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Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles to Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry. Everybody's getting along nicely in here. You
Speaker 1: have a very interesting outfit on thank you. I'm not
Speaker 1: for saying such a variety of patterns in one torso. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that's interesting. I got yours is great. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: got sort of made fun of in high school for
Speaker 1: combining patterns and I never did it again in the
Speaker 1: ninth grade, Like it was yesterday. Yeah, I got a
Speaker 1: wore like a I think I wore like checkered shorts
Speaker 1: and a striped shirt. I think you should publicly shame
Speaker 1: those people buy stuff. But it was like he was
Speaker 1: not supposed to combine patterns. It's like, well, in fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I didn't say that, but and
Speaker 1: old Chuck would have. I'm suddenly sick and need to
Speaker 1: go home. I have a wet spot in my pants.
Speaker 1: It's funny, like I can't see because you have a beard.
Speaker 1: But I wondered if that was a turtleneck you were
Speaker 1: wearing for a second and then you moved. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's are it's a mock turnlent. Remember that Steve job style? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that movie. Have you seen that? The one
Speaker 1: with the Yeah, Nope, it was good. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: guy's great. He's great. Kate wins boy, she's the ticket.
Speaker 1: She plays Steve was new ski. Uh that was actually
Speaker 1: what's his name? Saith the that's I forgot. He was good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean acting was just great, and it was What
Speaker 1: was the problem? Then? Why is there a curse on
Speaker 1: any movie that has to do with Steve? Not a curse? Thing.
Speaker 1: I think like, there were Academy Award nominations on that movie.
Speaker 1: Um it was Danny Boyle, which is great. That guy
Speaker 1: can do like any genre. But um, it was written
Speaker 1: by Aaron Sorkin, who I had a little problem with.
Speaker 1: That was the problem. I knew there was some problem
Speaker 1: with it. And I know everyone thinks he's God's gift
Speaker 1: of writing, but well, Aeron Sorkin, he's just so wordy, man,
Speaker 1: that's just so many words. I know. I never was
Speaker 1: like the perfect retort at the tip of their talm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like none of his movies speak of reality of
Speaker 1: the way people really talk, which to me is the
Speaker 1: mark of a good writer. Right. But you know, it
Speaker 1: was good. It was a good movie. That aside. I'll
Speaker 1: check it out sometime then. Yeah, it was very nice.
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, and you get over the fact that, uh
Speaker 1: that's the full title Steve Jobs. You get over the
Speaker 1: factor at least I did that Fast Spender doesn't look
Speaker 1: anything like Steve Jobs, because when it came out, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, man, like I am I going to
Speaker 1: get past that. It's Michael Foss Sender. But um, we
Speaker 1: did it well. That's the mark of a quality actors.
Speaker 1: He had a job scene Aura about him and that's
Speaker 1: my movie pick of the week. Nice ding ding ding.
Speaker 1: Then we need like a jingle now pacifism? Yeah, or
Speaker 1: are we ready to get started? Let's just let's tear
Speaker 1: through this one. This is a good one. You like
Speaker 1: this one? Yeah? This is a request by me. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and it got done. Pretty psyched about it. Yeah. Um
Speaker 1: So would you before researching this, would you have called
Speaker 1: yourself a pacifist? Well, I would not have known the
Speaker 1: specific kind of pacifists. Now I do, but um, I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a kind of pacifist for sure, extremely violent
Speaker 1: past fists. Like you know, I'm well known to have
Speaker 1: never hit another human or been hit myself. I've never
Speaker 1: been a fistfight. Yeah, so that's a kind of pacifism. Um.
Speaker 1: But I'm also like you know, sometimes like I think
Speaker 1: you kind of have to go to war maybe if
Speaker 1: you're fighting slavery or hitler. Yeah. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of conundra, Yeah, I think that'd be right, um,
Speaker 1: surrounding pacifism and the decision of whether or not to
Speaker 1: use violence. Yeah, I mean even Gandhi Forgot's sakes. Before
Speaker 1: people are like oh, Manne Chuck, I thought you were
Speaker 1: a chill dude. Gandhi was a chill dude, and he
Speaker 1: even said, you know, but hey, sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: to take up arms. Yeah. I think it's good that
Speaker 1: you characterize Gandhi as a chill dude rather than a pacifist,
Speaker 1: because he pretty technically was not the pacifist that that
Speaker 1: most people consider him to be. Your think he was.
Speaker 1: He actually said it's cited in this article. No, you know,
Speaker 1: like you should be able to defend yourself. He believed
Speaker 1: that India should be able to defend itself after it
Speaker 1: gained independence if someone else was an aggressor against the state.
Speaker 1: Um he suggested that some of his fellow Indians fight
Speaker 1: alongside the British in South Africa during the Boer War.
Speaker 1: Not very pacifist. So his his views and identity and
Speaker 1: the fact that he's still considered a pacifist kind of
Speaker 1: reveals that pacifism is actually almost never the staunch version
Speaker 1: that people think of when they think of pacifism, which
Speaker 1: is no violence under any circumstances. Yeah, very few people
Speaker 1: can or want to it. Here to that, I'm not
Speaker 1: certain that anyone's ever been able to do it in
Speaker 1: the history of humanity. Yeah, I mean I should add
Speaker 1: for myself. And I think I've said this before. I
Speaker 1: never avoided a fight either. It has never happened. Like
Speaker 1: if someone came and hit me in the face, I'd
Speaker 1: do my best job to swing back. I've seen a
Speaker 1: I've seen a bar fight or two on TV. I
Speaker 1: just do it. Burt Reynolds didn't. Yeah, he he got
Speaker 1: the job done. Yeah, thinking what uh, throw like a
Speaker 1: beer picture in a guy's face and he trips over
Speaker 1: his friend, and then you make a kind of funny
Speaker 1: laugh and then you throw him out the front window
Speaker 1: of the bar and I'll play banjo along, but I'll
Speaker 1: do the score. And in the end, though, you end
Speaker 1: up slapping backs with the guy you were in a
Speaker 1: fight with, and you all just have a good laugh
Speaker 1: about it. That's how it goes, all right. So let's
Speaker 1: talk pacifism, man, all right? The the uh the word itself, actually,
Speaker 1: pacificus is what it is derived from. It's old Latin word.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows Latin super old. But the use of the
Speaker 1: word pacifist in the way that we use it today
Speaker 1: is actually fairly news from I think a peace conference
Speaker 1: in nineteen o six that it was officially coined. And
Speaker 1: although that concept, this pacifism that we understand it today, Um,
Speaker 1: it did kind of spring out of this rational humanist
Speaker 1: peace movement that came as a result of the um
Speaker 1: just this transformation of people in the nineteenth century. People
Speaker 1: have been espousing pacifist police for many, many thousands of years. Now.
Speaker 1: Sure they just didn't call it that. No, called it
Speaker 1: being a chill dude. Right, should we get in the
Speaker 1: old way back machine. Let's man, I was hoping you'd
Speaker 1: say that. All right, it's fired up, and um, it's
Speaker 1: quite lovely in here, like the music you picked out,
Speaker 1: Thank you, it is very nice. Um. I thought you
Speaker 1: were gonna have on like rage against the Machine or something. No, no,
Speaker 1: because they're a pacifist, are they don't know? I could
Speaker 1: see them being pacifists. Actually yeah, well I said it
Speaker 1: as a joke. Then I was like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: it rang a bell. I really have to think about that. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: they strike me as a kind of dude that well,
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I don't know those guys. You
Speaker 1: don't know reads against the Machine their musicians, No, but
Speaker 1: I saw Zack and l A he loved in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It's like to see him getting tacos all the time.
Speaker 1: We shall fight the power, he said, wrong group. Uh
Speaker 1: so passivism if you want to talk about the O G,
Speaker 1: or at least the O G that. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: were pacifists around, but the one that got notoriety at
Speaker 1: least first one was probably said Hartha, as you point out,
Speaker 1: the grand founder of Buddhism, who said, you know what, Uh,
Speaker 1: this this fighting, this warrior stuff is no good for me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna break with that tradition and um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and and take the path less traveled. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he uh, he was a part of the warrior cast, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So him saying no, I'm not doing this, I'm not
Speaker 1: fighting was pretty significant, so much so that a religion
Speaker 1: formed around him, Buddhism. Right, So he's kind of credited
Speaker 1: as one of the one of the earliest pacifists, at
Speaker 1: least on record. And um, pretty quickly his his pacifist
Speaker 1: views spread, and um, there was a king who was
Speaker 1: Buddhist king in India. His name was Ashoka, great name,
Speaker 1: by the way, and um, he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: my kingdom is not going to be involved in any
Speaker 1: more wars of conquest because I'm a devout Buddhist. Now
Speaker 1: it's a great way to go. The Greeks followed with
Speaker 1: their Stoicists. Boy, I could not have said that in
Speaker 1: the old toothless days. That would presented a lot of
Speaker 1: problems the Stoicists. They were definitely not down with violence.
