How Pacifism Works (And Could It?)

There is deep disagreement over whether humans are essentially peaceful or essentially warlike. Depending on your view you may see pacifism as either hopelessly naïve or the unsung response to conflict that’s kept us from wiping ourselves out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:22):
Check out this week's venue to get your first three
meals free with free shipping by going to Blue Apron
dot com slash stuff. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles to Chuck Bryant,

(00:44):
and there's Jerry. Everybody's getting along nicely in here. You
have a very interesting outfit on thank you. I'm not
for saying such a variety of patterns in one torso. Yeah,
like that's interesting. I got yours is great. Yeah. I
got sort of made fun of in high school for

(01:07):
combining patterns and I never did it again in the
ninth grade, Like it was yesterday. Yeah, I got a
wore like a I think I wore like checkered shorts
and a striped shirt. I think you should publicly shame
those people buy stuff. But it was like he was
not supposed to combine patterns. It's like, well, in fact,
I didn't know that. I didn't say that, but and
old Chuck would have. I'm suddenly sick and need to

(01:30):
go home. I have a wet spot in my pants.
It's funny, like I can't see because you have a beard.
But I wondered if that was a turtleneck you were
wearing for a second and then you moved. I'm like,
it's are it's a mock turnlent. Remember that Steve job style? Yeah,
I saw that movie. Have you seen that? The one
with the Yeah, Nope, it was good. I'm sure that

(01:52):
guy's great. He's great. Kate wins boy, she's the ticket.
She plays Steve was new ski. Uh that was actually
what's his name? Saith the that's I forgot. He was good. Yeah,
I mean acting was just great, and it was What
was the problem? Then? Why is there a curse on
any movie that has to do with Steve? Not a curse? Thing.

(02:12):
I think like, there were Academy Award nominations on that movie.
Um it was Danny Boyle, which is great. That guy
can do like any genre. But um, it was written
by Aaron Sorkin, who I had a little problem with.
That was the problem. I knew there was some problem
with it. And I know everyone thinks he's God's gift
of writing, but well, Aeron Sorkin, he's just so wordy, man,

(02:37):
that's just so many words. I know. I never was
like the perfect retort at the tip of their talm. Yeah,
it's like none of his movies speak of reality of
the way people really talk, which to me is the
mark of a good writer. Right. But you know, it
was good. It was a good movie. That aside. I'll
check it out sometime then. Yeah, it was very nice.

(02:58):
Steve Jobs, and you get over the fact that, uh
that's the full title Steve Jobs. You get over the
factor at least I did that Fast Spender doesn't look
anything like Steve Jobs, because when it came out, I
was like, oh, man, like I am I going to
get past that. It's Michael Foss Sender. But um, we
did it well. That's the mark of a quality actors.

(03:18):
He had a job scene Aura about him and that's
my movie pick of the week. Nice ding ding ding.
Then we need like a jingle now pacifism? Yeah, or
are we ready to get started? Let's just let's tear
through this one. This is a good one. You like
this one? Yeah? This is a request by me. Oh yeah,

(03:39):
and it got done. Pretty psyched about it. Yeah. Um
So would you before researching this, would you have called
yourself a pacifist? Well, I would not have known the
specific kind of pacifists. Now I do, but um, I'm
a I'm a kind of pacifist for sure, extremely violent

(03:59):
past fists. Like you know, I'm well known to have
never hit another human or been hit myself. I've never
been a fistfight. Yeah, so that's a kind of pacifism. Um.
But I'm also like you know, sometimes like I think
you kind of have to go to war maybe if
you're fighting slavery or hitler. Yeah. There's a lot of

(04:24):
a lot of conundra, Yeah, I think that'd be right, um,
surrounding pacifism and the decision of whether or not to
use violence. Yeah, I mean even Gandhi Forgot's sakes. Before
people are like oh, Manne Chuck, I thought you were
a chill dude. Gandhi was a chill dude, and he
even said, you know, but hey, sometimes you have to

(04:44):
to take up arms. Yeah. I think it's good that
you characterize Gandhi as a chill dude rather than a pacifist,
because he pretty technically was not the pacifist that that
most people consider him to be. Your think he was.
He actually said it's cited in this article. No, you know,
like you should be able to defend yourself. He believed

(05:04):
that India should be able to defend itself after it
gained independence if someone else was an aggressor against the state.
Um he suggested that some of his fellow Indians fight
alongside the British in South Africa during the Boer War.
Not very pacifist. So his his views and identity and

(05:25):
the fact that he's still considered a pacifist kind of
reveals that pacifism is actually almost never the staunch version
that people think of when they think of pacifism, which
is no violence under any circumstances. Yeah, very few people
can or want to it. Here to that, I'm not
certain that anyone's ever been able to do it in

(05:45):
the history of humanity. Yeah, I mean I should add
for myself. And I think I've said this before. I
never avoided a fight either. It has never happened. Like
if someone came and hit me in the face, I'd
do my best job to swing back. I've seen a
I've seen a bar fight or two on TV. I
just do it. Burt Reynolds didn't. Yeah, he he got

(06:07):
the job done. Yeah, thinking what uh, throw like a
beer picture in a guy's face and he trips over
his friend, and then you make a kind of funny
laugh and then you throw him out the front window
of the bar and I'll play banjo along, but I'll
do the score. And in the end, though, you end
up slapping backs with the guy you were in a
fight with, and you all just have a good laugh
about it. That's how it goes, all right. So let's

(06:30):
talk pacifism, man, all right? The the uh the word itself, actually,
pacificus is what it is derived from. It's old Latin word.
Everybody knows Latin super old. But the use of the
word pacifist in the way that we use it today
is actually fairly news from I think a peace conference
in nineteen o six that it was officially coined. And

(06:53):
although that concept, this pacifism that we understand it today, Um,
it did kind of spring out of this rational humanist
peace movement that came as a result of the um
just this transformation of people in the nineteenth century. People
have been espousing pacifist police for many, many thousands of years. Now.

(07:17):
Sure they just didn't call it that. No, called it
being a chill dude. Right, should we get in the
old way back machine. Let's man, I was hoping you'd
say that. All right, it's fired up, and um, it's
quite lovely in here, like the music you picked out,

(07:38):
Thank you, it is very nice. Um. I thought you
were gonna have on like rage against the Machine or something. No, no,
because they're a pacifist, are they don't know? I could
see them being pacifists. Actually yeah, well I said it
as a joke. Then I was like, well, wait a minute,
it rang a bell. I really have to think about that. Yeah. Uh,
they strike me as a kind of dude that well,

(08:00):
I don't even know. I don't know those guys. You
don't know reads against the Machine their musicians, No, but
I saw Zack and l A he loved in my neighborhood.
It's like to see him getting tacos all the time.
We shall fight the power, he said, wrong group. Uh
so passivism if you want to talk about the O G,
or at least the O G that. I'm sure there

(08:22):
were pacifists around, but the one that got notoriety at
least first one was probably said Hartha, as you point out,
the grand founder of Buddhism, who said, you know what, Uh,
this this fighting, this warrior stuff is no good for me.
And so I'm gonna break with that tradition and um,

(08:44):
I'm gonna try and and take the path less traveled. Yeah.
And he uh, he was a part of the warrior cast, right. Yeah,
So him saying no, I'm not doing this, I'm not
fighting was pretty significant, so much so that a religion
formed around him, Buddhism. Right, So he's kind of credited

(09:06):
as one of the one of the earliest pacifists, at
least on record. And um, pretty quickly his his pacifist
views spread, and um, there was a king who was
Buddhist king in India. His name was Ashoka, great name,
by the way, and um, he said, you know what,

(09:26):
my kingdom is not going to be involved in any
more wars of conquest because I'm a devout Buddhist. Now
it's a great way to go. The Greeks followed with
their Stoicists. Boy, I could not have said that in
the old toothless days. That would presented a lot of
problems the Stoicists. They were definitely not down with violence.

