So, what’s the conservative rage about Miers all about?

The New Neo Posted on by

Not being a conservative myself (I just play one on TV every now and then), I’d initially been surprised by the degree to which conservatives are angry at Bush for the Miers nomination.

But I guess I shouldn’t be. When I really think about it, it seems that conservatives are so exceptionally angry because they wanted (and fully expected) him to give them exactly what they’ve been waiting for all these years, and haven’t gotten from him yet in the Supreme Court Justice department–a fire-breathing ultra-conservative with a track record a mile long to make it all crystal clear.

If Bush had done so, it would have started a bitter battle. But I think a certain number of conservatives actually wanted a divisive and vicious battle–they were positively aching for it. I don’t know why–to rub it into liberal faces, perhaps. So Bush deprived them of the candidate–and for some of them, of the battle–they had every reason to believe was coming their way. Now the full force of the anger that was building for that fight, fueled by their frustrated hope, is turned on him.

I think conservatives are also especially embarrassed at the cronyism aspect, because, after all, that argument against the appointment holds some water. It really does give at least the appearance of a problem, and it taps into some of the harshest criticisms that have long been leveled against Bush.

So, many conservatives (such as commenter “strcpy” here) are angry and stunned that Bush pulled the rug out from under them, as it were, and he did it in a way that has allowed liberals to say to conservatives, “See, I told you so!”.

Here’s strcpy to explain in his/her own words:

Basically I’ve spent a lot of time defending (and rightfully so IMO) Bush against a lot of charges from the left. Quite a bit of the cronyism, and then….this. It may not really be cronyism – maybe he knows her well enough to *know* she will do a good job, but surely there are others that he does also. Then he asks for blind trust. While I do not “not trust” him, I don’t particularly trust him either (part of him being a politician – I trust him has far as I do any politician and think he is better than nearly all at a national level). It basically kills years of arguing – I can’t point at someone and say “stupid” because cronyism is more likely than not in this case and your thought basically boil down to how much you trust him (along with the “I’ve been telling you for years, your an idiot”). Ultimately he lost years of political arguing with this giving his opponents something to bash him on that can’t be refuted – after all if I’m “wrong” on that then it goes that I am on the rest.

What was Bush thinking? My belief is that Bush chose Miers because he thought she would be acceptable enough to the Democrats to be confirmed without a bitter fight (which he, at least, wanted to avoid) but conservative enough to actually perform as all conservatives want. By saying “trust me” he actually means “Look folks, I know her; she’ll be every bit as conservative as you could wish, but she’ll appear blank enough to the opposition to get through the confirmation process without a total war.” But the words “trust me” sound condescending and arrogant–particularly when his base has just received what they think of as a betrayal–with the added drawback that arrogance is a charge to which Bush is especially susceptible.

To answer a question posed here by commenter “holmes,” I do think the confirmation process can answer some questions about what sort of justice Miers will make. It can tell us a lot about her in terms of intelligence, verbal agility, quickness, integrity, courage, forthrightness–all of which are things that are relevant to being a justice. The clerks do a lot of the research, after all; a justice has to be able to think.

But my guess is that holmes’ question taps into what so many conservatives are fearing–which is that hearings can’t tell us how she will actually vote on the hot issues of the day if she ends up a member of the Court. Will she be firmly in the conservative camp? Or will she–like the woman she is replacing, Sandra Day O’Connor–be a conservative hope dashed, a swing voter whose only predictability is that her vote tends to balance the court and keep it from veering too strongly to one side or another? I don’t know the answer–and, as a centrist, of course it doesn’t bother me as it would a true conservative.

How blank a slate is Miers? The answer appears–at least so far–to be: pretty blank indeed. It turns out that not even most of her friends and colleagues know her actual opinions, although they speak highly of her. To me, this means either that she really is opinionless (which would be odd and rather offputting, a sort of Chauncy Gardner of the legal profession)–or that she is circumspect and private, which I don’t mind at all.