Speaker 1: Of course, Jesus himself was known to be a pretty
Speaker 1: chill dude. Yeah, he said, turn the other cheek man. Yeah. Famously.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of his followers, Roman named Maximilian uh
Speaker 1: Very famously became one of the early Christian martyrs when
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, I'm not going to serve
Speaker 1: in your legion. I'm not gonna kill anyone. And they said, fine,
Speaker 1: we'll kill you. Yeah, he said fine. Which is the
Speaker 1: irony of all this is, as you'll see you throughout
Speaker 1: this whole podcast, is all these pacifists over the years,
Speaker 1: they're like, I don't want to fight, Like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be violent on you and make your life
Speaker 1: a living hell. You're like, I just don't want to
Speaker 1: fight you. Guys would fight anyone else. Just leave me alone.
Speaker 1: I know it's a. I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: like this this um, Well, it's it's a duty and
Speaker 1: an obligation. I think that war ists and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about war is um, which is the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. I think that's what they feel like. It
Speaker 1: is like, no, you have a duty to take up
Speaker 1: arms against an aggressor against you or your countrymen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go kill that guy. Somebody of a higher socioeconomic status
Speaker 1: commanded you. Yeah, pretty much. So moving long, we'll just
Speaker 1: jump forward to Renaissance Europe. Yes, just much nicer them, Right,
Speaker 1: there was this um this thanks to the the blossoming
Speaker 1: of science, there was a this kind of idea that
Speaker 1: well there was the foundation of humanism, right, that humans
Speaker 1: should take care of other humans, and part and parcel
Speaker 1: to that was kind of picking up on the idea
Speaker 1: of pacifism, and it really started to take root in
Speaker 1: uh Europe, in the Western world around that time, during
Speaker 1: during the Renaissance, thanks in part um to a guy
Speaker 1: named Erasmus, that's writer who famously said building a city
Speaker 1: is much better than destroying one. He probably dropped the
Speaker 1: mic and was like argue with that right there, Like
Speaker 1: Mike's haven't even been invented yet. Uh. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: if we jump ahead a little bit more to the
Speaker 1: early days of what would become the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: there were people here called Mennonites and Quakers who came
Speaker 1: to colonial America too, so they could just sort of
Speaker 1: be among themselves and beat chill dudes. Then the Revolutionary
Speaker 1: War broke out and they're like, ah, what do we
Speaker 1: do now? Yeah, we came here to beat chill dudes,
Speaker 1: and now everyone expects us to fight for our freedoms. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And actually Pennsylvania was this. I was watching this short
Speaker 1: video about pacifism yesterday, I think, and they were talking
Speaker 1: about Pennsylvania and how like it was the first colony
Speaker 1: to to um outlaw slavery, and um, there was just
Speaker 1: a lot because of the influence of the Quakers and
Speaker 1: the Mennonites, there was a lot of um, well just
Speaker 1: kind of pacifist ideals. Yeah, and they it thrived, like
Speaker 1: Philadelphia was the most important city in the colonies at
Speaker 1: the time. It was in Pennsylvania. Um. But yeah, when
Speaker 1: the when the Revolutionary War broke out, it was it
Speaker 1: was tough to be a Quaker pacifist because, um, everybody
Speaker 1: else is saying Hey, does that mean you're loyal to
Speaker 1: the king, because if so, we're gonna beat you up.
Speaker 1: And then the Tories would say, hey, you have to
Speaker 1: come fight with us. You're obviously loyal to the king.
Speaker 1: You're not fighting with the uh, the rebels, So come
Speaker 1: fight with us, and they'd say no. So they were
Speaker 1: caught between this rock and the hard place, where both
Speaker 1: sides just treated the friends very um badly. Yeah. In
Speaker 1: seventeen seven seven one seven seven seven uh, seventeen breakers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy seven, seventeen Quaker leaders were accused of
Speaker 1: treason and they were exiled to Virginia by the Whigs,
Speaker 1: and I guess they got there were like, Virginia is
Speaker 1: not so bad, right, not much of a punishment, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to be home in Pennsylvania. Oh, tobacco, you
Speaker 1: can smoke probafully so uh. And then if you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, if you're a Quaker who stuck to
Speaker 1: your pacifist ideals, um, you could have been abused or
Speaker 1: you could have had your property confiscated. It was not good.
Speaker 1: And apparently they were so committed that when the war
Speaker 1: broke out, when the revolution broke out, um, they the
Speaker 1: Quakers who were running the government all quit. They all resigned,
Speaker 1: and so we can't we can't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with this. So we're gonna go make oatmeal and fine
Speaker 1: furnitures exactly. Uh. The Napoleonic Wars in the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: was a very bloody affair. They were a very bloody affair.
Speaker 1: And so this gave rise to a lot of people saying, hey,
Speaker 1: like the London Peace Society, maybe maybe we should try
Speaker 1: and think of a different way to go about resolving
Speaker 1: our conflicts rather than just like trying to kill more
Speaker 1: people than the other guys. Yeah. Apparently the War of
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve was extremely unpopular in the United States, and um,
Speaker 1: that combined with the Napoleonic Wars uh in Europe, just
Speaker 1: kind of allowed this mentality to really blossom and on
Speaker 1: the continent and in the in the States where this
Speaker 1: this peace movement kind of developed over the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: and um, things were going dotty. Well, actually it was
Speaker 1: getting a lot of attraction. People are starting to think like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe we can go without war and maybe we can
Speaker 1: just be peaceful. And then the Civil War happened. They
Speaker 1: ran headlong into this problem, right, because there there's this
Speaker 1: immediate problem that was facing the pacifists. There was great,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing a heck of a job keeping
Speaker 1: the peace. But part of that piece is there's a
Speaker 1: group of people over here who are enslaved, living in horrific,
Speaker 1: brutal conditions, being forced into labor against their will. Um,
Speaker 1: so what do you say about that? How does that
Speaker 1: is that peace? Okay? And the path was still grappled
Speaker 1: with that one today. Yeah. There was a writer name
Speaker 1: Angelina grim Key well the political activists and very much
Speaker 1: into peace as an advocate, and she said, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: war is better than slavery. So I think there were
Speaker 1: quite a few pacifists that probably said, you know what,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just have to take up arms and do
Speaker 1: what's right, right, you know, Yeah, I mean, and it
Speaker 1: created a big division in the pacifist movements. Um, that
Speaker 1: American Civil War. Um. And like I said, people are
Speaker 1: still grappling with it today. But before they could, before
Speaker 1: the whole thing could sink in, um, pacivism, I think
Speaker 1: kind of uh, it congealed again because it seems like
Speaker 1: when World War One finally came, pacivism was was back.
Speaker 1: It was a thing still hadn't just been blown away
Speaker 1: by uh Napoleon or um the city of the American
Speaker 1: Civil War. You know, should we take a break. Let's
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a break and we'll come back
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit more about the opposite of pescivism.
Speaker 1: All right. So you put this thing together and you
Speaker 1: did a bang up job. This is no this I
Speaker 1: expanded on a Patrick Kaiger joint. Oh was this from
Speaker 1: our original article? Oh? Well, at any rate, you and
Speaker 1: Patrick did a great job. But you guys make a
Speaker 1: great point that if you want to understand pacifism, you
Speaker 1: have to understand war. And uh there was this pacifist
Speaker 1: name and a writer named Arthur Ponson b Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was a member of parliament, Okay, and he has this
Speaker 1: great quote from one of his writings about war. War
Speaker 1: is a monster born of hypocrisy, fed on falsehood, fattened
Speaker 1: on humbug that really dates it, kept alive by superstition,
Speaker 1: directed to the death and torture of millions, succeeded in
Speaker 1: no high purpose, degrading to humanity, endangering civilization, and bringing
Speaker 1: forth in its travail, hideous brood of strife, conflict in
Speaker 1: war more war. Pretty down view on war yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think most people, probably even professional soldiers, would agree
Speaker 1: with posombes Um assessment. Right, there's no there, there's basically
Speaker 1: no one out there who's like, no word's good, Ward's great,
Speaker 1: Let's go to war, right now, Go find somebody to
Speaker 1: go to war with. People don't think like that, right, Generally,
Speaker 1: that's not the that's not the mentality. Even even that's
Speaker 1: not the basis of war is and warism is the
Speaker 1: idea that um war can be morally justified and there's
Speaker 1: even some circumstances that could require it. Right. And if
Speaker 1: you go back to the early Christian Church, the earliest
Speaker 1: version of it, um there was basically nothing but non
Speaker 1: violent pacifism. And then the Church started to join forces
Speaker 1: with the state, the government uh specifically at first and
Speaker 1: the guys of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Holy
Speaker 1: Roman Empire was all about conquest, getting new land, subduing people,
Speaker 1: and so one of the tasks that fell the theologians,
Speaker 1: Christian theologians was to figure out a way to justify that,
Speaker 1: and starting with I believe St. Augustine, they came up
Speaker 1: with this concept called the just war, and the just
Speaker 1: war basically says it effectively canceled out the possibility of
Speaker 1: absolute pascivism, where absolute pacivism is just war and violence
Speaker 1: are never justified under any circumstances. This was there is
Speaker 1: such a thing as um a war that is that
Speaker 1: can be conducted in a certain way, that can be
Speaker 1: entered into for all the right reasons. And if all
Speaker 1: these conditions are met, then you have a just war.