(09:48):
Of course, Jesus himself was known to be a pretty
chill dude. Yeah, he said, turn the other cheek man. Yeah. Famously.
In fact, one of his followers, Roman named Maximilian uh
Very famously became one of the early Christian martyrs when
he said, you know what, I'm not going to serve

(10:08):
in your legion. I'm not gonna kill anyone. And they said, fine,
we'll kill you. Yeah, he said fine. Which is the
irony of all this is, as you'll see you throughout
this whole podcast, is all these pacifists over the years,
they're like, I don't want to fight, Like, all right, well,
we're gonna be violent on you and make your life
a living hell. You're like, I just don't want to
fight you. Guys would fight anyone else. Just leave me alone.

(10:31):
I know it's a. I don't know what it is
like this this um, Well, it's it's a duty and
an obligation. I think that war ists and we'll talk
about war is um, which is the other end of
the spectrum. I think that's what they feel like. It
is like, no, you have a duty to take up
arms against an aggressor against you or your countrymen. Yeah,

(10:51):
go kill that guy. Somebody of a higher socioeconomic status
commanded you. Yeah, pretty much. So moving long, we'll just
jump forward to Renaissance Europe. Yes, just much nicer them, Right,
there was this um this thanks to the the blossoming
of science, there was a this kind of idea that

(11:12):
well there was the foundation of humanism, right, that humans
should take care of other humans, and part and parcel
to that was kind of picking up on the idea
of pacifism, and it really started to take root in
uh Europe, in the Western world around that time, during
during the Renaissance, thanks in part um to a guy
named Erasmus, that's writer who famously said building a city

(11:37):
is much better than destroying one. He probably dropped the
mic and was like argue with that right there, Like
Mike's haven't even been invented yet. Uh. And then, of course,
if we jump ahead a little bit more to the
early days of what would become the United States. Uh,
there were people here called Mennonites and Quakers who came
to colonial America too, so they could just sort of

(12:00):
be among themselves and beat chill dudes. Then the Revolutionary
War broke out and they're like, ah, what do we
do now? Yeah, we came here to beat chill dudes,
and now everyone expects us to fight for our freedoms. Yeah.
And actually Pennsylvania was this. I was watching this short
video about pacifism yesterday, I think, and they were talking

(12:21):
about Pennsylvania and how like it was the first colony
to to um outlaw slavery, and um, there was just
a lot because of the influence of the Quakers and
the Mennonites, there was a lot of um, well just
kind of pacifist ideals. Yeah, and they it thrived, like
Philadelphia was the most important city in the colonies at
the time. It was in Pennsylvania. Um. But yeah, when

(12:44):
the when the Revolutionary War broke out, it was it
was tough to be a Quaker pacifist because, um, everybody
else is saying Hey, does that mean you're loyal to
the king, because if so, we're gonna beat you up.
And then the Tories would say, hey, you have to
come fight with us. You're obviously loyal to the king.
You're not fighting with the uh, the rebels, So come

(13:07):
fight with us, and they'd say no. So they were
caught between this rock and the hard place, where both
sides just treated the friends very um badly. Yeah. In
seventeen seven seven one seven seven seven uh, seventeen breakers. Yeah,
in seventeen seventy seven, seventeen Quaker leaders were accused of

(13:28):
treason and they were exiled to Virginia by the Whigs,
and I guess they got there were like, Virginia is
not so bad, right, not much of a punishment, but
they wanted to be home in Pennsylvania. Oh, tobacco, you
can smoke probafully so uh. And then if you know,
like you said, if you're a Quaker who stuck to
your pacifist ideals, um, you could have been abused or

(13:50):
you could have had your property confiscated. It was not good.
And apparently they were so committed that when the war
broke out, when the revolution broke out, um, they the
Quakers who were running the government all quit. They all resigned,
and so we can't we can't have anything to do
with this. So we're gonna go make oatmeal and fine
furnitures exactly. Uh. The Napoleonic Wars in the eighteen hundreds

(14:16):
was a very bloody affair. They were a very bloody affair.
And so this gave rise to a lot of people saying, hey,
like the London Peace Society, maybe maybe we should try
and think of a different way to go about resolving
our conflicts rather than just like trying to kill more
people than the other guys. Yeah. Apparently the War of
eighteen twelve was extremely unpopular in the United States, and um,

(14:40):
that combined with the Napoleonic Wars uh in Europe, just
kind of allowed this mentality to really blossom and on
the continent and in the in the States where this
this peace movement kind of developed over the nineteenth century
and um, things were going dotty. Well, actually it was

(15:02):
getting a lot of attraction. People are starting to think like, hey,
maybe we can go without war and maybe we can
just be peaceful. And then the Civil War happened. They
ran headlong into this problem, right, because there there's this
immediate problem that was facing the pacifists. There was great,
you guys are doing a heck of a job keeping
the peace. But part of that piece is there's a

(15:26):
group of people over here who are enslaved, living in horrific,
brutal conditions, being forced into labor against their will. Um,
so what do you say about that? How does that
is that peace? Okay? And the path was still grappled
with that one today. Yeah. There was a writer name

(15:46):
Angelina grim Key well the political activists and very much
into peace as an advocate, and she said, oh, yes,
war is better than slavery. So I think there were
quite a few pacifists that probably said, you know what,
sometimes you just have to take up arms and do
what's right, right, you know, Yeah, I mean, and it
created a big division in the pacifist movements. Um, that

(16:09):
American Civil War. Um. And like I said, people are
still grappling with it today. But before they could, before
the whole thing could sink in, um, pacivism, I think
kind of uh, it congealed again because it seems like
when World War One finally came, pacivism was was back.
It was a thing still hadn't just been blown away

(16:32):
by uh Napoleon or um the city of the American
Civil War. You know, should we take a break. Let's
all right, let's take a break and we'll come back
and talk a little bit more about the opposite of pescivism.

