In light of Veteran's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the words of C.S. Lewis in a speech he made in 1940 to a pacifist society at Oxford, titled "Why I am Not a Pacifist." Exploring the foundations of a man's conscientious objection to war--facts, intuition, and reason-- he argues that the pacifist position does not stand up to scrutiny.
Regarding the facts, he addresses the position "Wars do more harm than good," arguing that the claims both for and against this position are speculative. No one can prove whether the consequences of avoiding a war would have been preferable to the consequences of going to war because no one can compare an actual event to one that never happened.
Continuing with a discussion of intuition as a foundation of pacifism, Lewis defines intuition as an unarguable truth, one with which no moral man would disagree. He then claims that the important intuition in the pacifist stance is the idea that helping others is good and hurting others is bad. Moving from this proposition, he asks whether reason allows us to conclude whether war is the greatest evil. While you are helping one man, he argues, it is sometimes necessary not to help--indeed, sometimes to harm--another man. If one man is doing evil to another man, you the observer must either do nothing or help one man and not the other.
Moreover, Lewis continues, war is not the greatest of all evils. Such a position seems materialist in nature, founded on the belief that death and pain are the worst evils. To Lewis, however, the subversion of a relatively moral religion or secular society by a less moral one is a greater evil. Even the deaths of innocent men fighting for something to which they are wholly and unselfishly committed is not the worst evil in our world. Attempting to end war altogether by making men pacifists will not work, either. Since only liberal societies accept pacifists, a liberal state whose pacifists discourage it from war will remain vulnerable to outside (totalitarian) states that care nothing for pacifists.
Finally, here, Lewis concludes his examination of intuition by discussing utopia. There seems to be no evidence that we are able to rid ourselves of suffering. It is better, he explains, to do the best we can to fight each evil as it appears. Thus, limiting the damage done by one specific military campaign does more good than all efforts to promote universal peace.
Discussing authority next, he divides his argument into human and divine authority. First, if we look to human authority, we find that the consensus of human history, current societies, and great human teachers overwhelmingly fall in support of righteous wars. With regard to divine authority, Lewis cites Jesus's words that a man, when struck, must turn the other cheek. Applying these words in support of pacifism, however, is misguided. He was speaking against vengeance, not war, and it was with this perspective--in the daily experience of living village life with others-- that Jesus' audience would have understood his words. That one of the few people Jesus praised was a Roman centurion, and that Lewis's position fits with the words of both Paul and Peter, who approve the use of the sword in Romans and First Peter, further supports his conclusion against pacifism.
Lewis concludes by asking his pacifist audience whether there might be a corrupting passion causing them to adopt pacifism, a fear of losing one's life and lifestyle to war, and I found here the most poignant expression of why we should appreciate veterans:
Regarding the facts, he addresses the position "Wars do more harm than good," arguing that the claims both for and against this position are speculative. No one can prove whether the consequences of avoiding a war would have been preferable to the consequences of going to war because no one can compare an actual event to one that never happened.
Continuing with a discussion of intuition as a foundation of pacifism, Lewis defines intuition as an unarguable truth, one with which no moral man would disagree. He then claims that the important intuition in the pacifist stance is the idea that helping others is good and hurting others is bad. Moving from this proposition, he asks whether reason allows us to conclude whether war is the greatest evil. While you are helping one man, he argues, it is sometimes necessary not to help--indeed, sometimes to harm--another man. If one man is doing evil to another man, you the observer must either do nothing or help one man and not the other.
Moreover, Lewis continues, war is not the greatest of all evils. Such a position seems materialist in nature, founded on the belief that death and pain are the worst evils. To Lewis, however, the subversion of a relatively moral religion or secular society by a less moral one is a greater evil. Even the deaths of innocent men fighting for something to which they are wholly and unselfishly committed is not the worst evil in our world. Attempting to end war altogether by making men pacifists will not work, either. Since only liberal societies accept pacifists, a liberal state whose pacifists discourage it from war will remain vulnerable to outside (totalitarian) states that care nothing for pacifists.
Finally, here, Lewis concludes his examination of intuition by discussing utopia. There seems to be no evidence that we are able to rid ourselves of suffering. It is better, he explains, to do the best we can to fight each evil as it appears. Thus, limiting the damage done by one specific military campaign does more good than all efforts to promote universal peace.
Discussing authority next, he divides his argument into human and divine authority. First, if we look to human authority, we find that the consensus of human history, current societies, and great human teachers overwhelmingly fall in support of righteous wars. With regard to divine authority, Lewis cites Jesus's words that a man, when struck, must turn the other cheek. Applying these words in support of pacifism, however, is misguided. He was speaking against vengeance, not war, and it was with this perspective--in the daily experience of living village life with others-- that Jesus' audience would have understood his words. That one of the few people Jesus praised was a Roman centurion, and that Lewis's position fits with the words of both Paul and Peter, who approve the use of the sword in Romans and First Peter, further supports his conclusion against pacifism.
Lewis concludes by asking his pacifist audience whether there might be a corrupting passion causing them to adopt pacifism, a fear of losing one's life and lifestyle to war, and I found here the most poignant expression of why we should appreciate veterans:
For let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil--every evil expect dishonour and final perdition....He reminds his audience that moral questions cannot be proven as can other kinds of questions, so that it is not certain whether pacifism is not the correct position: "It may be, after all, that Pacifism is right. But it seems to me very long odds, longer odds than I would care to take with the voice of almost all humanity against me."
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