Post 2

It may be helpful to delve into the origins of my present character. This practice jives well with my educational background. I graduated a year prior to this post (approximately) with a Bachelors degree from the University of Winnipeg. It was an Honors degree in History, with most of the courses being in Art History. It came up often during lectures and in the assigned readings that context was of supreme importance in the discipline of history. I jadedly scrawled in the not-so-meticulously-heeded margins of my note paper, "Context is better than sex." As if to confront the historian's preference for reasonably-assessed origins over and against the emotional, personal story of the artefacts.

So, as my Profile alludes to, i have some pacifist indoctrination in my upbringing. My heritage curves east from present location into Russia, and west from there into northern Europe, in Dutch territory. The Mennonite roots of my family contain ancestors, as is recorded in horrific tales in books like "The Martyrs Mirror," who rejected military service, as well as other state-demanded activities, and were hunted down and killed as a result. Now, i also know of Mennonites, at least nominally, or in terms of their heritage if not beliefs, who joined various militaries. In World War II, my maternal grandfather was a Russian-born Mennonite with German roots who was conscripted into the German army when the Germans were still in Russia, and was later captured by the Russians and forced to serve in a POW camp. My paternal grandfather, also a Russian-born Mennonite, came to Canada was he was young and many years later joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. My mother was raised in a Mennonite community and my father didn't become familiar with his Mennonite heritage until he was in his early 20s. By the time my parents met, he had joined a Mennonite church, and when i was born, i was raised in a Mennonite community. So, ideologically, my ancestors were mainly Mennonite (go far enough back and i have aboriginal ancestors, and i also have some other Christian heritage but i'm not particularly familiar with it), although in practice they weren't all pacifists.

So, i grew up receiving specific, guided moral instruction that focused on stories from the Christian scriptures, and favoured the Gospels over the rest of the text. At the same time, i received more subtle (or not so subtle, depending on how one views the matter) instruction from the mostly unfettered access to television, literature, music and my school life and friends i talked with. My parents did not spend any great deal of time instructing my siblings and i, taking the time to respond to questions we had with their beliefs, and bringing us to church regularly, and letting us know when they were proud of us and when they were dismayed, but there was no regular instruction for how to behave. There were rituals we had as a family, which were instructive, and we surely watched our parents and learned from their behaviour (both the good and the bad). It was somewhat confusing, though, to be instructed on one hand that violence was bad, that war was evil, that i should turn the other cheek, and then also be allowed to play with toy guns. My parents exercised some control over the media content we consumed as children, but it was minimal, limited mainly to what they came across us consuming, but not preventing our consumption otherwise.

I remember watching one of Peter Sellers' "Pink Panther" films and there was a bedroom scene near the end which my dad fast-forwarded through; the same censorship on the lovemaking scene of Forrest and Jenny in "Forrest Gump." I also remember being told i was not allowed to watch "the Shining" when i was around twelve years old. While i resented not being allowed to watch a scene of sexuality i didn't mind so much not being allowed to watch a horror film--i had chronic problems at night over fears of monsters and other things of a spooky nature, and would often have what i think the clinicians refer to as "night terrors". However, i don't really remember such censorship on violent scenes or films. (Although, i was not supposed to watch "Power Rangers"; i did, sometimes, though.) So, for a heritage that focused on, among other things, pacifism, my upbringing did not prevent me from learning about violence in a way that seemed to encourage the idea that it could sometimes be used for good. (I will advocate here something that constantly bothers me: that children, if they are to learn their behaviours from media sources, would be much better off to watch people make love and learn how to have sex than to watch people beat the shit out of each other and learn how to kill. Perhaps, to be entirely reasonable, i should actually advocate that children should be free to learn about both sex and violence and learn what both mean and what makes something good or bad. Anyways, aside from a few psychopaths, who wouldn't rather lay down and be blown away metaphorically rather than literally?)

I also know that my behaviour as a youth didn't fit well with my beliefs, or at least i saw myself acting differently than i was told to act and thought it was due to some moral deficiency. I really believed i couldn't help myself from doing bad things, or at least from not thinking good thoughts. I remember as a boy of maybe ten years, wondering if it would be allowable to think about guns in Heaven. I would fight with other kids at recess and lunch time, mostly play fighting, and i didn't take much of it seriously. Most of those fights would be planned in class, with the brief discussion over particulars being really no more than, "Wanna fight at lunch?" and, "Sure." Unplanned or unprovoked attacks on my person were not appreciated, as i assume most people would agree. But fighting itself, it didn't really enter my mind as a bad thing.