(17:05):
All right. So you put this thing together and you
did a bang up job. This is no this I
expanded on a Patrick Kaiger joint. Oh was this from
our original article? Oh? Well, at any rate, you and
Patrick did a great job. But you guys make a
great point that if you want to understand pacifism, you

(17:26):
have to understand war. And uh there was this pacifist
name and a writer named Arthur Ponson b Yeah, he
was a member of parliament, Okay, and he has this
great quote from one of his writings about war. War
is a monster born of hypocrisy, fed on falsehood, fattened
on humbug that really dates it, kept alive by superstition,

(17:51):
directed to the death and torture of millions, succeeded in
no high purpose, degrading to humanity, endangering civilization, and bringing
forth in its travail, hideous brood of strife, conflict in
war more war. Pretty down view on war yeah, and
I think most people, probably even professional soldiers, would agree

(18:12):
with posombes Um assessment. Right, there's no there, there's basically
no one out there who's like, no word's good, Ward's great,
Let's go to war, right now, Go find somebody to
go to war with. People don't think like that, right, Generally,
that's not the that's not the mentality. Even even that's
not the basis of war is and warism is the

(18:33):
idea that um war can be morally justified and there's
even some circumstances that could require it. Right. And if
you go back to the early Christian Church, the earliest
version of it, um there was basically nothing but non
violent pacifism. And then the Church started to join forces

(18:55):
with the state, the government uh specifically at first and
the guys of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Holy
Roman Empire was all about conquest, getting new land, subduing people,
and so one of the tasks that fell the theologians,
Christian theologians was to figure out a way to justify that,
and starting with I believe St. Augustine, they came up

(19:18):
with this concept called the just war, and the just
war basically says it effectively canceled out the possibility of
absolute pascivism, where absolute pacivism is just war and violence
are never justified under any circumstances. This was there is
such a thing as um a war that is that

(19:39):
can be conducted in a certain way, that can be
entered into for all the right reasons. And if all
these conditions are met, then you have a just war.
And technically you're not really breaking any any Christian ideals
or morals. Still morally uh, justifiable. And those are the

(20:00):
two the two big questions that you just said are uh,
simply when is it justified? And once you have justified it,
how how do you go about it? Um? And in
the in regards to the first one, there are six conditions,
and we should point out that in order for it
to be a just war, you have to meet all
these conditions. Yeah, not some. Yeah it's not like the

(20:23):
first couple, but never mind, we got most of two
through six. The war must be made on behalf of
a just cause is number one. The decision to go
to war must be made by proper authorities. It can't
be some jackass, right uh. Participants must have a good
intention um, rather than revenge or greed that's a big one. Yeah,
it takes care of a few wars. What do you mean,

(20:45):
just like canceled smell must be likely that peace will emerge.
That like should be the ultimate goal. Um, not award
that would lead to another war. And that's that mentality
I'm talking about, Like when people who even warlike people
will say, well, it's the that the goal is peace.
You just have to do it through violence, which is
tough to wrap your head around, especially if you're going

(21:09):
to war is a last resort. That's a big one.
These are all big And then finally, the total amount
of evil. It's like a formula. The total amount of
evil resulting from the war is outweighed by the good
that will come out of the war. Right, So you
have to fulfill all six of those before entering the war,
right right. And then once you're in the war, you

(21:30):
have to say, okay, um, what parameters do we have
to work within for it to remain a just war?
And we actually did an episode yeah the Rules of
War up. So it was pretty good if I remember correctly.
We recorded that in serious studios in DC. Remember that
that was weird. It's just to show how great we

(21:53):
are or were they trying to pilot us or something?
I think so, Man, you remember those days hardly. Yeah,
it's a long time ago. Um, but yeah, we did
do that one in serious as studios and in d C.
I think that's weird. Um. But when you're within award
to maintain it being justifiable, you basically have to, um,

(22:17):
you have to say, you have to be discriminate and
the stuff you're doing has to be proportional. Right. So
with the proportional thing, like if somebody is shooting at
you with a machine gun and you fire a missile
at that person, if that's the way you're conducting the war,
you're you're not really carrying out a just war. But
dudes are into war like no, no, no, that's exactly

(22:39):
what you should do. Yeah, and um, and then uh,
discrimination is a big one, and that's the one that
we seem to be having increasing trouble with as the
century goes on, or as the last century went on.
That collateral damage where you have to discriminate between okay
targets and not okay targets. Okay targets are other soldiers,

(23:04):
other members of the military, or people who are enabling
the the other side. To be to carry out war.
Like even workers in a factory making missiles, they're they're
a justifiable target in a just war, but the people
who live around the factory they're not. So if you're
gonna drop a bomb on that factory, that bomb has

(23:26):
to hit and if you if it misses and you
kill those people, well then you're not carrying out a
just war. Supposedly, there's been a lot of bending over
backwards and say no, no, there's spillage, there's collateral damage.
You're some civilians who aren't intended to be targets are
going to die in a war, but you want to

(23:46):
limit those people. And the key here is to is
to not specifically target civilians. And you're, okay, that's a
that's a lot of bending over that's been done as
war has gotten less and less discriminate over the twentie century. Yeah,
and it's um, I mean, it's kind of ironic that
we're far more precise than we ever have been in

(24:08):
terms of targeting. But I think that just the sheer
size of the armaments, Um, you can't help but have
collateral damage. I saw um a a UNICEF article that
said that at the beginning of the twentieth century, UM,
collateral damage, civilian deaths represented about five percent of casualties

(24:30):
in war. Yeah, used to mainly beat soldiers who died.
By the n nineties, it was up to of the
casualties in a war were civilian targets or civilian people
who who like, that's beyond collateral damage. Yeah, And I
think part of the problem, and boy, I'm just speaking

(24:50):
off the top of my head here, let me preface that.
But part of the problem there is the kind of
wars we fight these days. You'll drop a bomb on
a on a house where they are like five suspected
terrorists in a neighborhood of you know, two thousand people,
so that that probably has a lot to do with

(25:10):
the and I'm just guessing here, but it should have
a lot to do with the casualty rate of civilians.
Is not like, you know, there are three thousand troops
in that house. It's just not how it works these stays. No,
it's not. You know, there's these small, tiny little groups, right,
And I think specifically also from what I understand I'm
speaking of the top of my head as well. From
what I understand, um, the modern battlefield takes place much

(25:34):
more and more populated areas, whereas before there used to
be things that essentially resemble pitch battles. Yeah, let's go
meet in this field and get out. You wear this
color coat, We'll wear this colored coat, and then we'll
shoot at each other. Right. But yeah, as it's started
to move more and more into urban areas, and of
course more and more civilians are going to die. Right.
But I think part of the other thing that really

(25:56):
started to drive up those numbers, Chuck were and it's
stuff that you don't learn about in school in history class,
were the bombing campaigns that were carried out on both sides.
But the allies to the British and the US carried
out bombing campaigns where we were just leveling civilians, just
whole cities. We were just leveling with bombs, like fire bombs,

(26:17):
like we fire bombed Japan in World War Two. The
British fire bombed German city centers in World War Two,
like like that was part of the strategy, was just
killing so many people that we were trying to force
them into unconditional surrender. It wasn't like nowadays where they're
like have a geo coordinated target and it looks like

(26:39):
a video game. It was like you've seen the old footage.
It's like, well, we're over the city, start shoving bombs
out the door, bombs away. Yeah. Yeah, So I think
that drove up the numbers and really drove it from
five percent at the beginning of the century to And
you know, I'd love to hear from people that know
a lot more about this on these couple of points
that we just yeah, both both side guess that you