Perhaps, in fact, Miers will turn out to be what all the conservatives say they want: a strict constructionist, who merely interprets the Constitution and keeps her own opinions out of it as much as humanly possible. Wouldn’t that be novel?

[For my previous post on the Miers nomination, see here.]

Miers: mired?

The New Neo Posted on by

Until now, I’ve kept out of the Miers Supreme Court nomination brouhaha. But I do have a few observations, mostly about the reaction to her nomination, and about Supreme Court nominations in general.

It seems to me that, ever since Bork, Supreme Court nominations have become highly emotional and conflicted situations, and this one is clearly no exception. Bush may have nominated Miers partly in an attempt to avoid the bitter divisions of the Bork battle; if so, his strategy has most definitely failed.

My own position on Miers herself? It’s way to early to say what this woman is actually like and what sort of justice she’ll make. Why not just wait for the hearings before starting to squawk so loudly? Right now it’s all just idle speculation and guessing: much ado about nothing.

No, she’s never been a judge. Yes, she’s a friend of Bush’s. No, she didn’t attend an Ivy League school. Sorry, but I just don’t consider any of those facts definitive evidence of anything. What I know about the Supreme Court indicates that the most salient characteristics its justices need are knowledge of the law, intelligence, and reasoning ability, and these are hardly the exclusive provenance of former judges or Ivy League graduates.

The whole thing is a shape-shifting, moving target. What the pundits seem to want in a SCOTUS nominee is precisely whatever it is that the present one lacks. If you don’t believe me, try this on for size. It’s a question-and-answer discussion with legal scholar John Yoo on the occasion of the Roberts nomination–remember that? It wasn’t so terribly long ago, as I recall. (I have taken the liberty of highlighting in boldface the especially relevant parts):

How can someone that has never been a Supreme Court Justice be nominated for Chief Justice? For me it seems as if a person is becoming “police Chief” yet, was never an officer. Does the public have any say in this matter?

Surely the public has a say, by pressuring the President and Senators to demand certain qualifications for the Chief Justice position, if that is what desired. I want to note that several prominent political and legal leaders over the last few years have been calling for the appointment of Supreme Court Justices who have no previous judicial experience. This was, in fact, the normal practice for many parts of our history.

And then there’s this:

Philadelphia, Pa.: If I heard the news correctly this morning: John Roberts has never confronted a witness in a trial and has never advised a client of the client’s rights. I guess John Roberts should be glad that one does not have to be an attorney to serve on the Supreme Court as John Roberts has never been an attorney. Will the lack of practicing legal experience be any factor in these hearings?

John Yoo: John Roberts has not been a trial attorney, but then many attorneys who practice law in this country have never conducted a cross-examination in a courtroom. Roberts has appeared in court many times however. He has practiced in the appellate courts, which is probably far better preparation for work as a Justice than practicing in the trial courtrooms. I think your observation about Roberts’s lack of trial experience is also probably true with regard to most of the other members of the Supreme Court.

I don’t expect this lack of trial experience to be a significant factor in the hearings. Over the years, some have called on Presidents to nominate lawyers with more of a diverse background to the Court. It is, right now, composed heavily of former appellate judges with an unusually high number of law professors. Yet, for roughly the last 30 years, Presidents of both political parties have nominated sitting federal judges to the Court. This was not the case in the past, which has witnessed Courts with former Senators, governors, cabinet members, and leaders of the bar as Justices. If Roberts is confirmed, the only member of the Court who will not have been a sitting federal judge at time of appointment will have been O’Connor, who was herself a state judge at the time.

Roberts’ lack of trial experience ended up not mattering. He silenced all his critics–well, not all of them, but many of them–quite effectively in his hearings, and made it very difficult for them to press the case against him successfully. Ms. Miers will either do that or she will not do it–and that’s a great deal more important than where she happened to go to law school many moons ago.