Speaker 1: And technically you're not really breaking any any Christian ideals
Speaker 1: or morals. Still morally uh, justifiable. And those are the
Speaker 1: two the two big questions that you just said are uh,
Speaker 1: simply when is it justified? And once you have justified it,
Speaker 1: how how do you go about it? Um? And in
Speaker 1: the in regards to the first one, there are six conditions,
Speaker 1: and we should point out that in order for it
Speaker 1: to be a just war, you have to meet all
Speaker 1: these conditions. Yeah, not some. Yeah it's not like the
Speaker 1: first couple, but never mind, we got most of two
Speaker 1: through six. The war must be made on behalf of
Speaker 1: a just cause is number one. The decision to go
Speaker 1: to war must be made by proper authorities. It can't
Speaker 1: be some jackass, right uh. Participants must have a good
Speaker 1: intention um, rather than revenge or greed that's a big one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes care of a few wars. What do you mean,
Speaker 1: just like canceled smell must be likely that peace will emerge.
Speaker 1: That like should be the ultimate goal. Um, not award
Speaker 1: that would lead to another war. And that's that mentality
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, Like when people who even warlike people
Speaker 1: will say, well, it's the that the goal is peace.
Speaker 1: You just have to do it through violence, which is
Speaker 1: tough to wrap your head around, especially if you're going
Speaker 1: to war is a last resort. That's a big one.
Speaker 1: These are all big And then finally, the total amount
Speaker 1: of evil. It's like a formula. The total amount of
Speaker 1: evil resulting from the war is outweighed by the good
Speaker 1: that will come out of the war. Right, So you
Speaker 1: have to fulfill all six of those before entering the war,
Speaker 1: right right. And then once you're in the war, you
Speaker 1: have to say, okay, um, what parameters do we have
Speaker 1: to work within for it to remain a just war?
Speaker 1: And we actually did an episode yeah the Rules of
Speaker 1: War up. So it was pretty good if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: We recorded that in serious studios in DC. Remember that
Speaker 1: that was weird. It's just to show how great we
Speaker 1: are or were they trying to pilot us or something?
Speaker 1: I think so, Man, you remember those days hardly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a long time ago. Um, but yeah, we did
Speaker 1: do that one in serious as studios and in d C.
Speaker 1: I think that's weird. Um. But when you're within award
Speaker 1: to maintain it being justifiable, you basically have to, um,
Speaker 1: you have to say, you have to be discriminate and
Speaker 1: the stuff you're doing has to be proportional. Right. So
Speaker 1: with the proportional thing, like if somebody is shooting at
Speaker 1: you with a machine gun and you fire a missile
Speaker 1: at that person, if that's the way you're conducting the war,
Speaker 1: you're you're not really carrying out a just war. But
Speaker 1: dudes are into war like no, no, no, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what you should do. Yeah, and um, and then uh,
Speaker 1: discrimination is a big one, and that's the one that
Speaker 1: we seem to be having increasing trouble with as the
Speaker 1: century goes on, or as the last century went on.
Speaker 1: That collateral damage where you have to discriminate between okay
Speaker 1: targets and not okay targets. Okay targets are other soldiers,
Speaker 1: other members of the military, or people who are enabling
Speaker 1: the the other side. To be to carry out war.
Speaker 1: Like even workers in a factory making missiles, they're they're
Speaker 1: a justifiable target in a just war, but the people
Speaker 1: who live around the factory they're not. So if you're
Speaker 1: gonna drop a bomb on that factory, that bomb has
Speaker 1: to hit and if you if it misses and you
Speaker 1: kill those people, well then you're not carrying out a
Speaker 1: just war. Supposedly, there's been a lot of bending over
Speaker 1: backwards and say no, no, there's spillage, there's collateral damage.
Speaker 1: You're some civilians who aren't intended to be targets are
Speaker 1: going to die in a war, but you want to
Speaker 1: limit those people. And the key here is to is
Speaker 1: to not specifically target civilians. And you're, okay, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a lot of bending over that's been done as
Speaker 1: war has gotten less and less discriminate over the twentie century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's um, I mean, it's kind of ironic that
Speaker 1: we're far more precise than we ever have been in
Speaker 1: terms of targeting. But I think that just the sheer
Speaker 1: size of the armaments, Um, you can't help but have
Speaker 1: collateral damage. I saw um a a UNICEF article that
Speaker 1: said that at the beginning of the twentieth century, UM,
Speaker 1: collateral damage, civilian deaths represented about five percent of casualties
Speaker 1: in war. Yeah, used to mainly beat soldiers who died.
Speaker 1: By the n nineties, it was up to of the
Speaker 1: casualties in a war were civilian targets or civilian people
Speaker 1: who who like, that's beyond collateral damage. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think part of the problem, and boy, I'm just speaking
Speaker 1: off the top of my head here, let me preface that.
Speaker 1: But part of the problem there is the kind of
Speaker 1: wars we fight these days. You'll drop a bomb on
Speaker 1: a on a house where they are like five suspected
Speaker 1: terrorists in a neighborhood of you know, two thousand people,
Speaker 1: so that that probably has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: the and I'm just guessing here, but it should have
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the casualty rate of civilians.
Speaker 1: Is not like, you know, there are three thousand troops
Speaker 1: in that house. It's just not how it works these stays. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. You know, there's these small, tiny little groups, right,
Speaker 1: And I think specifically also from what I understand I'm
Speaker 1: speaking of the top of my head as well. From
Speaker 1: what I understand, um, the modern battlefield takes place much
Speaker 1: more and more populated areas, whereas before there used to
Speaker 1: be things that essentially resemble pitch battles. Yeah, let's go
Speaker 1: meet in this field and get out. You wear this
Speaker 1: color coat, We'll wear this colored coat, and then we'll
Speaker 1: shoot at each other. Right. But yeah, as it's started
Speaker 1: to move more and more into urban areas, and of
Speaker 1: course more and more civilians are going to die. Right.
Speaker 1: But I think part of the other thing that really
Speaker 1: started to drive up those numbers, Chuck were and it's
Speaker 1: stuff that you don't learn about in school in history class,
Speaker 1: were the bombing campaigns that were carried out on both sides.
Speaker 1: But the allies to the British and the US carried
Speaker 1: out bombing campaigns where we were just leveling civilians, just
Speaker 1: whole cities. We were just leveling with bombs, like fire bombs,
Speaker 1: like we fire bombed Japan in World War Two. The
Speaker 1: British fire bombed German city centers in World War Two,
Speaker 1: like like that was part of the strategy, was just
Speaker 1: killing so many people that we were trying to force
Speaker 1: them into unconditional surrender. It wasn't like nowadays where they're
Speaker 1: like have a geo coordinated target and it looks like
Speaker 1: a video game. It was like you've seen the old footage.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, we're over the city, start shoving bombs
Speaker 1: out the door, bombs away. Yeah. Yeah, So I think
Speaker 1: that drove up the numbers and really drove it from
Speaker 1: five percent at the beginning of the century to And
Speaker 1: you know, I'd love to hear from people that know
Speaker 1: a lot more about this on these couple of points
Speaker 1: that we just yeah, both both side guess that you
Speaker 1: know UM, but the the that the idea that the
Speaker 1: war used to take place basically outside of of UM
Speaker 1: populated areas, away from targets that should be discriminated against UM.