(27:01):
know UM, but the the that the idea that the
war used to take place basically outside of of UM
populated areas, away from targets that should be discriminated against UM.
Some people say maybe those wars were acceptable, but the

(27:24):
type of war that we're fighting now has evolved so
far away from that that that war is no longer acceptable.
You can't justify it any longer. And there's actually a
name for that type of pacifism specifically UM that I
believe is a selective past no technological pacifism. Yeah, and uh,

(27:45):
I want to quickly say that I think that's part
of the idea of terrorism and the cowardism of terrorism
is like, hey, let's go set up shop next to
this nursing home, you know, is they don't want to
be out in the open in the middle of the day,
sert as an easy target, right. Yeah, So you mentioned

(28:05):
that one of the types of pacivism I counted here
and including the subgroups, I think they're about seven. Uh.
And and you should think about passivism as a as
a spectrum from absolute pacifism on one end, which is
like nothing ever never no violence, no violence, no violence,

(28:26):
no matter what, like not even I'd rather die a
morally just death than even defend myself or your loved one, yeah, anybody.
There's like no justification for violence ever. That's absolute. So
that's on one far far end. Um. So then next
we have conditional pacifism, and that's basically when you're like,

(28:49):
you know what, I'm I'm opposed to violence in this
particular situation. I don't think it's the right solution to
this problem. Yeah, conditional pacivism, it's kind of like the
some umbrella that really falls basically between absolute pascifism and
everything else. It covers everything else. It's basically there's like

(29:09):
there's some time when violence is is usable, right, and
then there's a bunch of subgroups under that that conditional
pacifism umbrella. UM for example, pragmatic pacifism. Right, So, pragmatic
pacifism basically is a type of conditional pascifism where you're saying,
I don't really have any problem with using violence, but

(29:31):
in this particular circumstance, it's gonna make things worse. It's
not going to solve the problem at hand. I'm a pragmatist.
Thank you for listening to me, Um, And the example
that this article gave us, um that the slavery, the
war over slavery, like can can ending slavery justify a war?

(29:51):
And a pragmatist may say, yeah, totally, we really should,
because that's what it's gonna take to end slavery, and
slavery is so bad that it's worth the lives that
are going to be lost to end slavery. Ultimately, this,
the good that comes out of it, is better than
the evil of the war. But the pragmatic pacifist could

(30:12):
also say, on the other hand, no, we really shouldn't
start a war here because it's just going to cause
the slaveholders to kill all their slaves out of spite.
So like that's the two examples of of pragmatic pacifism. Yeah,
and under that even as another subgroup fallibility pacifism. Um,
you know how we talked about meeting those conditions of

(30:32):
a just war. This is the kind of pacifist I am.
So fallibility pacifism is like, yeah, sure, you could be
down with that, but there's so much you don't know,
and the scale of war is so massive that you
can't you don't even have the information you need to
decide whether or not it's a just war as a citizen.
There's so many factors involved in in a war and

(30:56):
going to war, so many things you're told or not told.
There's so many ways you're manipulated through the media. Um,
there's so many personal vendetta's possibly involved, money, oil contracts.
Who knows that Because of the scale of of it
and all of the factors, we can't possibly know even

(31:17):
enough of the details, let alone all the details to say, yes,
this is a just war, let's go to war. That's right,
that's fallibility passive. Uh. Collectivist pascivism is um that Uh,
maybe you might think that executing this uh person who
murdered and uh sexually assaulted children is okay, Like not

(31:42):
into violence. But this guy should not be walking around
in the earth anymore. He needs to be wiped out. Um.
But maybe, um, the sheer magnitude of a war, you
might still be against. Yeah, for sure you should call
that pick and choose pacivism. Well, but I mean that's
a part of conditional pacifism, you know, it's saying, yeah,
it's okay, and violence is okay in this sense, but

(32:03):
not in this sense to me. And that's the thing.
Like pacifists are called on to justify their beliefs a
lot or else be thrown in prison or just be
treated horribly. But the thing about passivism is it is
about as personal belief as one can come upon. Yeah,
and people may ask you to justify it, but there's

(32:25):
no you have no burden to justify your own personal pacifism. Yeah,
it's it just is it exists in you in that sense, um,
and it's personal to you. It's it's an interesting thing.
Like a collective pacifists might be against the death penalty

(32:47):
even but they might have children, and if someone murders children,
that might even sway them to say, you know what,
I don't even believe in this, but I believe this
person poked their card as a human when they did that. Right,
that that's the that's the way that they would put
it that they basically they had at one point had

(33:10):
a right to be free from violence inflicted upon them,
but what they did was so bad that it erased that. Right. Yeah,
I'm kind of in that camp because I'm not I've
never been a staunch advocate for the death penalty at all,
but they're just some things. It's like, it's not like
you can get the death penalty for any old thing.
There's some things like just don't do that the worst thing.

(33:33):
Don't do the worst thing, and you can still live
and maybe be rehabilitated. And but when you have people
like uh, you know, clearly sick serial killers and like
the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world, what good does it
do unless you're just literally studying their brain to keep
them around them alive. I don't know, man, It's a
very I had a lot of moral tug of war,

(33:58):
big moral tug of war going on when it comes
and stuff like well, I mean that's the yeah, and
not just to people have been trying to wrestle with
this thousands of years now, you know, I mean, like
not a simple black and white thing. No, it really isn't.
I mean, I guess unless you're touched by the pacifist
bug and you just you just know, you just know
how you feel about it. A smoked a dubie maybe maybe,

(34:22):
or you know, I saw somebody shot in front of
you or whatever. I think like personal experience definitely leads
to epiphanies regarding pacivism for sure. That's my new favorite
euphanism for smoking marijuanas Doobie. No. Touched by the passive spot.
I think we could make that a thing, probably get
that spread that around. We just put a T shirt,

(34:44):
sell it on our spreadshirt store. I mean we made
uh sniff him off the case the true saying, well
not really, Mike's on pants off. Yeah, Clark me something, Yeah,
Clark mean something. And those are all just dumb. Yeah,
they're terrible. Touched by the passive a bug. That's for real.
That should be an album title. It's gonna be uh,

(35:06):
who is it? Um soup Dragons no diarrhea Planet. They'll
be the name of their album. Those guys are gonna
be like, why are you obsessed with? Stop? Please pretend
we don't exist and then finally selective I'm sorry, not finally. Well,
we've sort of talked about technological pacivism, but um, I

(35:27):
guess Penultimately, selective pacivism is when you oppose certain kinds
of violence, like and nuclear pacifism was a big kind
of This was like, hey, I'll even support a war,
but man, nuclear war, forget about it. Which these technological wars.
A lot of people say that's as bad as nuclear war. Yes,

(35:47):
some people do, but if you're a nuclear pacifist, you
may be one of those people who say, no, as
long as you're not using nukes and the war is
just war, I'm fine with it. But there's no way
you can justify a nuclear war because it's just too indiscriminate.
It's just too It kills too many people who are
who couldn't possibly be legitimate targets. So you could never

(36:10):
justify a nuclear war. So that's why nuclear pacifism has
its own thing. There's also other ones to like ecological pacifism.
People are like, no war destroys the planet. There's um,
there's a lot of different reasons people have pacifist beliefs.
Some people too. Also, Chuck will Will say, I'm a pacifist,