The “cronyism” charge, on the other hand, makes me think back to the time President Kennedy picked his brother Robert to be Attorney General–now, there was cronyism! (actually, nepotism, but let’s not get too technical here):

President Kennedy named his brother Robert attorney general so, as he put it, his brother could “get some legal experience” before getting a job. Congress was not amused by the joke, and although Robert served ably, it later passed a law forbidding the President to make appointments of close relatives to federal office.

Thank goodness for that law. Otherwise, no doubt, Bush’s critics would have to deal with his appointment of nephew George P. as Supreme Court Justice–after all, he’s got the law degree.

People are often flummoxed by Supreme Court appointees because they’d like to be able to control them and predict exactly what the justice is going to do for the rest of his/her life. That will never be strictly possible (although sometimes, of course, it works out that way). There tend to be a fair number of surprises, because once a nominee is on the Court, all bets are off. It’s a bit like marriage used to be when it was pretty much for life and the stricter rules about divorce made it very very difficult to leave: a leap of faith into an unknown future.

The poor, poor military

The New Neo Posted on by

Via Dr. Sanity, I found this data, which show that military recruits in recent years do not in fact appear to be drawn disproportionately from among the poor, thus negating a favorite liberal/left talking point.

Not that this will stop anyone from making the claim. And even if it does, and if the “poverty-striken victims” notion of the military is excluded, that would still leave its useful alternate: “bloodthirsty monsters” (see this for a discussion of both attitudes).

Terrorists: nihilists and/or mass murderers?

The New Neo Posted on by

Christopher Hitchens, in a fine article in Slate entitled “Why Ask Why?”, tries once again to tell the left that it’s futile to imagine that terrorists such as the Bali bombers are rational actors responding to policies of the West:

The return of murderous nihilism to Bali is highly instructive. It shows, first, that the fanatics of Islamism don’t know how to stop. And it also shows that they never learn. How can Jemaah Islamiyah, which almost ruined Indonesia’s economy by its filthy attack three years ago, possibly have tried to repeat the same crime in the same place?

Hitchens goes on to demolish the left’s policy-based explanations/excuses for terrorism, and explains the motive for JI’s attacks instead as Islamicist fundamentalist anger. Anger at the relatively freer form of Islam practiced in Indonesia, hatred of the mostly Hindu population of Bali, and anger at the Australians for trying to help the Christian population of East Timor (originally a leftist cause, by the way). In other words, their “rational” motive is that this is an Islamicist religious fundamentalist war.

Hitchens uses the word “nihilism,” (one I’ve used before, too) in connection with the terrorists. But I discovered when I looked it up that we are both using it somewhat incorrectly, at least in the historic sense of the word. Nihilism:

…rejected all religious and political authority, social traditions, and traditional morality as standing in opposition to freedom, the ultimate ideal. In this sense, it can be seen as an extreme form of anarchism. The state thus became the enemy, and the enemy was ferociously attacked. After gaining much momentum in Russia, the movement degenerated into what were essentially terrorist cells, barren of any real unifying philosophy beyond the call for destruction.

One can easily see that the first part of the definition doesn’t fit Islamicist terrorists such as Jemaah Islamiyah; au contraire! Islamicist terrorists are for instituting more authority and less freedom–in fact, they’d like to maximize the former and abolish the latter. It is, however, the last part of the definition of nihilism that fits them like a glove: a love affair with destructiveness. And it is in this sense that both Hitchens and I use the term.

Hitchens is correct in locating the JI’s policy motivations as being the establishment of a rigid theocracy, but one could have that goal and nevertheless shy away from blowing people up in restaurants and bars. To be a terrorist, these political and theocratic goals must be combined with a drive that is in the realm of the psychological rather than the political, and is actually more connected to the motives of the serial killer and mass murderer than the politician or even the true “insurgent.”