Speaker 1: Some people say maybe those wars were acceptable, but the
Speaker 1: type of war that we're fighting now has evolved so
Speaker 1: far away from that that that war is no longer acceptable.
Speaker 1: You can't justify it any longer. And there's actually a
Speaker 1: name for that type of pacifism specifically UM that I
Speaker 1: believe is a selective past no technological pacifism. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: I want to quickly say that I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the idea of terrorism and the cowardism of terrorism
Speaker 1: is like, hey, let's go set up shop next to
Speaker 1: this nursing home, you know, is they don't want to
Speaker 1: be out in the open in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: sert as an easy target, right. Yeah, So you mentioned
Speaker 1: that one of the types of pacivism I counted here
Speaker 1: and including the subgroups, I think they're about seven. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and you should think about passivism as a as
Speaker 1: a spectrum from absolute pacifism on one end, which is
Speaker 1: like nothing ever never no violence, no violence, no violence,
Speaker 1: no matter what, like not even I'd rather die a
Speaker 1: morally just death than even defend myself or your loved one, yeah, anybody.
Speaker 1: There's like no justification for violence ever. That's absolute. So
Speaker 1: that's on one far far end. Um. So then next
Speaker 1: we have conditional pacifism, and that's basically when you're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm I'm opposed to violence in this
Speaker 1: particular situation. I don't think it's the right solution to
Speaker 1: this problem. Yeah, conditional pacivism, it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: some umbrella that really falls basically between absolute pascifism and
Speaker 1: everything else. It covers everything else. It's basically there's like
Speaker 1: there's some time when violence is is usable, right, and
Speaker 1: then there's a bunch of subgroups under that that conditional
Speaker 1: pacifism umbrella. UM for example, pragmatic pacifism. Right, So, pragmatic
Speaker 1: pacifism basically is a type of conditional pascifism where you're saying,
Speaker 1: I don't really have any problem with using violence, but
Speaker 1: in this particular circumstance, it's gonna make things worse. It's
Speaker 1: not going to solve the problem at hand. I'm a pragmatist.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to me, Um, And the example
Speaker 1: that this article gave us, um that the slavery, the
Speaker 1: war over slavery, like can can ending slavery justify a war?
Speaker 1: And a pragmatist may say, yeah, totally, we really should,
Speaker 1: because that's what it's gonna take to end slavery, and
Speaker 1: slavery is so bad that it's worth the lives that
Speaker 1: are going to be lost to end slavery. Ultimately, this,
Speaker 1: the good that comes out of it, is better than
Speaker 1: the evil of the war. But the pragmatic pacifist could
Speaker 1: also say, on the other hand, no, we really shouldn't
Speaker 1: start a war here because it's just going to cause
Speaker 1: the slaveholders to kill all their slaves out of spite.
Speaker 1: So like that's the two examples of of pragmatic pacifism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and under that even as another subgroup fallibility pacifism. Um,
Speaker 1: you know how we talked about meeting those conditions of
Speaker 1: a just war. This is the kind of pacifist I am.
Speaker 1: So fallibility pacifism is like, yeah, sure, you could be
Speaker 1: down with that, but there's so much you don't know,
Speaker 1: and the scale of war is so massive that you
Speaker 1: can't you don't even have the information you need to
Speaker 1: decide whether or not it's a just war as a citizen.
Speaker 1: There's so many factors involved in in a war and
Speaker 1: going to war, so many things you're told or not told.
Speaker 1: There's so many ways you're manipulated through the media. Um,
Speaker 1: there's so many personal vendetta's possibly involved, money, oil contracts.
Speaker 1: Who knows that Because of the scale of of it
Speaker 1: and all of the factors, we can't possibly know even
Speaker 1: enough of the details, let alone all the details to say, yes,
Speaker 1: this is a just war, let's go to war. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's fallibility passive. Uh. Collectivist pascivism is um that Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe you might think that executing this uh person who
Speaker 1: murdered and uh sexually assaulted children is okay, Like not
Speaker 1: into violence. But this guy should not be walking around
Speaker 1: in the earth anymore. He needs to be wiped out. Um.
Speaker 1: But maybe, um, the sheer magnitude of a war, you
Speaker 1: might still be against. Yeah, for sure you should call
Speaker 1: that pick and choose pacivism. Well, but I mean that's
Speaker 1: a part of conditional pacifism, you know, it's saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's okay, and violence is okay in this sense, but
Speaker 1: not in this sense to me. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Like pacifists are called on to justify their beliefs a
Speaker 1: lot or else be thrown in prison or just be
Speaker 1: treated horribly. But the thing about passivism is it is
Speaker 1: about as personal belief as one can come upon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and people may ask you to justify it, but there's
Speaker 1: no you have no burden to justify your own personal pacifism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it just is it exists in you in that sense, um,
Speaker 1: and it's personal to you. It's it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Like a collective pacifists might be against the death penalty
Speaker 1: even but they might have children, and if someone murders children,
Speaker 1: that might even sway them to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't even believe in this, but I believe this
Speaker 1: person poked their card as a human when they did that. Right,
Speaker 1: that that's the that's the way that they would put
Speaker 1: it that they basically they had at one point had
Speaker 1: a right to be free from violence inflicted upon them,
Speaker 1: but what they did was so bad that it erased that. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in that camp because I'm not I've
Speaker 1: never been a staunch advocate for the death penalty at all,
Speaker 1: but they're just some things. It's like, it's not like
Speaker 1: you can get the death penalty for any old thing.
Speaker 1: There's some things like just don't do that the worst thing.
Speaker 1: Don't do the worst thing, and you can still live
Speaker 1: and maybe be rehabilitated. And but when you have people
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, clearly sick serial killers and like
Speaker 1: the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world, what good does it
Speaker 1: do unless you're just literally studying their brain to keep
Speaker 1: them around them alive. I don't know, man, It's a
Speaker 1: very I had a lot of moral tug of war,
Speaker 1: big moral tug of war going on when it comes
Speaker 1: and stuff like well, I mean that's the yeah, and
Speaker 1: not just to people have been trying to wrestle with
Speaker 1: this thousands of years now, you know, I mean, like
Speaker 1: not a simple black and white thing. No, it really isn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess unless you're touched by the pacifist
Speaker 1: bug and you just you just know, you just know
Speaker 1: how you feel about it. A smoked a dubie maybe maybe,
Speaker 1: or you know, I saw somebody shot in front of
Speaker 1: you or whatever. I think like personal experience definitely leads
Speaker 1: to epiphanies regarding pacivism for sure. That's my new favorite
Speaker 1: euphanism for smoking marijuanas Doobie. No. Touched by the passive spot.
Speaker 1: I think we could make that a thing, probably get
Speaker 1: that spread that around. We just put a T shirt,
Speaker 1: sell it on our spreadshirt store. I mean we made
Speaker 1: uh sniff him off the case the true saying, well
Speaker 1: not really, Mike's on pants off. Yeah, Clark me something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Clark mean something. And those are all just dumb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're terrible. Touched by the passive a bug. That's for real.
Speaker 1: That should be an album title. It's gonna be uh,
Speaker 1: who is it? Um soup Dragons no diarrhea Planet. They'll
Speaker 1: be the name of their album. Those guys are gonna
Speaker 1: be like, why are you obsessed with? Stop? Please pretend
Speaker 1: we don't exist and then finally selective I'm sorry, not finally. Well,
Speaker 1: we've sort of talked about technological pacivism, but um, I
Speaker 1: guess Penultimately, selective pacivism is when you oppose certain kinds
Speaker 1: of violence, like and nuclear pacifism was a big kind
Speaker 1: of This was like, hey, I'll even support a war,
Speaker 1: but man, nuclear war, forget about it. Which these technological wars.
Speaker 1: A lot of people say that's as bad as nuclear war. Yes,
Speaker 1: some people do, but if you're a nuclear pacifist, you
Speaker 1: may be one of those people who say, no, as
Speaker 1: long as you're not using nukes and the war is
Speaker 1: just war, I'm fine with it. But there's no way
Speaker 1: you can justify a nuclear war because it's just too indiscriminate.
Speaker 1: It's just too It kills too many people who are
Speaker 1: who couldn't possibly be legitimate targets. So you could never
Speaker 1: justify a nuclear war. So that's why nuclear pacifism has
Speaker 1: its own thing. There's also other ones to like ecological pacifism.
Speaker 1: People are like, no war destroys the planet. There's um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different reasons people have pacifist beliefs.
Speaker 1: Some people too. Also, Chuck will Will say, I'm a pacifist,
Speaker 1: and um, my country is going to war, so I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not doing anything. I'm not going to register
Speaker 1: for the draft. I'm not going to drive an ambulance.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do anything. Other people will say.