(36:30):
and um, my country is going to war, so I'm
not I'm not doing anything. I'm not going to register
for the draft. I'm not going to drive an ambulance.
I'm not going to do anything. Other people will say.
I will go to war for my country, but I'm
not going to carry a gun or kill anybody else.
We'll drive an ambulance. Or the new Mel Gibson movie

(36:52):
The hacks All Ridge was a guy who was a
pacifist who rescued a bunch of people, never fired a bullet.
I wonder if it was one of those guys on
that Cracked list, but it was totally Yeah, mel Gibson
himself as a famous pacifist. Oh the way, that's not
the word, uh, lover of pornographic violence. And then there's

(37:14):
so chuck. There's one other thing we have to say
about pacifists or what makes a pacifist. There is anti
violence is a huge part of pacifism, right, but also
there's this thing called positive peace too, which is okay.
Not only you can't just sit there and be like
no no war, no war, like like come up with

(37:35):
an alternative, and pacifists say, oh yes, we have tons
of alternatives. There's things like um diplomacy is a big one,
like the entire existence of the State Department represents the
idea of pacifism by the US government UM and even
on a very local level. Pacifists believe that the more

(37:57):
groups understand one another and the more they can possibly
share in common, the less likely they are to UM
engage in violence to resolve their differences. And so the
the example, the idea of getting groups together to share
stuff or to understand one another, or to see that
their difference is actually enrich human experience rather than um

(38:20):
threaten those people's stability, is the promotion of positive peace.
So that promoting positive peace and being against violence, or
basically the two halves of what the pacifist whole. Yeah,
really interesting? Yeah, did you take it right? Sure? All right,
we'll come back and talk a little bit about a
little bit more about conscientious objection after this. All right,

(39:04):
you know what I want to amend my statements from earlier,
the death penalty. Okay, well not amend Well maybe amen,
I just uh, it's tricky to throw that stuff out
there in the public. UM. I think my deal is
I don't care what you have done. Even if I

(39:24):
think you might have revoked your card, there's still a
compassion inside me for that person that's done the worst thing.
That's really fascinating because because I think that a either
what happened to them to make them like that or
to lead them down that road. Man, my hat is

(39:44):
off to you. Man, Well, you don't just turn out
that way by accident. You even either I believe have
something scientifically biologically wrong, biologically wrong with your brain or yeah,
tough default people in that situation, or you have offered
so much at someone else's hand as a child that
you have become a monster yourself. And you know, I

(40:07):
still might say that. I just I'm not one of
those people that would go out at a at a
execution and like party outside with It's just not I
still have compassion for that person deep down. Wow, that's
that's impressive. No, I don't think so. Like I would

(40:27):
never be one of those people who celebrated someone's death
ever under any circumstances. Um But I like those people
that that you can feel compassion for. I like I
people can do something that that turns off that switching
me and it's replaced by by just vengeance. Like, nope,

(40:49):
you're done. No, I hear you. I think for me,
if you look at uh, if you just picked someone
on death row, looked at their crime, and then looked
at their history and childhood, there's probably there were probably
victims of some serious abuse. Yeah. And I also want
to say, I would guess that I would not feel
vengeance towards almost anyone who's on death row right now, like, like,

(41:14):
for for that vengeance switch to be flipped, you have
to have done something like objectively evil, as evil as
it gets, you know, like um, and I'm sure there's
plenty of people on death row who would flip that
switch for me, but just them being on death row,
I don't automatically say, oh, well, you know you should
you deserve to die. I like it. I'm a little

(41:36):
a little more selective than that. But when you hear
about somebody who who is like, ah, like you use
child rapist slash murderer, it's an excellent example somebody who
I like, even if they are redeemable. Is there a
point that you get to where it's like, like you,

(41:56):
you gave up the right for us to exert any
effort or of you any any leeway any longer um
and like, what you did you should be punished for,
not the door should be left open for redemption. You
should be punished by having your life ended. I struggle
with this a lot, Like this isn't an absolute thing
in me at all, Like I don't see any of

(42:17):
this is black and white. But I have encountered crimes
before we hear about it, and and I've just been like, yeah,
the person should die for that, and it's a it's
a terrible feeling, Like it's not a good feeling at all. Again,
I would never celebrate that person's death, but it's something
to to struggle with. I think people should struggle with it. Yeah,
you know, yeah, I guess so. I mean, my wife

(42:39):
is one of the most compassionate, kind hearted people I know,
one of the best people I know. And she reads
a story about someone doing something animals and she goes
she goes cold. She's like, put me in a room
with that person in a chair and give me a
baseball bat. That's another good example. And she's like the
least violent person you could imagine. And uh, when it

(43:01):
comes to like animal torture and stuff, she's like, oh, man,
I wish I could just take care of that anyway. Boy,
who knew that we'd have like a deep conversation during
the pacifism Well, we need to be we need to
step out and get touched by the pacifist lug. So.
One of the one of the reasons pacifists are largely

(43:24):
famous is usually in reference to resisting a war. Right.
World War one was a big one. Um in in
uh and actually starting in the Colonial War, those Quakers,
by the way, could have paid somebody to go serve
in their stead and all the everyone in charge of
the colonial militias. And I think you could do this

(43:46):
in the Civil War too. Um. They were fine with that.
It was fine, like here you go go pay somebody
and the person makes some money and if they survived, great, Um,
but you're considered having served by finding a replacement. Quakers
are like, no, that that doesn't count. But World War
one was when conscientious objectors really started to become part

(44:07):
of the cultural landscape. Yeah, which kind of surprised me.
I was surprised that way back in nineteen seventeen, there
were twenty one men young men who sought to get
exemption from the war in the draft that I don't know,
it's just way more than I thought. You get the
idea back then like everybody was always behind the war
effort and that just wasn't the case. Yeah, And that

(44:29):
was in the US alone. Great Britain had another sixteen
thousand UM conscientious objectors, and in both countries the groups
were treated horribly, very badly. And um, in Great Britain
there was a kind of a grassroots campaign that was
started I think by one of the military officials in

(44:50):
Great Britain where um, women who saw a man on
the street during the war who wasn't in a uniform
would be give in a white feather, and a white
feather was a symbol of cowardice campaign. Yeah, and it worked.
A lot of people went and joined up after getting
a white feather and then went and died on the battlefield.

(45:11):
But hey, at least they proved they weren't a coward.
UM surprised they went through all the trouble of being
a conscious objector. Like I got out of the war
and they're like, oh, I got that feather. That feather
did it? I guess I'm going But it actually did
do it. And one of the reasons why there was
such a campaign is because this was during the time
when UM countries, including the US, had universal conscription for men,

(45:35):
which was if you were a man between this age
and this age, uh, and you're able bodied, uh, you're
you're you're in the military, You're being drafted to war
during World War One. So the idea that these people
had brothers and cousins and uncles and husbands and fathers
who were going off to war to fight and possibly die.