Serial killers and mass murderers are not rational actors. They feel compelled to do what they do. Here is a description of their makeup and motives. Read it with terrorists in mind and see how well much of it seems to fit:

Mass Murderers are typically quite ordinary. They’re reclusive, have few if any friends, and have no criminal record. However, they do not let go of past grievances and they tend to build and fester, with minor incidents being perceived as major offenses, and impersonal ones as personal. Some stress, such as a broken relationship, a loss, or unemployment, may be the trigger that sets everything in motion. They blame others for their failures and their motive is generally to strike back, to punish, and to exact as much damage as they can manage. The higher the death toll, the better they have succeeded. People who have been dismissing or ignoring them are not going to forget them now. Their choice of targets is typically irrational, and often does not even include the one against whom they wanted vengeance. Some…have shown signs of psychosis, but most have been judged sane at the time of the incident.

Every society on earth has a number of such individuals. Whether a person will actually act out as a mass murderer depends on a number of factors, many of them unknown. But if a society fosters and nurtures characteristics such as blaming others and holding grudges; if that society as a whole feels it’s been slighted, ignored, and/or cheated; if violence in the cause of vengeance is glorified by that society; if there is a pervasive sense of failure, isolation, and frustration in that society; if people sharing these traits have the capacity, through modern communication, to get together, make plans, have easy access to powerful explosives, and are whipped into a frothing rage by inflammatory media and clerics exhorting them to murder in the name of holiness–well then, whatever number of people inclined to mass murder that society may have, such behavior is likely to be fully expressed.

Mass murderers tend to go back to the scene of the crime, or to target the same type of victim over and over again. In this, as in so many other things, terrorists resemble the compulsivity of the mass murderer. So we have another Bali bombing, and the World Trade Center was struck until it was finally destroyed.

Terrorists want power, and are frustrated that they don’t have it. If you think about it, what weapons or power do they really have other than the power to blow innocent people–so-called “soft” targets–up? They can’t win over an army; if they try to battle a conventional military or police force they are usually decimated. They also lack the power of argument and persuasion; only a small percentage of people on the face of the earth are going to convert to a rigid sect such as Wahabism or its ilk, since most people lack a natural temperament for and interest in fanaticism. Modern explosives have allowed a relatively small but determined group of power-hungry, frustrated, and otherwise impotent terrorists to make a relatively big bang, if they so desire–and terrorists do so desire, quite ardently.

Why do all the psychobloggers seem to be on the right?

The New Neo Posted on by

Roger Simon paid a nice tribute to Shrinkwrapped and some of us other psychobloggers (no, not “psycho bloggers”), even though it turned out to be based on somewhat of a case of mistaken identity re Shrinkwrapped’s semi-outing. I’m very happy to be included in their company, and in Roger’s praise.

I have a question, though: why is it that all those bloggers who are therapists, or who were therapists, or who are about to become therapists (or psychologists or psychiatrists or–well, I think you get the picture) seem to be either centrists, or to the right of center?

I can’t find any studies on this, but it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of people in these professions are of the liberal or left persuasion, Wouldn’t one therefore expect that among the crowd of psychobloggers many–if not most–would be writing from a liberal/left perspective? Or, if not “many” or “most,” then at least some?

I did a fairly comprehensive search for psychobloggers towards the beginning of my blogging experience, but I found none to the left of center. If I’m correct in my assumption that there are none (and please, if you find any, let me know!), can anyone explain this rather odd fact?

In the absense of knowledge, though, I’m almost never without a theory. So I’ll offer one now, for what it’s worth. I think we are the ones with the motive to blog. We are faced with a sense of dislocation and puzzlement, and a need to explain how we (and others) have ended up over here instead of over there, when one might have expected the opposite.

I don’t think that most of the other psychobloggers are “changers” like myself (I recall, for example, that Dr. Sanity is not). But I, for one, am continually surprised at the odd trajectory my life has taken–and, when surprised, my instinct is to try to learn and to explain.

Time marches on: Lenin who?

The New Neo Posted on by

The first time I ever saw a photo of Lenin’s embalmed corpse on display in its mausoleum in Moscow, the sight gave me the creeps. There was something dreadful about making a body into an icon–a sort of zombie-esque quality to the whole enterprise. The Soviets may have abolished (or sought mightily to abolish) religion, but they seemed to have replaced it with ghoulish hero-worship.