Speaker 1: I will go to war for my country, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to carry a gun or kill anybody else.
Speaker 1: We'll drive an ambulance. Or the new Mel Gibson movie
Speaker 1: The hacks All Ridge was a guy who was a
Speaker 1: pacifist who rescued a bunch of people, never fired a bullet.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was one of those guys on
Speaker 1: that Cracked list, but it was totally Yeah, mel Gibson
Speaker 1: himself as a famous pacifist. Oh the way, that's not
Speaker 1: the word, uh, lover of pornographic violence. And then there's
Speaker 1: so chuck. There's one other thing we have to say
Speaker 1: about pacifists or what makes a pacifist. There is anti
Speaker 1: violence is a huge part of pacifism, right, but also
Speaker 1: there's this thing called positive peace too, which is okay.
Speaker 1: Not only you can't just sit there and be like
Speaker 1: no no war, no war, like like come up with
Speaker 1: an alternative, and pacifists say, oh yes, we have tons
Speaker 1: of alternatives. There's things like um diplomacy is a big one,
Speaker 1: like the entire existence of the State Department represents the
Speaker 1: idea of pacifism by the US government UM and even
Speaker 1: on a very local level. Pacifists believe that the more
Speaker 1: groups understand one another and the more they can possibly
Speaker 1: share in common, the less likely they are to UM
Speaker 1: engage in violence to resolve their differences. And so the
Speaker 1: the example, the idea of getting groups together to share
Speaker 1: stuff or to understand one another, or to see that
Speaker 1: their difference is actually enrich human experience rather than um
Speaker 1: threaten those people's stability, is the promotion of positive peace.
Speaker 1: So that promoting positive peace and being against violence, or
Speaker 1: basically the two halves of what the pacifist whole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really interesting? Yeah, did you take it right? Sure? All right,
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about a
Speaker 1: little bit more about conscientious objection after this. All right,
Speaker 1: you know what I want to amend my statements from earlier,
Speaker 1: the death penalty. Okay, well not amend Well maybe amen,
Speaker 1: I just uh, it's tricky to throw that stuff out
Speaker 1: there in the public. UM. I think my deal is
Speaker 1: I don't care what you have done. Even if I
Speaker 1: think you might have revoked your card, there's still a
Speaker 1: compassion inside me for that person that's done the worst thing.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating because because I think that a either
Speaker 1: what happened to them to make them like that or
Speaker 1: to lead them down that road. Man, my hat is
Speaker 1: off to you. Man, Well, you don't just turn out
Speaker 1: that way by accident. You even either I believe have
Speaker 1: something scientifically biologically wrong, biologically wrong with your brain or yeah,
Speaker 1: tough default people in that situation, or you have offered
Speaker 1: so much at someone else's hand as a child that
Speaker 1: you have become a monster yourself. And you know, I
Speaker 1: still might say that. I just I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those people that would go out at a at a
Speaker 1: execution and like party outside with It's just not I
Speaker 1: still have compassion for that person deep down. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: that's impressive. No, I don't think so. Like I would
Speaker 1: never be one of those people who celebrated someone's death
Speaker 1: ever under any circumstances. Um But I like those people
Speaker 1: that that you can feel compassion for. I like I
Speaker 1: people can do something that that turns off that switching
Speaker 1: me and it's replaced by by just vengeance. Like, nope,
Speaker 1: you're done. No, I hear you. I think for me,
Speaker 1: if you look at uh, if you just picked someone
Speaker 1: on death row, looked at their crime, and then looked
Speaker 1: at their history and childhood, there's probably there were probably
Speaker 1: victims of some serious abuse. Yeah. And I also want
Speaker 1: to say, I would guess that I would not feel
Speaker 1: vengeance towards almost anyone who's on death row right now, like, like,
Speaker 1: for for that vengeance switch to be flipped, you have
Speaker 1: to have done something like objectively evil, as evil as
Speaker 1: it gets, you know, like um, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: plenty of people on death row who would flip that
Speaker 1: switch for me, but just them being on death row,
Speaker 1: I don't automatically say, oh, well, you know you should
Speaker 1: you deserve to die. I like it. I'm a little
Speaker 1: a little more selective than that. But when you hear
Speaker 1: about somebody who who is like, ah, like you use
Speaker 1: child rapist slash murderer, it's an excellent example somebody who
Speaker 1: I like, even if they are redeemable. Is there a
Speaker 1: point that you get to where it's like, like you,
Speaker 1: you gave up the right for us to exert any
Speaker 1: effort or of you any any leeway any longer um
Speaker 1: and like, what you did you should be punished for,
Speaker 1: not the door should be left open for redemption. You
Speaker 1: should be punished by having your life ended. I struggle
Speaker 1: with this a lot, Like this isn't an absolute thing
Speaker 1: in me at all, Like I don't see any of
Speaker 1: this is black and white. But I have encountered crimes
Speaker 1: before we hear about it, and and I've just been like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the person should die for that, and it's a it's
Speaker 1: a terrible feeling, Like it's not a good feeling at all. Again,
Speaker 1: I would never celebrate that person's death, but it's something
Speaker 1: to to struggle with. I think people should struggle with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I guess so. I mean, my wife
Speaker 1: is one of the most compassionate, kind hearted people I know,
Speaker 1: one of the best people I know. And she reads
Speaker 1: a story about someone doing something animals and she goes
Speaker 1: she goes cold. She's like, put me in a room
Speaker 1: with that person in a chair and give me a
Speaker 1: baseball bat. That's another good example. And she's like the
Speaker 1: least violent person you could imagine. And uh, when it
Speaker 1: comes to like animal torture and stuff, she's like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I could just take care of that anyway. Boy,
Speaker 1: who knew that we'd have like a deep conversation during
Speaker 1: the pacifism Well, we need to be we need to
Speaker 1: step out and get touched by the pacifist lug. So.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the reasons pacifists are largely
Speaker 1: famous is usually in reference to resisting a war. Right.
Speaker 1: World War one was a big one. Um in in
Speaker 1: uh and actually starting in the Colonial War, those Quakers,
Speaker 1: by the way, could have paid somebody to go serve
Speaker 1: in their stead and all the everyone in charge of
Speaker 1: the colonial militias. And I think you could do this
Speaker 1: in the Civil War too. Um. They were fine with that.
Speaker 1: It was fine, like here you go go pay somebody
Speaker 1: and the person makes some money and if they survived, great, Um,
Speaker 1: but you're considered having served by finding a replacement. Quakers
Speaker 1: are like, no, that that doesn't count. But World War
Speaker 1: one was when conscientious objectors really started to become part
Speaker 1: of the cultural landscape. Yeah, which kind of surprised me.
Speaker 1: I was surprised that way back in nineteen seventeen, there
Speaker 1: were twenty one men young men who sought to get
Speaker 1: exemption from the war in the draft that I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just way more than I thought. You get the
Speaker 1: idea back then like everybody was always behind the war
Speaker 1: effort and that just wasn't the case. Yeah, And that
Speaker 1: was in the US alone. Great Britain had another sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand UM conscientious objectors, and in both countries the groups
Speaker 1: were treated horribly, very badly. And um, in Great Britain
Speaker 1: there was a kind of a grassroots campaign that was
Speaker 1: started I think by one of the military officials in
Speaker 1: Great Britain where um, women who saw a man on
Speaker 1: the street during the war who wasn't in a uniform
Speaker 1: would be give in a white feather, and a white
Speaker 1: feather was a symbol of cowardice campaign. Yeah, and it worked.
Speaker 1: A lot of people went and joined up after getting
Speaker 1: a white feather and then went and died on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: But hey, at least they proved they weren't a coward.
Speaker 1: UM surprised they went through all the trouble of being
Speaker 1: a conscious objector. Like I got out of the war
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, I got that feather. That feather
Speaker 1: did it? I guess I'm going But it actually did
Speaker 1: do it. And one of the reasons why there was
Speaker 1: such a campaign is because this was during the time
Speaker 1: when UM countries, including the US, had universal conscription for men,
Speaker 1: which was if you were a man between this age
Speaker 1: and this age, uh, and you're able bodied, uh, you're
Speaker 1: you're you're in the military, You're being drafted to war
Speaker 1: during World War One. So the idea that these people
Speaker 1: had brothers and cousins and uncles and husbands and fathers
Speaker 1: who were going off to war to fight and possibly die.
Speaker 1: And these guys were walking around saying, I don't believe
Speaker 1: in war. That was their side. The other side was
Speaker 1: they didn't believe in more, they didn't believe in violence.