(45:56):
And these guys were walking around saying, I don't believe
in war. That was their side. The other side was
they didn't believe in more, they didn't believe in violence.
And the ones who really stuck to their guns, um
were Uh they suffered for it for sure. Yes, should
we tell a couple of these stories. There were these
dudes the Richmond sixteen I thought it was just one

(46:18):
guy's name, confusing seventeen seventy seven, seventeen quickers. Uh. They
were a group of conscientious objectors and they were sent
to Richmond Castle, which was not the place you want
to go. It was an NCC base and uh they
were sent to war camps in May nineteen sixteen UM

(46:39):
and court martialed, basically sentenced to death by firing squad
and then Prime Minister asked with stepped in and said,
now let's not kill him. The sentence some two ten
years hard labor breaking up rocks in a Scottish quarry,
and um, one of them died of pneumonia. They were
all pretty upset when they found out they were busted

(46:59):
up this rock to make military roads. Yeah, because remember
still part of the war effort. Yes, they were like, no,
we're not helping you with your war, but even breaking
up rocks and the gravel to be used for roads
for the military, that was a big one. That was
a big deal to them. Yeah. And I don't think
any of the sixteen came out of it, okay, No,

(47:20):
I'm I'm sure there was death in suicide and malnutrition, depression. Yeah, yeah,
none of them came out of that, Okay. Over in
the States there was a guy named Evan Thomas who apparently,
um it was not the only person who was treated
like this. He um he was a conscious conscientious objector
who was thrown in jail because he wouldn't do anything

(47:42):
for the war effort. And um he went on a
hunger strike and refused to eat, and so the prosecutor
who I guess an army prosecutor, tried to get the
government to just go ahead and execute him as a shot,
as a show of strength, and the government said, yeah,
you know what, We'll just give him twenty five years
hard labor instead. He was freed on a technicality actually

(48:06):
sooner than that. But he was Um, it wasn't him,
I'm sorry. There was another guy in England who uh
was still working after the war was over, after World
War One was over. He was still being put through
hard labor himself after the war for being a conscientious objector,
which is just vile, you know, at the very least

(48:30):
once the war is over, just let him go. He
actually died during hard labor. He was on a diet
of a slice of bread of day. His name was
Ernest England of England. Ye, pretty on the notes. The
word got out about these horrific stories though, and how
these people were treated, and um, there was a little
bit of public sentiment that moved in the other direction

(48:53):
of respect and said that you know what this that
actually takes a lot of courage to object to something
and to stick to those values in the face of
all this brutality that they're going to face. It's really
interesting to go to prison and live on when when
slice of bread to day die from hard labor and
not just be like, okay, final drive an ambulance. It

(49:14):
takes a lot of courage. And so as a result
of that, by the time World War two rolled around,
the consciences of objectors in that war were treated much better,
much much better. They were treated almost respectfully. Really, some
were still thrown in prison. If you wouldn't do anything
the uh, you would go to prison. But the US government,

(49:36):
in particular UM came up with a Selective Service and
Training Act of nineteen forty. Part of that said, okay,
you can drive an ambulance, you can be a medic,
you can have a non combat role in the military,
or yeah, that was one. Or you could just go
work for the Civilian Conservation Corps where you're just doing

(49:57):
infrastructure stuff within the country that's really not directly helping
the war effort at all. Or yeah, you can be
a laborate yeah. And there were there were dudes that
did that and said, oh that's great. You know, I'll
be a human guinea pig that beats going to war.
And they said, all right, get in that room, we're
gonna spray it down with D D T, or we're
gonna inject you with a hepatitis virus or um make

(50:20):
you going to starve yourself for a year. Basically, Yeah,
the Minnesota Start University of Minnesota's starvation experiment. Yeah, so
how's that. We all went, Oh, maybe this isn't so
good either. They're like, do we get to eat if
we're lice infested? And they said yep. Actually, there's a
quote from one guy who was a CEO. His name

(50:42):
was Neil Hartman. He said, I was young, and I
wanted to show that I was not a coward, which
is why he signed up for medical experimentation. You know. Well,
the Korean War um kind of had a similar you know,
things were just kind of going along in a similar
fashion in as far as being offered alternative jobs, um

(51:04):
of construction or farm work. And it was really the
Vietnam War where things changed. Um, it became a lot
harder to get that CEO status because the law changed
and said basically, you the only reason you can be
a CEO is if you have a religious reason and
you're religiously opposed for a religious basis to all wars.

(51:26):
It can't be. I don't think the Vietnam War is
just or I'm opposed to all wars because I think
all all soldiers are pawns of the elite ruling class. Um,
it has to be for religious reasons, and so a
lot of people, I think a hundred and seventy thousand,
hundred and seventy thousand we're granted CEO status during Vietnam

(51:48):
for those reasons, but other ones. And I think if
you're a true conscientious objector, you're not gonna lie and
say it's for religious reasons when it isn't for religious reasons.
So those people, a lot of them went to fled
to Canada, um or Mexico. I imagine too that the
two countries the other two in North America. Yeah, I'd

(52:10):
like to think if there was a draft today, I
would go. I would try and get out by saying
you don't want me. It would not be good at this.
I'd go across the trenches and no man's land and say, hey,
let's get a conversation going, yeah, like this is the
last guy you want fighting for you really just let
me stay at home, like I'll maybe I'll do some

(52:31):
good writing for you, or maybe I'll do a great
podcast on your efforts, and they'd hand you a picture
of beer and say get in there and go throw
that on that guy's head during war. Now, wait, there's
there's one other thing that Vietnam changed. Vietnam see conscientious
objection and pacifism in the Vietnam era became inextricably linked

(52:53):
to hippies and free love and their version of the
peace movement. Sure, and it just disgusted everybody who wasn't
a hippie, and pacivism actually really um it became disjointed,
disorganized and fell the pieces during Vietnam, not because Vietnam
was a just war or that even most Americans were

(53:13):
behind it, but because the pacifist groups were just so
poorly organized during the time that it almost gave pacifism
a bad name. And it wasn't until the early eighties
that nuclear pacifism sparked a revival of pacifism in the
United States. So those that was non hippie, yeah, that
it was just about anybody could get behind of all stripes.

(53:36):
Nuclear pacifism was I remember that being a big thing
in the eighties, or nuke the whales, one of the
two UH. In nineteen seventy three, the draft um ended
and wars from that point on were voluntary. UM or
military service at least was voluntary because there were still

(53:58):
conscientious objectors within the military. In two thousand four, in Iraq,
there were hundred and ten soldiers who filed their paperwork
to become a CEO, not a commanding officer. Um. They're like,
I don't want to be a grand Just send me
to the top. Uh. And about half of these were
granted and the ones that were rejected, some of them

(54:18):
went a wall and I went into hiding. Some more
Uh court martialed and went to jail. Which is unusual
that there. This is the volunteer force. But they still
had conscience as objectors on it. Wow, they didn't believe
in that particular war effort. Perhaps, Um, let's go back
to Gandhi a bit okay. Um, he had this this bag.