Little did I know the lengths to which the Soviets actually went to keep the remains intact all these long years. And it’s not just the Soviets who were big on these body-as-holy-relic displays; it turns out it’s a Communist thing. Uncle Ho is on view in Hanoi, having been secretly super-embalmed by a special Soviet team sent to the North Vietnamese jungle especially for that purpose in 1970 (the Wikipedia article mentions that this seems to have gone against Ho’s express wishes, which were to be cremated; it also mentions that other bodies on similar display are Mao Zedong and Kim Il-Sung).

Stalin used to lie under glass in Red Square alongside his illustrious predecessor; I recall seeing photos in my youth of the two of them, looking like bizarro twin Snow Whites waiting for princes who never came. But when Stalin was discredited during the Khrushchev era, he was removed from Lenin’s side and buried under the Kremlin wall.

Now a similar fate might await Lenin. The NY Times reports that talk of his burial has been revived, and Putin is in favor of it, although the idea has its detractors.

But to me the most interesting part of the article was the following quote at the end:

No matter what Mr. Putin decides, there already are indications that time may ultimately do what no politician has yet achieved. The youngest Russian adults barely recall the Communist times, and some show little interest in looking back. “Lenin,” mused Natasha Zakharova, 23, as she walked off Red Square on Tuesday, admitting that she was not quite sure whose body she had just seen. “Was he a Communist?”

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Recap: elections round the world

The New Neo Posted on by

Let’s see now, we’ve got the Freedom Trifecta of Howard, Bush, and Blair (in chronological order), all somehow re-elected and returned to power despite the incessant carping of the left. Then of course there’s Afghanistan, in its second largely peaceful postwar election. Also, purple, green, and orange revolutions in Iraq, Lebanon, and Ukraine.

Now there’s Poland, and Japan seems to be on board, as well. Practically a clean sweep for the coalition, the neocons, and the hawks.

The results of the German elections are as yet unclear. But recently there was new evidence that the end result could be the unseating of Schroder:

Chancellor Gerhard Schré¶der seemed Monday to soften his resistance to giving up his post, hinting for the first time that he would not oppose a decision by his party to share power with the opposition conservatives even if it meant accepting somebody else as chancellor.

“I will not stand in the way of anything that would lead to a continuation of the reform processes that I started and a stable government in Germany,” Mr. Schré¶der said…This is not about my prerogatives and absolutely not about me as a person,” he said.

True, although it’s surprising that Schroder himself is actually admitting it.

And then, of course, there’s Spain–whose voters, with the timely assistance of al Qaeda, managed to turn a lead for the party of pro-coalition Aznar into an election for the appeaser Zapatero. But that’s about it, so far, for the anti-coalition forces in elections during the past year and a half.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but I sense a trend here, and it’s one the left won’t like.

Oh, and by the way–I know it’s been said before, but I was just struck once again by how much Zapatero resembles Mr. Bean. Separated at birth?

Believe your enemy

The New Neo Posted on by

A while back, commenter Richard Aubrey wrote here:

The neat thing about our current situation is that we don’t have to make stuff up about what our enemies want. They tell us. The problem is in believing them.

But you can’t say they don’t make their intentions crystal clear. As if we needed another example, LGF today provided evidence, in the form of an interview six weeks ago with the very spiritual Bashir, in which he is quoted as stating:

ABB: Osama believes in total war. This concept I don’t agree with. If this occurs in an Islamic country, the fitnah [discord] will be felt by Muslims. But to attack them in their country [America] is fine.

SA: So this fight will never end?

ABB: Never. This fight is compulsory. Muslims who don’t hate America sin…As long as there is no intention to fight us and Islam continues to grow there can be peace. This is the doctrine of Islam. Islam can’t be ruled by others. Allah’s law must stand above human law. There is no [example] of Islam and infidels, the right and the wrong, living together in peace.