Speaker 1: And the ones who really stuck to their guns, um
Speaker 1: were Uh they suffered for it for sure. Yes, should
Speaker 1: we tell a couple of these stories. There were these
Speaker 1: dudes the Richmond sixteen I thought it was just one
Speaker 1: guy's name, confusing seventeen seventy seven, seventeen quickers. Uh. They
Speaker 1: were a group of conscientious objectors and they were sent
Speaker 1: to Richmond Castle, which was not the place you want
Speaker 1: to go. It was an NCC base and uh they
Speaker 1: were sent to war camps in May nineteen sixteen UM
Speaker 1: and court martialed, basically sentenced to death by firing squad
Speaker 1: and then Prime Minister asked with stepped in and said,
Speaker 1: now let's not kill him. The sentence some two ten
Speaker 1: years hard labor breaking up rocks in a Scottish quarry,
Speaker 1: and um, one of them died of pneumonia. They were
Speaker 1: all pretty upset when they found out they were busted
Speaker 1: up this rock to make military roads. Yeah, because remember
Speaker 1: still part of the war effort. Yes, they were like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not helping you with your war, but even breaking
Speaker 1: up rocks and the gravel to be used for roads
Speaker 1: for the military, that was a big one. That was
Speaker 1: a big deal to them. Yeah. And I don't think
Speaker 1: any of the sixteen came out of it, okay, No,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure there was death in suicide and malnutrition, depression. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: none of them came out of that, Okay. Over in
Speaker 1: the States there was a guy named Evan Thomas who apparently,
Speaker 1: um it was not the only person who was treated
Speaker 1: like this. He um he was a conscious conscientious objector
Speaker 1: who was thrown in jail because he wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: for the war effort. And um he went on a
Speaker 1: hunger strike and refused to eat, and so the prosecutor
Speaker 1: who I guess an army prosecutor, tried to get the
Speaker 1: government to just go ahead and execute him as a shot,
Speaker 1: as a show of strength, and the government said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, We'll just give him twenty five years
Speaker 1: hard labor instead. He was freed on a technicality actually
Speaker 1: sooner than that. But he was Um, it wasn't him,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There was another guy in England who uh
Speaker 1: was still working after the war was over, after World
Speaker 1: War One was over. He was still being put through
Speaker 1: hard labor himself after the war for being a conscientious objector,
Speaker 1: which is just vile, you know, at the very least
Speaker 1: once the war is over, just let him go. He
Speaker 1: actually died during hard labor. He was on a diet
Speaker 1: of a slice of bread of day. His name was
Speaker 1: Ernest England of England. Ye, pretty on the notes. The
Speaker 1: word got out about these horrific stories though, and how
Speaker 1: these people were treated, and um, there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of public sentiment that moved in the other direction
Speaker 1: of respect and said that you know what this that
Speaker 1: actually takes a lot of courage to object to something
Speaker 1: and to stick to those values in the face of
Speaker 1: all this brutality that they're going to face. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting to go to prison and live on when when
Speaker 1: slice of bread to day die from hard labor and
Speaker 1: not just be like, okay, final drive an ambulance. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of courage. And so as a result
Speaker 1: of that, by the time World War two rolled around,
Speaker 1: the consciences of objectors in that war were treated much better,
Speaker 1: much much better. They were treated almost respectfully. Really, some
Speaker 1: were still thrown in prison. If you wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: the uh, you would go to prison. But the US government,
Speaker 1: in particular UM came up with a Selective Service and
Speaker 1: Training Act of nineteen forty. Part of that said, okay,
Speaker 1: you can drive an ambulance, you can be a medic,
Speaker 1: you can have a non combat role in the military,
Speaker 1: or yeah, that was one. Or you could just go
Speaker 1: work for the Civilian Conservation Corps where you're just doing
Speaker 1: infrastructure stuff within the country that's really not directly helping
Speaker 1: the war effort at all. Or yeah, you can be
Speaker 1: a laborate yeah. And there were there were dudes that
Speaker 1: did that and said, oh that's great. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: be a human guinea pig that beats going to war.
Speaker 1: And they said, all right, get in that room, we're
Speaker 1: gonna spray it down with D D T, or we're
Speaker 1: gonna inject you with a hepatitis virus or um make
Speaker 1: you going to starve yourself for a year. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Start University of Minnesota's starvation experiment. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: how's that. We all went, Oh, maybe this isn't so
Speaker 1: good either. They're like, do we get to eat if
Speaker 1: we're lice infested? And they said yep. Actually, there's a
Speaker 1: quote from one guy who was a CEO. His name
Speaker 1: was Neil Hartman. He said, I was young, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to show that I was not a coward, which
Speaker 1: is why he signed up for medical experimentation. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: the Korean War um kind of had a similar you know,
Speaker 1: things were just kind of going along in a similar
Speaker 1: fashion in as far as being offered alternative jobs, um
Speaker 1: of construction or farm work. And it was really the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War where things changed. Um, it became a lot
Speaker 1: harder to get that CEO status because the law changed
Speaker 1: and said basically, you the only reason you can be
Speaker 1: a CEO is if you have a religious reason and
Speaker 1: you're religiously opposed for a religious basis to all wars.
Speaker 1: It can't be. I don't think the Vietnam War is
Speaker 1: just or I'm opposed to all wars because I think
Speaker 1: all all soldiers are pawns of the elite ruling class. Um,
Speaker 1: it has to be for religious reasons, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I think a hundred and seventy thousand,
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy thousand we're granted CEO status during Vietnam
Speaker 1: for those reasons, but other ones. And I think if
Speaker 1: you're a true conscientious objector, you're not gonna lie and
Speaker 1: say it's for religious reasons when it isn't for religious reasons.
Speaker 1: So those people, a lot of them went to fled
Speaker 1: to Canada, um or Mexico. I imagine too that the
Speaker 1: two countries the other two in North America. Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: like to think if there was a draft today, I
Speaker 1: would go. I would try and get out by saying
Speaker 1: you don't want me. It would not be good at this.
Speaker 1: I'd go across the trenches and no man's land and say, hey,
Speaker 1: let's get a conversation going, yeah, like this is the
Speaker 1: last guy you want fighting for you really just let
Speaker 1: me stay at home, like I'll maybe I'll do some
Speaker 1: good writing for you, or maybe I'll do a great
Speaker 1: podcast on your efforts, and they'd hand you a picture
Speaker 1: of beer and say get in there and go throw
Speaker 1: that on that guy's head during war. Now, wait, there's
Speaker 1: there's one other thing that Vietnam changed. Vietnam see conscientious
Speaker 1: objection and pacifism in the Vietnam era became inextricably linked
Speaker 1: to hippies and free love and their version of the
Speaker 1: peace movement. Sure, and it just disgusted everybody who wasn't
Speaker 1: a hippie, and pacivism actually really um it became disjointed,
Speaker 1: disorganized and fell the pieces during Vietnam, not because Vietnam
Speaker 1: was a just war or that even most Americans were
Speaker 1: behind it, but because the pacifist groups were just so
Speaker 1: poorly organized during the time that it almost gave pacifism
Speaker 1: a bad name. And it wasn't until the early eighties
Speaker 1: that nuclear pacifism sparked a revival of pacifism in the
Speaker 1: United States. So those that was non hippie, yeah, that
Speaker 1: it was just about anybody could get behind of all stripes.
Speaker 1: Nuclear pacifism was I remember that being a big thing
Speaker 1: in the eighties, or nuke the whales, one of the
Speaker 1: two UH. In nineteen seventy three, the draft um ended
Speaker 1: and wars from that point on were voluntary. UM or
Speaker 1: military service at least was voluntary because there were still
Speaker 1: conscientious objectors within the military. In two thousand four, in Iraq,
Speaker 1: there were hundred and ten soldiers who filed their paperwork
Speaker 1: to become a CEO, not a commanding officer. Um. They're like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a grand Just send me
Speaker 1: to the top. Uh. And about half of these were
Speaker 1: granted and the ones that were rejected, some of them
Speaker 1: went a wall and I went into hiding. Some more
Speaker 1: Uh court martialed and went to jail. Which is unusual
Speaker 1: that there. This is the volunteer force. But they still
Speaker 1: had conscience as objectors on it. Wow, they didn't believe
Speaker 1: in that particular war effort. Perhaps, Um, let's go back
Speaker 1: to Gandhi a bit okay. Um, he had this this bag.
Speaker 1: His bag was called Sacha garha and that means truth force.