(54:43):
His bag was called Sacha garha and that means truth force.
And his whole thing was peace is a weapon. Yeah,
and we can use it that way and basically equalize
this struggle. Um. Use sing all kinds of folks in
a peaceful way. But uh, not just to say, you know,

(55:06):
I'm a pacifist, but to really try and disrupt the
efforts of the war through pacifism. Yeah, he was be
a thorn in the side. He He would be characterized
technically as a pragmatic pacifist because he realized that violence
was not going to help the Indian cause and was
going to make it worse, and that non violence in

(55:28):
this case could be weaponized. And he weaponized non violence
and it really worked. And the reason why it worked
was because the world saw these British soldiers like beating
helpless Indians who were not fighting back. And the British
had long said, you know, not just in India, but
everywhere we have colonies, were civilizing these areas. But it

(55:52):
doesn't make very civil yeah, when you're when you're beating
an unarmed, non resisting Indian elderly person. Right. Um. And
it worked in that sense. But again he was not
against the use of violence and other situations. So while
non violence is a part of pacifism, um, there there,
they can be separate things. Yes, you don't have to

(56:13):
be a pacifist to be non violent. It can just
make sense in certain situations. Yeah, And there are three
main ways that, Um, you can kind of go about
this non violent resistance. The first you can you know,
write letters, you can lobby, competition and pick it, you
can wear symbol, you can march and protest. Uh. If

(56:33):
you want to kick it up a notch, you can
move on to non cooperation, which is boycotting something, slowing
down something, UM, reporting sick, having walkouts, embargoes. And then finally,
if you really want to go for it as a pacifist,
non violent resistor, non violent intervention, which is fasting and

(56:54):
sit ins. They form a shadow government, right, an underground newspaper.
UM basically just um acts of civil disobedience. Yeah, pretty
powerful stuff there and all that. All that's non violent.
But again, you don't have to be a pacifist to
engage in these kind of things. UM. So there's a
lot of if you're sitting there like what about this?

(57:16):
But what about that? What about this? You might be
a poll hooker hooker poker, right, which is like a
grand tradition in among humanity, because there's you know, there's
basically two ways of looking at people. And we did
an episode on UM I think it was called What's
the most Peaceful Time in History? And we talked a
lot about whether humans are inherently violent or inherently peaceful. Right,

(57:40):
So people love to say, like, hey, weirdo, who who
thinks there's no justification for violence? What about this situation?
Poll Hooker's right? So the poll hooker might first say
something like, well, wait a minute, Wait a minute. You're
you're trying to tell me that you're cool with executing
a criminal or shooting a guy who's coming at your

(58:03):
family to set you all on fire, but you're not
okay with going to war? What's the difference? Right? Or
they might say, well, yeah, it's super easy to be
a pacifist as long as someone else is going out
there and fighting the war that keeps you free to
be that pacifist, right, And that's that's one that pacifism

(58:24):
probably has the hardest time answering, because yeah, it's for
for a pacifist to sit around saying the United States, um,
you you you're in a pretty safe, comfortable position in
part because other people went off and fought worse, you know,
or in a country that's been invaded before. You know, that's, um,

(58:47):
that's a tough one to defend. And the really the
only solution I've seen is that pacifists say, well, I
think that we should outlaw all acts of aggression or
all acts of violence, even against aggressors, And um, that's
just how I feel. If other people are going to
go fight, that's their thing. But if somebody came to

(59:08):
kill me, I would let them kill me. Um. That's
a that's a tough one for sure, because I think
a lot of people who would say something like that
might might not necessarily stick by it when they're actually
being assaulted by somebody who intends to kill them, or
probably more to the point, like their loved one is

(59:29):
being assaulted by someone who intends to kill them, to
just step stand by and say, I'm sorry, but abs
pacifism is is the most morally upstanding thing I can do.
So you're dead. Yeah, And I think, and I'm talking
off the top of my head here again, but I
think a pacifist it probably has to be a practice,

(59:52):
like an active thing you work at, you know, because
I think I think mostly the innate human response if
someone tries to kill your child or your loved one
is to snap and defend them. So you probably really
have to like a meditation as a practice. I imagine

(01:00:14):
that kind of pacivism has to be a practice. But
one of those poll hookers as you call them, might say,
did you do what's morally right when you let that
person indiscriminately kill your child in front of you and
didn't do a thing about it to stop them. I
think that's so extreme though, It's just I know, but
that's where philosophy exists, is in the in the on

(01:00:35):
those extreme ends. You know, when you when you take
an idea and you test it to it's it's for
this tensile strength. Like that's when you really get into
the meat of it, like what about this? What about that?
You know? And um, that's a I mean, I don't
I don't necessarily know that's moral. But then the pastivists
would say, well, why is there why is their life

(01:00:55):
that my child's life worth more than the life of
this aggressor, right, which I would answer, well, your child
is not an aggressor. Aggressor's taking a step below your
child by being an aggressor. Boy, the tinsile strength is high. Uh,
shall we talk a little bit about World War two
here kind of half in the closing moments, Yeah, for sure,

(01:01:17):
because it's really easy to look back at World War
Two and kind of whitewash it as the boy the
Allies were out there to fight Hitler because he was
trying to kill Jews and uh, commit atrocities against humanity,
and so we had to go in there and stop
him at all costs. Right, And a lot of people

(01:01:38):
point to World War two staying finally after years, here
is what proves the just war theory. This guy was
so bad and the stuff he was doing was so
bad that we had to go to war to stop him.
Pacifists your idiots for saying otherwise, Yes, but here with
the benefit of hindsight. There are some people out there, historians, theologists.

(01:02:01):
Uh there's one guy named Nick Stanton Rourke who said
it's a sad fact that the Allies did little to
thwart the worst of Hitler's atrocities. Times with death camps
um which which we're bringing in and vetting more people
every day. Transportation routes into death camps could have been
targeted with no tactical risk to the Allied forces involved,

(01:02:21):
but they were routinely denied, often because the military was
careful to avoid the appearance of fighting quote for the Jews,
which would have lost popular support for the war. So
a lot of these historians now make a point that
a lot more deplum diplomacy and pacifist resistance could have
been more saved more lives even than the way they

(01:02:42):
went at it with Hitler. I didn't know. I didn't
know at all. So basically really eye opening from from
what from what we found is that apparently, uh, the
Allies were well aware of the threat to the Jews
in Europe because it was going on for a long
time before we got involved. Yeah, and he was publicly saying,
if this turns into a world war, I'm laying it

(01:03:05):
on the at the feet of the Jews and I'm
going to exterminate the Jews in Europe. So US take
that for what it's worth. And the US apparently knew
this that if they entered the war it would spell
doom for the Jews in Europe, and that had the
passive and this is the pacifist stance. Had we Um

(01:03:27):
gone to Hitler and said, you know what, what, we
will accept conditional surrender, uh, if you will allow free
passage for the Jews out of Europe into other places
where they're going to be safe. If you'll just let
them go. You're you're saying that you have to get
rid of them because they're useless, and you can't afford
to feed useless people, so you've got to exterminate them. Well,
we'll take them from you. There was a lot of

(01:03:49):
stuff that could have been done that wasn't done. So
from the pacifist standpoint, to point to World War two
and say this proves the just war theory and that
pacifist doesn't work, the pacifist would say, actually, it proves
that we were not willing to try pacifism even when
it was apparent that that was going to possibly work