Who knew that Bashir was a disciple of Samuel Huntington? Islam has bloody borders, indeed–you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

[NOTE: To try to stave off the inevitable commenters who write that not all Moslems feel this way, let me just say: I agree with you. Not all Moslems feel this way. The trouble is that way too many of their leaders, “spiritual” or otherwise (and the powerful, vocal ones at that), do. And there is too much in Moslem scripture and history that backs them up. I’d love the so-called “moderate Moslems”–whom I believe exist–to gain a great deal more power over their religion and be successful in reforming and modernizing it. But I wouldn’t suggest sitting on a hot stove till that happens.]

Definitely not a bicycle built for two

The New Neo Posted on by

Oh-oh.

Danger, and from an unexpected source. Men, you may want to leave the room now, especially if you are the sensitive sort.

Today’s NY Times has an article on the hazards of bike-riding–yes, you heard me, bike riding, specifically the bicycle seat. And don’t think you’ll avoid the problem by using one of those new-fangled ergonomically blah-blah-blah seats, either. No; they appear to be, if anything, worse.

Since the Times is registration-only, I’ll give an excerpt–a rather expurgated excerpt. Read the whole thing for the precise anatomical details–if you dare.

The studies add to earlier evidence that traditional bicycle saddles, the kind with a narrow rear and pointy nose, play a role in sexual impotence.

Some saddle designs are more damaging than others, scientists say. But even so-called ergonomic seats, to protect the sex organs, can be harmful, the research finds. The dozen or so studies, from peer-reviewed journals, are summarized in three articles in September’s Journal of Sexual Medicine…

Researchers have estimated that 5 percent of men who ride bikes intensively have developed severe to moderate erectile dysfunction as a result. But some experts believe that the numbers may be much higher because many men are too embarrassed to talk about it or fail to associate cycling with their problems in the bedroom.

The link between bicycle saddles and impotence first received public attention in 1997 when a Boston urologist, Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who had studied the problem, asserted that “there are only two kinds of male cyclists – those who are impotent and those who will be impotent.”

Although Bostonians (and even Boston neurologists, as far as I know) are not ordinarily given to hyperbole, the evidence is that Dr. Goldstein was over-the-top on this one. But 5% is nothing to sneeze at, either. So, forewarned is forearmed, all you bicycle-riding guys out there.

Yeah, and Goebbels was the “spiritual leader” of the Nazis

The New Neo Posted on by

I am truly sick and tired of this business of calling terrorist cheerleaders “spiritual leaders.”

In some ways it’s worse than the “militant” thing; at least terrorists are militant. But how are people such as Abu Bakar Bashir, a cleric who most agree is the one who inspires and guides the murderers of Jemaah Islamiyah “spiritual” (unless, of course, the spirit of evil and hatred counts)?

Is it because he hides behind the role of cleric? Well, the mere title “cleric” does not a spiritual leader make. It’s a perversion of the word and the concept “spiritual” to use it to refer to people like Bashir–or to that other well-known spiritual leader, the late Sheikh Ahmad Yassin (see this).

And why, by the way, are these guys so often frail and elderly? Here is the wispy and oh-so-spiritual Bashir in 2002 on the subject of the first Bali bombings:

Asked if there was anything he wanted to say to families who lost relatives in the bomb blast, he said: “My message to the families is please convert to Islam as soon as possible.”

Mr Bashir offered no sympathy for those who died; just his belief that by converting to Islam, the survivors could ensure they would avoid the fate of those non-Muslims who died and went to hell.

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet in a run-down house that serves as headquarters for the Indonesia Mujahideen Council, an umbrella group for a cluster of radical Muslim groups, the gently spoken cleric also had a more ominous message he wanted conveyed to Australians.

“The second message is for Australia because you suffered the most: please advise your government not to follow the US policy because it will bring tragedy for your country”…

I think the bomb was done by foreign intelligence, especially US intelligence. The indications are Americans and Jews did it to justify the claims that have been made so far that Indonesia is a terrorist haven. What they mean by terrorists is Muslims. So to prove their theory they created the incident in Bali.