Speaker 1: And his whole thing was peace is a weapon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we can use it that way and basically equalize
Speaker 1: this struggle. Um. Use sing all kinds of folks in
Speaker 1: a peaceful way. But uh, not just to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a pacifist, but to really try and disrupt the
Speaker 1: efforts of the war through pacifism. Yeah, he was be
Speaker 1: a thorn in the side. He He would be characterized
Speaker 1: technically as a pragmatic pacifist because he realized that violence
Speaker 1: was not going to help the Indian cause and was
Speaker 1: going to make it worse, and that non violence in
Speaker 1: this case could be weaponized. And he weaponized non violence
Speaker 1: and it really worked. And the reason why it worked
Speaker 1: was because the world saw these British soldiers like beating
Speaker 1: helpless Indians who were not fighting back. And the British
Speaker 1: had long said, you know, not just in India, but
Speaker 1: everywhere we have colonies, were civilizing these areas. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't make very civil yeah, when you're when you're beating
Speaker 1: an unarmed, non resisting Indian elderly person. Right. Um. And
Speaker 1: it worked in that sense. But again he was not
Speaker 1: against the use of violence and other situations. So while
Speaker 1: non violence is a part of pacifism, um, there there,
Speaker 1: they can be separate things. Yes, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be a pacifist to be non violent. It can just
Speaker 1: make sense in certain situations. Yeah, And there are three
Speaker 1: main ways that, Um, you can kind of go about
Speaker 1: this non violent resistance. The first you can you know,
Speaker 1: write letters, you can lobby, competition and pick it, you
Speaker 1: can wear symbol, you can march and protest. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you want to kick it up a notch, you can
Speaker 1: move on to non cooperation, which is boycotting something, slowing
Speaker 1: down something, UM, reporting sick, having walkouts, embargoes. And then finally,
Speaker 1: if you really want to go for it as a pacifist,
Speaker 1: non violent resistor, non violent intervention, which is fasting and
Speaker 1: sit ins. They form a shadow government, right, an underground newspaper.
Speaker 1: UM basically just um acts of civil disobedience. Yeah, pretty
Speaker 1: powerful stuff there and all that. All that's non violent.
Speaker 1: But again, you don't have to be a pacifist to
Speaker 1: engage in these kind of things. UM. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of if you're sitting there like what about this?
Speaker 1: But what about that? What about this? You might be
Speaker 1: a poll hooker hooker poker, right, which is like a
Speaker 1: grand tradition in among humanity, because there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: basically two ways of looking at people. And we did
Speaker 1: an episode on UM I think it was called What's
Speaker 1: the most Peaceful Time in History? And we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about whether humans are inherently violent or inherently peaceful. Right,
Speaker 1: So people love to say, like, hey, weirdo, who who
Speaker 1: thinks there's no justification for violence? What about this situation?
Speaker 1: Poll Hooker's right? So the poll hooker might first say
Speaker 1: something like, well, wait a minute, Wait a minute. You're
Speaker 1: you're trying to tell me that you're cool with executing
Speaker 1: a criminal or shooting a guy who's coming at your
Speaker 1: family to set you all on fire, but you're not
Speaker 1: okay with going to war? What's the difference? Right? Or
Speaker 1: they might say, well, yeah, it's super easy to be
Speaker 1: a pacifist as long as someone else is going out
Speaker 1: there and fighting the war that keeps you free to
Speaker 1: be that pacifist, right, And that's that's one that pacifism
Speaker 1: probably has the hardest time answering, because yeah, it's for
Speaker 1: for a pacifist to sit around saying the United States, um,
Speaker 1: you you you're in a pretty safe, comfortable position in
Speaker 1: part because other people went off and fought worse, you know,
Speaker 1: or in a country that's been invaded before. You know, that's, um,
Speaker 1: that's a tough one to defend. And the really the
Speaker 1: only solution I've seen is that pacifists say, well, I
Speaker 1: think that we should outlaw all acts of aggression or
Speaker 1: all acts of violence, even against aggressors, And um, that's
Speaker 1: just how I feel. If other people are going to
Speaker 1: go fight, that's their thing. But if somebody came to
Speaker 1: kill me, I would let them kill me. Um. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a tough one for sure, because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people who would say something like that
Speaker 1: might might not necessarily stick by it when they're actually
Speaker 1: being assaulted by somebody who intends to kill them, or
Speaker 1: probably more to the point, like their loved one is
Speaker 1: being assaulted by someone who intends to kill them, to
Speaker 1: just step stand by and say, I'm sorry, but abs
Speaker 1: pacifism is is the most morally upstanding thing I can do.
Speaker 1: So you're dead. Yeah, And I think, and I'm talking
Speaker 1: off the top of my head here again, but I
Speaker 1: think a pacifist it probably has to be a practice,
Speaker 1: like an active thing you work at, you know, because
Speaker 1: I think I think mostly the innate human response if
Speaker 1: someone tries to kill your child or your loved one
Speaker 1: is to snap and defend them. So you probably really
Speaker 1: have to like a meditation as a practice. I imagine
Speaker 1: that kind of pacivism has to be a practice. But
Speaker 1: one of those poll hookers as you call them, might say,
Speaker 1: did you do what's morally right when you let that
Speaker 1: person indiscriminately kill your child in front of you and
Speaker 1: didn't do a thing about it to stop them. I
Speaker 1: think that's so extreme though, It's just I know, but
Speaker 1: that's where philosophy exists, is in the in the on
Speaker 1: those extreme ends. You know, when you when you take
Speaker 1: an idea and you test it to it's it's for
Speaker 1: this tensile strength. Like that's when you really get into
Speaker 1: the meat of it, like what about this? What about that?
Speaker 1: You know? And um, that's a I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know that's moral. But then the pastivists
Speaker 1: would say, well, why is there why is their life
Speaker 1: that my child's life worth more than the life of
Speaker 1: this aggressor, right, which I would answer, well, your child
Speaker 1: is not an aggressor. Aggressor's taking a step below your
Speaker 1: child by being an aggressor. Boy, the tinsile strength is high. Uh,
Speaker 1: shall we talk a little bit about World War two
Speaker 1: here kind of half in the closing moments, Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: because it's really easy to look back at World War
Speaker 1: Two and kind of whitewash it as the boy the
Speaker 1: Allies were out there to fight Hitler because he was
Speaker 1: trying to kill Jews and uh, commit atrocities against humanity,
Speaker 1: and so we had to go in there and stop
Speaker 1: him at all costs. Right, And a lot of people
Speaker 1: point to World War two staying finally after years, here
Speaker 1: is what proves the just war theory. This guy was
Speaker 1: so bad and the stuff he was doing was so
Speaker 1: bad that we had to go to war to stop him.
Speaker 1: Pacifists your idiots for saying otherwise, Yes, but here with
Speaker 1: the benefit of hindsight. There are some people out there, historians, theologists.