In grade six there occurred a serious of group attacks on me at lunch time that had me quite scared for my safety, with maybe ten or so other boys chasing me around the lower school yard (the school building was on a raised area of earth, maybe two metres higher than the surrounding ground) and kicking and punching me once they caught me. I recall vividly never being physically injured, although emotionally i was very shaken up. What i remember as to the authorities watching over us children and why this behaviour (which i believe was in "plain sight" should the lunch monitors have cared to look around) was tolerated, is that, apparently, the lower school yard was not in their jurisdiction. I believe that was schoolyard mythos at work, and even at the time wondered if that was true. Anyways, when i told my parents about what was happening and, i think, asked for advice, my father instructed me to hit back at my attackers. I remembered being very shocked and confused, wondering how i was expected to defend myself against that many adversaries, and also thinking i wasn't supposed to fight people. I don't know why it didn't seem problematic for me to play fight, but when it was serious that i seemed unable to go through with it. I did, however, have my only mono-a-mono fist fight in grade six as well, in the school hallway, and when a girl in grade eight trade valiantly to get the two of us to cease hostilities i growled something ridiculous that, "I want to finish what i started. I have no recollection as to why were fighting. I feel bad about it. When questioned after being separated by a lunch monitor i lied about what happened and the other boy cried that no one ever believed him. The attacks on me by the group of boys stopped after my closest friend at the time informed the principal or secretary or someone (one of the other boys later said my friend had been in on the beatings, but i don't remember that). Unfortunately, all the boys named as attackers were called into the office and were brought in before me and i was supposed to accuse them, and i made it up that the whole thing had been a lark that had been misconstrued and really i was fine (mainly, so they wouldn't beat me up later). They never tried beating me up again, though. I wish i could remember if i had that fist fight after or before the group barrages.

The next year my parents took me out of that school and enrolled me at a Mennonite high school, grade seven-twelve. It was fairly normal to hear about pacifism there. So i now had Mennonite instruction on Sundays, at school in devotions and chapels (most of the rest of the curriculum was based on what everyone else in Manitoba had to learn in school), also at summer camp which i went to with the greatest joy i knew up until i first had some inkling about falling in love, and in the various church youth activities i was involved in. But i started noticing more nuanced articulations of pacifism (they may have been there earlier and i just didn't notice). For instance, that "turn the other cheek" was not an expression of a willingness to get the crap kicked out of yourself so you could go to Heaven, but was actually a social turning-the-tables on oppression. I was told that in the culture Jesus was in, if a person was striking another person, it was an insult, and was done with the back of the hand, as to a slave. When Jesus said to turn the other cheek, the instruction actually meant to tell the person getting beat up to stare their attacker in the face and say, "If you want to hit me, hit me like you would hit your equal." I started seeing pacifism as a practical way of ending violence and oppression. Or, if not that, at least a proud strength. That i could be threatened with harm, and not feel like a coward with my response, and not feel like a brute either. I could be proud, heroic even, in responding to violence peacefully.

That understanding of pacifism has basically remained with me until now. The main issue that has always caused me to stop and question my pacifism is that i only know how to respond if i am attacked, not when someone else is attacked. Or, not fully. I also learned from those Mennonites around me, going all the way to receiving my first degree from a fully-accredited Mennonite university, that pacifism can be used to help others who are being attacked by the pacifist activist being willing to take that violence on themself by getting in the way of the violence. This i learned probably especially from a recruiting pamphlet for Christian peacemaker teams and a class called "Theology of Peace and Justice." That ethic of getting in the way, or at least of getting involved, i still hold to. But, i don't know what to do when i remain alive and people are still being hurt. I think this quote from psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel helps me question this idea of sacrificing myself (i am paraphrasing, i think): "The ignoble man wants to die gloriously for a cause, while the noble man wants to live humbly for one."

So, i wonder what ends my pacifism takes me to. Is it a response only to personal situations? Or do i go out looking for violent situations that i can try and be pacifist in response to? I currently go for the latter, but i've never had to physically risk my life, or not exactly.