Spiritual as all get-out.

The varieties of pacifism (Part IIA): the conflicted Quaker history

The New Neo Posted on by

[This is the second segment of my multi-part series on pacifism. The first, which dealt with Gandhi, can be found here. This second part discusses the Quaker approach. It also will be divided into two smaller sections, of which this is the first. I think that’s quite complicated enough, don’t you think?]

During the long build-up to the Iraq war and for quite some time after, my regular driving route took me past the local Quaker church. In front was a large banner, prominently displayed, that read, “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER”. Driving by, I often had to fight the urge to stop my car, walk inside, and ask them: What’s the question? And what’s your answer?

I wouldn’t have minded quite so much if the banner had read “We believe that war is not the answer” or even better “We hope that war is not the answer.” It was the absolute and sweeping nature of the statement that got to me: was war never a proper response to a situation? Was it not sometimes the least terrible of the “choices among crazinesses?”

It turns out that, despite the banner, at least some Quakers have always answered “yes” to the latter question. The Quaker attitude is far more nuanced (pardon the expression) than the banner would indicate.

Although pacifism is a basic tenet of Quaker belief—the thing that most often comes to mind when the word “Quaker” is brought up in conversation among non-Quakers—by no means do Quakers universally agree as to its dimensions and scope. In fact, the argument within the Quaker faith on this point goes back hundreds of years, to its founding in the 1600s by George Fox, and the disagreement mirrors in some interesting ways arguments in the larger world about pacifism itself.

Here’s a brief history of the dilemma within the Quaker faith, taken from this piece by Quaker Vernon Mullen:

There have been several sides to the pacifist stand from George Fox’s time. The question has always been: How far should one go in refusing to use force to try to bring about peace and justice? On one side stand the pure idealists who have renounced force or violence in any form; on the other are the pragmatists, although they may be pacifists, who are willing to use force to maintain law and order.

George Fox’s declaration of 1661 to Charles II is referred to as the Friends historic peace testimony: “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any ends or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.” The rulers feared that the Quakers might lead some kind of revolution against their authority, and Fox wanted to assure them that the Quakers were peaceful.

In his biography of George Fox, First Among Friends, Larry Ingle says:

“Fox was not a pacifist in the modern sense that he utterly rejected participating in all wars and violent conflicts. He couldn’t imagine himself bearing the sword, at least under {his} present circumstances… but he also recognized that someone must wield the sword against evil-doers.”

Ingle goes on to say, “Fox would not condone violence except ‘in the cause of justice’… ‘in a war with the devil and his works’… ‘for a righteous cause’… or for ‘keeping the peace and protecting people’s estates’ (i.e. not their property but their condition), and Ingle continues that Fox would ‘never deny the right of a nation’s rulers to wield weapons in defense of a just cause. The problem was in defining such a cause.’ Thus the dilemma.

The old question keeps on appearing: “What would you do if you saw your mother being raped?” [neo-neocon note: sound familiar, Mike Dukakis?] I know my answer: I would use whatever force or weapon I had available to protect her. I would not try to kill or maim but use only enough force to stop the aggressor. Yes, I would respect “that of God” in the aggressor, but I must respect it also in the victim. I believe this principle applies as well to nations.

So here we have a Quaker tradition that runs a surprising gamut from what I call “absolute pacifism” (what Mullen refers to as the “pure idealists”) to “relative pacifism” (what Mullen refers to as the “pragmatists”). The pragmatists adhere to a doctrine that is somewhat similar to the “just war” doctrine of Catholicism (another topic for another day, perhaps) although the Quaker version seems to me to be the slightly more restrictive one.

The Civil War presented a particularly compelling case to Quakers as being both just and necessary, since Quakers had long been in the forefront of the abolitionist movement. In fact–as Ingle himself writes here–despite the “peace testimony” being the heart of Quakerism, at least some Quakers have participated in every war since the religion’s founding in the 1600s.