Speaker 1: Uh there's one guy named Nick Stanton Rourke who said
Speaker 1: it's a sad fact that the Allies did little to
Speaker 1: thwart the worst of Hitler's atrocities. Times with death camps
Speaker 1: um which which we're bringing in and vetting more people
Speaker 1: every day. Transportation routes into death camps could have been
Speaker 1: targeted with no tactical risk to the Allied forces involved,
Speaker 1: but they were routinely denied, often because the military was
Speaker 1: careful to avoid the appearance of fighting quote for the Jews,
Speaker 1: which would have lost popular support for the war. So
Speaker 1: a lot of these historians now make a point that
Speaker 1: a lot more deplum diplomacy and pacifist resistance could have
Speaker 1: been more saved more lives even than the way they
Speaker 1: went at it with Hitler. I didn't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: know at all. So basically really eye opening from from
Speaker 1: what from what we found is that apparently, uh, the
Speaker 1: Allies were well aware of the threat to the Jews
Speaker 1: in Europe because it was going on for a long
Speaker 1: time before we got involved. Yeah, and he was publicly saying,
Speaker 1: if this turns into a world war, I'm laying it
Speaker 1: on the at the feet of the Jews and I'm
Speaker 1: going to exterminate the Jews in Europe. So US take
Speaker 1: that for what it's worth. And the US apparently knew
Speaker 1: this that if they entered the war it would spell
Speaker 1: doom for the Jews in Europe, and that had the
Speaker 1: passive and this is the pacifist stance. Had we Um
Speaker 1: gone to Hitler and said, you know what, what, we
Speaker 1: will accept conditional surrender, uh, if you will allow free
Speaker 1: passage for the Jews out of Europe into other places
Speaker 1: where they're going to be safe. If you'll just let
Speaker 1: them go. You're you're saying that you have to get
Speaker 1: rid of them because they're useless, and you can't afford
Speaker 1: to feed useless people, so you've got to exterminate them. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll take them from you. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that could have been done that wasn't done. So
Speaker 1: from the pacifist standpoint, to point to World War two
Speaker 1: and say this proves the just war theory and that
Speaker 1: pacifist doesn't work, the pacifist would say, actually, it proves
Speaker 1: that we were not willing to try pacifism even when
Speaker 1: it was apparent that that was going to possibly work
Speaker 1: way better than going to war was going to going
Speaker 1: after an unconditional surrender. Well, and some historians point to
Speaker 1: Denmark is being a prime example of how things could
Speaker 1: have gone differently perhaps and how they handled Hitler's aggression. Um,
Speaker 1: Denmark very famously was Um what did they say? They
Speaker 1: were neutral? Yeah, they said we're neutral, and Germany said
Speaker 1: we don't care. Yeah, so Germany invaded him anyway. But
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we can't resist Hitler with arms,
Speaker 1: like we're all going to be dead. Um, because we're
Speaker 1: just too small. We have we have no means to
Speaker 1: fight this war machine that's coming at us. So they
Speaker 1: basically kind of gave up. UH, said that would be
Speaker 1: a suicidal move to do anything otherwise, and said, here's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. We're basically going to be pacifists,
Speaker 1: resistance uh resistors, and UH. They slowed things down. They
Speaker 1: delayed transportation, They sabotage equipment. UH, they sabotage railroads and infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Workers went on strike when they were producing materials for
Speaker 1: the Nazis. UH. They basically just said, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: follow your anti Semitic policies. And when Hitler said, all right,
Speaker 1: I want to deport all the Danish Jews, they said no,
Speaker 1: and they hid them. They said what Danish Jews? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they hid them all in addition to about fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred more people who were refugees they're seeking uh protection
Speaker 1: and not a single Danish Jew died during the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: And apparently in the same post from nick Stanton rourke Um,
Speaker 1: he said that later on some of the higher ups
Speaker 1: in the in the Third Reich said that they were
Speaker 1: confounded whenever they were confronted with non violence because they
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with it, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and that that the that nonviolent resistance to the Third
Speaker 1: Bich actually was more successful than bombing it into into nothingness,
Speaker 1: because you still you still need some sort of support,
Speaker 1: public support behind you. And if you if the news
Speaker 1: reports are of like Nazis just wasting away Danish citizens
Speaker 1: who aren't fighting back like they're not, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: have any support from their own followers. Well, and remember
Speaker 1: in our Dictators episode we talked about how uh belligerents
Speaker 1: from a foreign nation often causes the population to be
Speaker 1: afraid and get behind their dictator. Where um Nicholson Baker,
Speaker 1: who's an author who is also a famous pacifist, he
Speaker 1: basically said that that it was fear that bound Hitler
Speaker 1: and Germany together, whereas if suddenly there was a cease
Speaker 1: to fighting and there is no threat any longer of
Speaker 1: being invaded or bombed by the Allies, that who knows
Speaker 1: what could have happened Hitler. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: like tratorious conspiracies against Hitler within his own ranks. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of resistance movements against him. Maybe he
Speaker 1: would have been replaced and at the very least he
Speaker 1: would have died eventually and and um, probably some of
Speaker 1: the victims of the Holocaust would have been saved. It's
Speaker 1: a it's like that's but think about it, that's almost
Speaker 1: blasphemy to talk about that, like not being violent or
Speaker 1: aggressive toward Hitler. But apparently that's because of a revision
Speaker 1: over time over the goals and the reasons why we
Speaker 1: entered World War two. Interesting, it really is. It's very
Speaker 1: eye opening. And then lastly, does pacifism work with terrorists
Speaker 1: like isis? I love how this article basically sums it up. No, nope, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody knows what what No pacifist knows what to do
Speaker 1: with something like isis they? Maybe they probably break pacifism
Speaker 1: even more than Hitler does the idea of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's a big one. Yeah, boy good. We haven't
Speaker 1: had a good deep talk like that in a while.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we uh touched what was it we were
Speaker 1: touched by the pacifist bug. Yeah, glad that happened. If
Speaker 1: you want to be touched by the pacifist bugs. Is
Speaker 1: typed that word into the search bar. How stuff works,
Speaker 1: and it will bring up this great article. And since
Speaker 1: I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. We
Speaker 1: got an email about our CTE episode from a NFL
Speaker 1: player from a Dallas Cowboy. Did you read that one? Wow?
Speaker 1: Emmett Cleary. He's a guard. He's a guard for the
Speaker 1: amazing offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys and a smart dude,
Speaker 1: which Boston College thanks for writing. Yeah, I was pretty excited.
Speaker 1: Any Um he said that I could read this. Uh. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: current NFL player, A big fan of the show. I
Speaker 1: have a background in science biology at Boston College and
Speaker 1: my interest was piquked about CTE. You covered all sides
Speaker 1: of it, but I wanted to share the perspective and
Speaker 1: active player. As the research has progressed in garner media
Speaker 1: coverage over the last ten years, awareness of the risks
Speaker 1: of repetitive brain trauma among players has grown. Can't speak
Speaker 1: for everyone, but guys seem more cautious with their brain health.
Speaker 1: From the time I started college football, football culture has changed. UH.
Speaker 1: Players have become more proactive reporting head injuries and more
Speaker 1: conservative in returning to play. I've seen my teammates look
Speaker 1: out for each other and advise each other towards safety.
Speaker 1: UH and an occupation that promotes a warrior mentality. This
Speaker 1: is a good thing. We understand that nobody gets out
Speaker 1: of the game healthy, and while most people are okay
Speaker 1: with bad knees or shoulders or back problems, brain health
Speaker 1: is a serious concern. As this all went public, it
Speaker 1: became increasingly apparent how deceitful NFL leadership has been. While
Speaker 1: the league office in club medicals tasks include many good
Speaker 1: people who undoubtedly care about our long term health, the
Speaker 1: leadership is consistently OBUs skated evidence, promoted pseudoscience, an outright
Speaker 1: lied about the effects of head injuries. Retired players feel betrayed,
Speaker 1: and active players have no reason to trust that league
Speaker 1: that the league will prioritize our health overcovering its own.
Speaker 1: But legally, protecting brain health is good for everybody involved,
Speaker 1: but the league is more concerned with avoiding liability uh
Speaker 1: in convincing public that football is harmless. Until longitudinal studies
Speaker 1: can accurately quantify the risk of football, we do the
Speaker 1: best we can with the information we have. Guy's balance
Speaker 1: and known risks of against the joy and benefits of playing. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to enjoy my career and get out relatively healthy.
Speaker 1: I love my job and don't want to jeopardize my
Speaker 1: long term well being. Thanks for bringing your typical rigorous
Speaker 1: research and balance. You point to a critical issue. Offensive
Speaker 1: guard Emmed Clary, don't tell anybody said this. Okay, man,
Speaker 1: I know, I know that was a great email. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Offensive lineman Clary. Think how you address professional football play?
Speaker 1: So uh he said, if we come back to Dallas
Speaker 1: or Chicago, because he's maybe from Chicago, well hang cool,
Speaker 1: drinking contest, nice and we'll put on the helmets and
Speaker 1: crack them together. Yeah. Oh I watched the game. Um oh, man,
Speaker 1: I think it was Louisville versus somebody who knows a
Speaker 1: team that had different colors on right, college football, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was one of the It was a
Speaker 1: bowl Louisville versus somebody whoever they played in their bowl.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they played this year. Well, somebody um
Speaker 1: lad with the crown of their head and hit somebody
Speaker 1: else in the in the the helmet um and got
Speaker 1: ejected for the game and rightfully. So they made a
Speaker 1: big deal of it. Yeah, college football, they'll do that.
Speaker 1: They call it tar getting it. Yeah they did. And
Speaker 1: um but I mean I remember a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago they're like that goods are good hit. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: wrong his bill. But everybody's talking very seriously and quietly
Speaker 1: about how this is a big deal. I'm like purpose progress. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well thanks a lot again, offensive Lineman Cleary. Uh. And
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with this like
Speaker 1: he did, you can tweet to us. I'm at josh
Speaker 1: um Clark uh. And I'm also at s Y s
Speaker 1: K podcast on Twitter. Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: on Facebook and at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. We can both be reached at Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com via email, and has
Speaker 1: always hang out with us at our luxurious home on
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. I'm at, I'm null, I'm Ben,
Speaker 1: and we are Stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Each week we cover the latest and strangest in fringe science,
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