[lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 12:37:58 -0700
A pacifist is someone who opposes all wars for any reason whatsoever. I am
proposing that the pacifist think about what he is advocating. If World
Peace could be achieved with only a few wars against monomaniacs and the
prospect would be a time when there were no more such inasmuch as all
nations had become Liberal Democracies in which peaceful outlets for a
prospective megalomaniac's megalothymos (think Bill Gates) was available
then the total number of casualties in plan B (Fukuyama/Barnett) would be
fewer than with plan A (utter pacifism) which just gets in the way of
dealing with said megalomaniacs, encourages them for the wrong reason and
increases casualties. Furthermore in that pacifistic strategies encourage
megalomaniacs, the day of the end of history may be pushed back increasing
the numbers of casualties.
If someone says, like I took Phil Enns to be saying, [he never said this in
so many words, but this is what I took him to be saying -- sort of] "I don't
care how many casualties are incurred by opposing all wars. I do it out of
principle and don't care about the total number of casualties in my Plan A
vs the possible number of casualties in plan B. A war is a war and I shall
oppose them all". If someone takes that position then fine, but if someone
is interested in reducing the total number of casualties by whatever means
then they ought to examine the Fukuyama/Barnett process.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 11:54 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace
But you are unable to define "pacifist". Your implicit
definition is, I suggest, "someone who opposes some of
the wars you support".
Judy Evans, Cardiff
--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> No, no, no. That's not true. I wrote "on the
> prospect of world peace" as a
> challenge to the pacifists.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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