Ingle describes the conflict within Quakerism on this issue, and emphasizes the individual nature of the Quaker decision about pacifism vs. war (and in his description of the William Penn approach you may find, as I did, a hint at the genesis of many modern-day strains of pacifism, both Quaker or otherwise):

…Fox, at least, never betook himself to deny the right, even duty, of a ruler to wield weapons in a just cause. The problem was determining exactly what such a cause was and by whose standards it would be judged. In this sense, it fed the individualism at the heart of Quakerism, for it ultimately left to each Friend the responsibility of making that determination.

In addition, since the statement spoke only for Friends and formally represented only the signers’ personal testimony against participation in war, it never presumed to speak for those beyond the bounds of the Quaker faith. Certainly in denying carnal weapons, it was not making a universal statement. Hence its spirit was foreign to the kind of Enlightenment optimism that practically oozed from William Penn’s 1693 Essay “Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe,” only a bit more than a generation later.

This pamphlet proposed a structure for a united European parliament that would end international conflict and secure peace. The difference between the two approaches involved more than the mere passage of time: one from two ill-educated Quakers, whose despair at the Stuart Restoration gave them little hope of ever seeing “the Day of the Lord” or having to personally confront the question of wielding the sword in a just cause; the other from the pen of a thoughtful, well-off, and worldly educated imperial proprietor who oversaw his colony’s rules.

The implications of the peace testimony thus stand apart from most modern Quaker peacemaking, which owes more to the aristocratic Penn than to the ruder Fox and Hubberthorne….our 1661 authors…[who gave] a sectarian call to Friends to be faithful to the word of God they had heard in the silence of their meetings; it spoke only to those who had been convinced of its truth and knew themselves called to uphold a unique standard.

So the original pacifist Quaker position was a highly individual one, more akin to that of the modern-day conscientious objector who cannot himself fight but who might support a war in other ways by being a medic or ambulance driver, for example. The second, or William Penn strain, is the “international law” variety so popular today, and often espoused by those who are not aligned with any religious movement, Quakerism or otherwise. This second type of pacifism embraces the idea that courts and the UN and treaties and disarmament will usher in the era of the lion lying down with the lamb, and among Quakers it is connected with the mission to work as social activists to hasten the arrival of that day.

The first wing of Quakerism is eloquently represented here, by one of its early founders, Penington, writing in 1661:

I speak not against any magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions; or making use of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their borders – for this the present estate of things may and doth require…There is to be a time when ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more’…This blessed state, which shall be brought forth [in society] at large in God’s season, must begin in particulars [that is, in individuals].

So, Penington’s position is: for now, war is necessary and will not be opposed, except by individual non-participation based on individual decision. Quakers in their pacifism have a special call to be a sort of harbinger of the world to come, when war will no longer be necessary. This state will be brought about through God’s will and the efforts of individual humans such as Quakers.

The dangers of pacifism, especially of the absolute variety, were well-expressed in 1974 by the British Quaker writer and teacher Wolf Mendl (who, by the way, began life as a German Jew—an unusual journey, I would imagine):

Because of their personal experience and convictions, [early] Friends did not deny the reality of evil and of conflict. Nor did they equate conflict with evil. They were well aware of the suffering which a non-violent witness could bring in an imperfect world. This is in contrast to those who identify peace with the absence of conflict and value that above all things. It is the latter who have given modern pacifism its bad name and have led their critics to refer to them contemptuously as ‘passivists’. The failure to take evil and conflict into account as elements in our human condition and an obsession with the need for peace and harmony have led pacifists badly astray… Christian pacifists [are] not exempt from the temptation to sacrifice others for the sake of peace.

Mendl is not exactly a hawk, to be sure. But his writing shows a deep awareness on the part of at least some Quakers about what is at stake, and of the damage that can be done by “passivists” in the name of goodness.

[Go here for Part I, and here for Part IIB, the final post in the series.]