted a finger in resistance, the people in these malnourished countries still would have either died of starvation, or would have "voluntarily" reduced their own populations by not having children, since they would not have been able to afford to have them, as they couldn't even feed themselves. Now, if it is ever found that such policies are deliberate efforts to starve developing countries, then there would be another word used for this behavior: "genocide". Unfortunately, the goals of such policies are known:"emerging policies in the US and the EU are having the opposite effect; they are protecting and raising incomes for their farmers at the expense of fair prices that would help raise incomes among poor, smallholder farmers in developing countries. " [2]Farm subsidies have a long history, and are not confined to any nation nor any period in the last century. [3]The conclusion we must reach here is that trade is violence. Trade, when it injures or abuses others, results in material harm and causes violence, delivered by the physical force that is the internal combustion system within our own bodies, which are also inherently violent. As you can see, the issue of violence is broad indeed. V3) What isn't violent, then? I contend nothing. Every single human action, reaction, and interaction is inherently violent. To demand non-violence is thus to demand non-existence. To advocate a policy of non-violence is naive and absurd, because it ignores the inherently violent nature of our being as well as our natural surroundings. It is akin to advocating mass suicide and precludes procreation for any reason. ScenarioI will now change course from the philosophical mindset into something a bit more practical. I will proffer a simple scenario to illustrate the inevitability of violence:Imagine two villages situated on two different rivers 50 miles apart; we will call one river Salmon River with the village Salmonville, and the other River O' Plenty with the village called Agri-town. Both are "peaceful" with no military or militias. Salmon River rarely, if ever, floods; thus the residents of Salmonville live a peaceful and tranquil life. However, the population of Salmonville is restricted by the salmon in the river. River O' Plenty on the other hand floods often. The banks and surrounding lands are perfect for agriculture, and so Agri-town has indeed built intricate levees and irrigation canals to take advantage of the rich soil. This town can grow almost without bound. .. all they have to do is redirect more water from their river, which seems to be almost bottomless. Thus, Agri-town is 10 times the size of Salmonville. One day, a massive storm hits the area, which causes unprecedented flooding on River O' Plenty. All of the levees are compromised, the town is destroyed, and most of the irrigation works are destroyed. Furthermore, it was a flash storm, so many of the residents of Agri-town die in the storm and subsequent flooding. Agri-town is now a gigantic pool of refugees. They have nowhere to go but Salmonville, so they go. The residents of Salmonville cannot support these refugees. They do their best to ration their own food out of generosity, but even this is not enough. People are going to die, no matter what happens at this juncture. The only question is how they will die. How will we deal with this problem?1) Libertarianism: The libertarian solution to this problem is that the residents of Salmonville did nothing wrong and are not obligated to support any of the Agri-town refugees, so the refugees slowly but surely die off.2) Realism: A realist solution is that both sides will see their existence threatened. By advocating for their own respective existences at the expense of the other, they reach a disagreement. They settle this disagreement. .. but they cannot do it legally since Agri-town is not subject to the laws of Salmonville. There is no law that can determine who is right, so they settle it through some sort of competition, some sort of conflict. This competition, this conflict, is called war. Some practical considerations are that if all of the denizens of either village completely die off, so will the accumulated knowledge of that village (i. e. fishing and farming). Therefore, it is in the interests of both villages to have some villagers from both villages survive this ordeal. The libertarian solution thus becomes rather impractical, as it would call for the complete and voluntary extermination of Agri-town by starvation and suicide, lest the property rights of Salmonville are infringed.3) Pacifism: How does pacifism fit in to this scenario? I will challenge my opponent to offer her case. As it stands, I contend that if both sides were pacifistic (given they did not already commit mass suicide per [V3]) , then Agri-town refugees would die off in a libertarian-like solution. If only one side was pacifistic, then that side will get enslaved by the other. If neither are pacifistic, there will be war, per realism. ConclusionPacifism is impractical and naive on at least two levels:1) Our very natures are violent - to advocate non-violence is to advocate non-existence.2) If one does not account for the philosophical argument, pacifism still results in enslavement or death. I await CON's argument and look forward to an interesting case. [1] . http://www.theguardian.com...[2] . http://www.ifpri.org...[3] . http://www.econlib.org...