(01:04:13):
way better than going to war was going to going
after an unconditional surrender. Well, and some historians point to
Denmark is being a prime example of how things could
have gone differently perhaps and how they handled Hitler's aggression. Um,
Denmark very famously was Um what did they say? They

(01:04:34):
were neutral? Yeah, they said we're neutral, and Germany said
we don't care. Yeah, so Germany invaded him anyway. But
they said, you know what, we can't resist Hitler with arms,
like we're all going to be dead. Um, because we're
just too small. We have we have no means to
fight this war machine that's coming at us. So they
basically kind of gave up. UH, said that would be

(01:04:55):
a suicidal move to do anything otherwise, and said, here's
what we're gonna do. We're basically going to be pacifists,
resistance uh resistors, and UH. They slowed things down. They
delayed transportation, They sabotage equipment. UH, they sabotage railroads and infrastructure.
Workers went on strike when they were producing materials for

(01:05:17):
the Nazis. UH. They basically just said, we're not gonna
follow your anti Semitic policies. And when Hitler said, all right,
I want to deport all the Danish Jews, they said no,
and they hid them. They said what Danish Jews? Yeah,
and they hid them all in addition to about fifteen
hundred more people who were refugees they're seeking uh protection

(01:05:39):
and not a single Danish Jew died during the Holocaust.
And apparently in the same post from nick Stanton rourke Um,
he said that later on some of the higher ups
in the in the Third Reich said that they were
confounded whenever they were confronted with non violence because they
didn't know what to do with it, Yeah, you know,
and that that the that nonviolent resistance to the Third

(01:06:03):
Bich actually was more successful than bombing it into into nothingness,
because you still you still need some sort of support,
public support behind you. And if you if the news
reports are of like Nazis just wasting away Danish citizens

(01:06:26):
who aren't fighting back like they're not, they're not gonna
have any support from their own followers. Well, and remember
in our Dictators episode we talked about how uh belligerents
from a foreign nation often causes the population to be
afraid and get behind their dictator. Where um Nicholson Baker,

(01:06:47):
who's an author who is also a famous pacifist, he
basically said that that it was fear that bound Hitler
and Germany together, whereas if suddenly there was a cease
to fighting and there is no threat any longer of
being invaded or bombed by the Allies, that who knows
what could have happened Hitler. There were a lot of

(01:07:08):
like tratorious conspiracies against Hitler within his own ranks. There
are a lot of resistance movements against him. Maybe he
would have been replaced and at the very least he
would have died eventually and and um, probably some of
the victims of the Holocaust would have been saved. It's
a it's like that's but think about it, that's almost
blasphemy to talk about that, like not being violent or

(01:07:30):
aggressive toward Hitler. But apparently that's because of a revision
over time over the goals and the reasons why we
entered World War two. Interesting, it really is. It's very
eye opening. And then lastly, does pacifism work with terrorists
like isis? I love how this article basically sums it up. No, nope, Yeah,

(01:07:56):
nobody knows what what No pacifist knows what to do
with something like isis they? Maybe they probably break pacifism
even more than Hitler does the idea of it. Yeah,
well that's a big one. Yeah, boy good. We haven't
had a good deep talk like that in a while.
I'm glad we uh touched what was it we were

(01:08:20):
touched by the pacifist bug. Yeah, glad that happened. If
you want to be touched by the pacifist bugs. Is
typed that word into the search bar. How stuff works,
and it will bring up this great article. And since
I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. We
got an email about our CTE episode from a NFL

(01:08:41):
player from a Dallas Cowboy. Did you read that one? Wow?
Emmett Cleary. He's a guard. He's a guard for the
amazing offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys and a smart dude,
which Boston College thanks for writing. Yeah, I was pretty excited.
Any Um he said that I could read this. Uh. Hey, guys,

(01:09:02):
current NFL player, A big fan of the show. I
have a background in science biology at Boston College and
my interest was piquked about CTE. You covered all sides
of it, but I wanted to share the perspective and
active player. As the research has progressed in garner media
coverage over the last ten years, awareness of the risks
of repetitive brain trauma among players has grown. Can't speak
for everyone, but guys seem more cautious with their brain health.

(01:09:25):
From the time I started college football, football culture has changed. UH.
Players have become more proactive reporting head injuries and more
conservative in returning to play. I've seen my teammates look
out for each other and advise each other towards safety.
UH and an occupation that promotes a warrior mentality. This
is a good thing. We understand that nobody gets out
of the game healthy, and while most people are okay

(01:09:46):
with bad knees or shoulders or back problems, brain health
is a serious concern. As this all went public, it
became increasingly apparent how deceitful NFL leadership has been. While
the league office in club medicals tasks include many good
people who undoubtedly care about our long term health, the
leadership is consistently OBUs skated evidence, promoted pseudoscience, an outright

(01:10:10):
lied about the effects of head injuries. Retired players feel betrayed,
and active players have no reason to trust that league
that the league will prioritize our health overcovering its own.
But legally, protecting brain health is good for everybody involved,
but the league is more concerned with avoiding liability uh
in convincing public that football is harmless. Until longitudinal studies

(01:10:32):
can accurately quantify the risk of football, we do the
best we can with the information we have. Guy's balance
and known risks of against the joy and benefits of playing. Personally,
I'm hoping to enjoy my career and get out relatively healthy.
I love my job and don't want to jeopardize my
long term well being. Thanks for bringing your typical rigorous
research and balance. You point to a critical issue. Offensive

(01:10:55):
guard Emmed Clary, don't tell anybody said this. Okay, man,
I know, I know that was a great email. Thank you.
Offensive lineman Clary. Think how you address professional football play?
So uh he said, if we come back to Dallas
or Chicago, because he's maybe from Chicago, well hang cool,

(01:11:20):
drinking contest, nice and we'll put on the helmets and
crack them together. Yeah. Oh I watched the game. Um oh, man,
I think it was Louisville versus somebody who knows a
team that had different colors on right, college football, Yeah,
it was. It was one of the It was a
bowl Louisville versus somebody whoever they played in their bowl.

(01:11:41):
I'm not sure they played this year. Well, somebody um
lad with the crown of their head and hit somebody
else in the in the the helmet um and got
ejected for the game and rightfully. So they made a
big deal of it. Yeah, college football, they'll do that.
They call it tar getting it. Yeah they did. And
um but I mean I remember a couple of years

(01:12:03):
ago they're like that goods are good hit. Yeah, you're
wrong his bill. But everybody's talking very seriously and quietly
about how this is a big deal. I'm like purpose progress. Yeah,
well thanks a lot again, offensive Lineman Cleary. Uh. And
if you want to get in touch with this like
he did, you can tweet to us. I'm at josh
um Clark uh. And I'm also at s Y s

(01:12:26):
K podcast on Twitter. Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant
on Facebook and at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you
Should Know. We can both be reached at Stuff Podcast
at how Stuff Works dot com via email, and has
always hang out with us at our luxurious home on
the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more

(01:12:47):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Stuff Works dot com. I'm at, I'm null, I'm Ben,
and we are Stuff they don't want you to know.
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(01:13:09):
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