“Warmongers often claim that they are only being realistic, that peace is a great idea and all but that’s just not how the world works. This claim of realism is often just a narrowing of events and an ignoring of the context of the situation. It’s not being realistic, but simplistic. They claim to be offering sober judgement but often this involves not addressing the larger historical reasons behind a crisis and the policy alternatives that were not attempted. Furthermore, as every incursion into the Middle East has shown us, these “realists” have no fucking idea what comes after the violence. Their realism is as idealistic as pacifism; we’ve just been told one idea is for serious adults while the other is a neat idea for songs by hippies.”

The above quote comes from an article in Vice written by Jordan Foisy. Being an aggressive peacemaker myself, I appreciate his thoughts here.

In my opinion, folks who have not taken the easy solution of killing people to solve problems off the table prove G.K. Chesterton right every time when he says that “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

It’s hard for me to  blame people though. After all, It’s sooooo much easier to bully people, intimidate them, beat them, coerce them, and kill them to solve problems then it is to do the difficult work of examining oneself, giving up power, relating to other people, and imagining new and creative solutions to life’s problems. I’m also reminded here of the wisdome that urges us to not resist conflict since it is inevitable in life. War, however, is the result of failing to accept this and then failing to deal effectively with conflict.

Tags:non-violencepascifismpeacemakingwar