# Anarcho Pacifism

Anarcho pacifism (anpac) is a form of anarchism which categorically rejects any violence (even so called "self defense"). Anarcho pacifists argue that since anarchism opposes oppression and social hierarchy and since violence is the most prominent tool of oppression and hierarchy, it logically has to be rejected. This makes anarcho pacifism possibly the one truest and purest form of anarchism. This form of anarchism uses a black and white flag.

All (true) anarchists agree at least on the fact that as long as social hierarchy exists, it is going to be abused. And the same can be posited about violence -- if we allow but even rare instances of "justified violence", for example what is called "self defense" or "criminal punishment", it is inevitably going to be abused, as has been repeatedly witnessed in history. Probably most acts of the worst offensive violence imaginable have been justified as "self defense", "preventive measures", "provoked war" and so on, in a belief (possibly even justified) that "if we don't destroy them now, later on they will destroy us". An attack is defense too early, a defense is attack too late, and in the end they're all the same kind of violence. The only hope of ever abandoning the vicious circle of violence is to reject it under any circumstances, even for the risk of suffering "injustice".

Historically anarcho pacifists such as Leo Tolstoy and Petr Chelcicky were usually religiously motivated for rejecting violence, however this stance may also come from logic or other than religious beliefs, e.g. the simple belief that violence will only spawn more violence ("eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind"), or pure unconditional love of life which one simply feels and chooses to follow without the need for any further justification.

We, LRS, advocate anarcho pacifism. We see how violence can be a short term solution, even to preventing a harm of many, however from the long term perspective we only see the complete delegitimisation of violence as leading to a truly mature society. We realize a complete, 100% non violent society may be never achieved, but with enough education and work it will be possible to establish a society with absolute minimum of violence, a society in which firstly people grow up in a completely non violent environment so that they never accept violence, and secondly have all needs secured so that they don't even have a reason for using violence. We should at least try to get as close to this ideal as possible.

## See Also

- nonviolence
- Anarchism
- Jainism
- Buddhism