I often will seek out the source or screaming or violent yelling and see if the situation is the result of abuse and then ask if i can help. In this way, for instance, i recently heard screeching brakes and shrieking outside my apartment and went out to see what was the matter. Four people were running around seeming very upset and i asked i they were okay and could i help. One them asked tentatively if i would let them into my place. So, i had four people in my apartment, one a young man covered in blood on his head and neck, after they told me they were being chased by a man with a gun. They stayed maybe ten minutes, they were very polite and extremely thankful that i let them come in, but didn't want to give details about their situation, and didn't want to tell the police or call an ambulance, and were soon gone and i've never seen them again. These are the kinds of experience i have somewhat regularly. Not necessarily once a week, but perhaps once or twice a month. It has always bothered me that the bystander effect is known and regularly practiced, and i believe it is necessary for people who would not be cowards to go and get involved in helping out, in trying to bring some peace. Now, this belief obviously shows i expect i am doing a good thing by getting involved. Some people tell me this is meddling in things that don't concern me. My response is basically, "Wouldn't you want someone to come help you if you were about to get the shit kicked out of you, or if you were about to get killed? Or if a loved one or friend was about to be killed?" People also ask how cowardly is it to want to save your own life, i suggest that the best way to save your life is to show other people you are interested in saving their lives. Not that i expect we'll ever end death, but we'll have better lives until then, anyways.

But, when it comes to cowardice. I like to say things like, "Only cowards carry guns." But then, these people probably carry guns (i refer to members of the military and police forces) because they have an expectation of violence, and they see themselves as peaceful people who only use their violence to end violence. And of course, military and police personnel are heroic, they are not cowardly, because they are constantly putting their lives on the line. I just wish they would do it without putting the lives of others at risk. Of course, i'm not in their shoes. I've never joined CPT, the sort-of army of pacifists, to go into a war-torn country. So i'm not grandstanding on some moral high horse. And i'm not completely ignorant that if violent people aren't killed, more peaceful people will be killed. But, i believe that it is important to always be peaceful, even if it means death. It was recently suggested to me that contradictions are things we have to live with. I have a hard time accepting contradictions and paradoxes. Perhaps this blog will help me work out my consternation.

I might edit this post later.

Post 1

I plan to blog about pacifism.

I usually assume i'm a pacifist, though the parameters of that label are limits i have not fully mapped out. Part of this endeavour--blogging--should help me determine what pacifism means, and should assist me to discover whether i am a pacifist.

Now, whether or not i believe something does not mean i concurrently hold the premise that my beliefs are unchangeable. I hold my beliefs because i think they are true, based on my experiences and my reasoning, but i am open to being shown that my beliefs don't hold water. To be thus changed, one who engages me will, i assume, likely need to use logic as well as rhetoric and explain the basis for their beliefs and statements. I think beliefs occur as a result of both nature and nurture, and i try to get a handle on my beliefs that will best allow me to operate in existence; to put it simply, i want my beliefs to help me be good. Certainly, i have beliefs about what "good" means, and i hold the belief that i can be wrong about the meaning of what "good" is. My idea of goodness has something to do with the experience and/or continuation of life. The profondities and nuances of that i will not work out, since this blog can only encompass so much, and as an exercise on limitations i will focus on pacifism. Does pacifism contribute or take away from life, or does it do both?

I start out with the treatise that pacifism is the desire to help human life flourish by encouraging ongoing communion between people, no matter what events have transpired in the past, are currently happening, or are expected to occur. This definition of mine differs from the usual meaning which treats pacifism as opposition to war or military action.

I expect my posts shall reflect on the meaning of the word, the history of pacifism and its practitioners, political implications of being a pacifist, my personal experiences as a pacifist, understandings of war and peace, and more. Certainly way more if i expect this blog to be a worthwhile piece of e-scripture.

Note about a treasured idiom of mine:
Assumptions help us communicate by putting some definite limits to our conversation. However, i find questioning all assumptions to be helpful in determining whether one assumption supports another. Even those assumptions which support things we hold to be "good." So, being tickled by the phrase "When you assume you only make an ass out of u and me," i took the phrase further. Where does one make asses? At the donkey factory. Therefore, when someone tells me they assume something, i like to tell them, "It's quittin' time! Shut down the machines. Close up the factory." Or something to that effect.

So, let's get it on.