Article 7 of 21

Subject:      Re: Why I Am Not A Pacifist
From:         Sam Dodsworth <sam@aristos.demon.co.uk>
Date:         1997/05/16
Message-Id:   <6vcYHBA4yDfzEw5d@aristos.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups:   alt.books.cs-lewis
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In article <3371FAF2.CB9@dragontree.com>, mary@dragontree.com writes
>Thank you, Ian, for quoting the whole of Danny's post, which I would not have 
>seen 
>otherwise.
>
>Thank you, Danny, for a very thoughtful post.
>
>I'll add just a couple of little comments.
>
>ian matthews wrote:
>> 
>> Danny Pitt Stoller wrote:
>> >
>> > I don't want to get into a big discussion of War and Pacifism, but I am
>> > curious as to whether C.S. Lewis was ever exposed to the writings of
>> > Gandhi on the subject of nonviolence.  I suppose that Lewis unfortunately
>> > died before having an opportunity to hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther
>> > King, Jr., who of course incorporated the wisdom of Gandhi into a very
>> > Christian worldview.  But reading Gandhi himself would have been the next
>> > best thing.
>> >
>> > Whenever Pacifism is discussed in Lewis's writing, it seems to me that he
>> > views Pacifism as a non-action.  But Gandhi and King developed the idea
>> > of nonviolent action, believing that both sense and morality showed it to
>> > be superior to violence.
>> >
>> > Also, we can discuss the reasoning that C.S. Lewis used in his essay on
>> > Pacifism, and whether it is consistent with his philosophy as expressed
>> > elsewhere in his writing.  For instance, he argues in that essay that, in
>> > order for Pacifism to be right, it must be demonstrable that history
>> > would have turned out better if a war had not taken place. 
>
>
>That certainly does sound odd. Are you sure that's what he meant?
>
>
>
> He cites the
>> > example of the Punic Wars, and charges the Pacifist to show that life on
>> > earth would be improved if the Romans had refused to fight and the
>> > Carthagineans had won.
>
>Hm. By 'Pacificism', don't we today mean, that the Other Side 
>(Hitler/CArthage/whoever) shouldn't have started the war in the first place?
>
>Perhaps in L's time some people meant by 'Pacificism', "Better Red than Dead" 
>or 
>such.
>
>
>
>> >
>> > But this seems inconsistent with C.S. Lewis's moral philosophy: 
>
>Agreed! He's never come down on the side of the end justifying the means, that 
>I 
>can recall.
>
>
> nowhere
>> > else in his writing does he advocate judging an action's moral worth
>> > based on its practical consequences.  As a courageous defender of an
>> > absolute moral law, he ought to have recognized that a thing can be wrong
>> > even if it leads to seemingly good results.  The question of War and
>> > Pacifism is tricky and complicated, and I think he oversimplifies it by
>> > appealing to practical consequences.
>> >
>> > Also, I was puzzled by the idea (found in G.K. Chesterton's *Everlasting
>> > Man*, which Lewis admired, and echoed in "Why I Am Not A Pacifist") that
>> > Rome's war against Carthage was a moral crusade in the first place.  I
>> > was always under the impression that Rome's casting Carthage as the Evil
>> > Empire was just another case of propaganda used to justify warfare.
>> > After all, while the Roman soldiers were out destroying Carthage, what
>> > were the patricians doing?  They were sitting at home usurping land....
>> >
>
>Sam, are you still around?
>
        Yes - just about. I've been getting into trouble for reading
netnews at work, so I've had to cut down recently. I've also discovered
that if I wait a day or so before posting, Joshua Burton posts something
that expresses exactly what I wanted to say, but more clearly and with
better references :-)
        So. Carthage. Once again, I'm posting from work without benefit
of references, so some of what follows my well be wrong:
        The Romans didn't usually need political excuses for conquest of
the type that we see in the modern international community. The early
republic notionally required wars to be fought in self-defence, but this
quickly became a formality and had vanished altogether by the end of the
republic. Given that the Roman republic was an oligarchy with only a few
democratic trappings, there wasn't ever any real need for rabbly-rousing
about "Evil Empires": particularly since, if I remember correctly, the
first two Punic Wars were wars of self-defence fought on Italian soil.
Of course, Rome conquered Carthage in the end, but that was also seen as
self-defence - at least by the conservative faction that promoted the
war. As far as they were concerned, Carthage was a dangerous enemy and
Rome wouldn't be safe as long as they existed - think of the Punic Wars
as the "Great Patriotic War" with Carthage as the Germans, for a modern
analogy.
        So what about Carthage itself? Carthage was an imperial power,
but their empire was based on trade and their armies were composed
largely of mercenaries. This meant that any threat to trade was a direct
threat to their nation, as the mercenaries would only stay loyal for as
long as they were paid. When Rome conquered Italy, they absorbed the
port-cities on the southern coast who were Carthaginian allies and
trading-partners, provoking Carthage to declare war in defence of their
trade. The Carthaginian generals were also a contributing factor:
Hasdrubal and his son Hannibal were nominally loyal to Carthage but in
practice were treating Spain as their own private empire, with Rome as
new potentially-agressive presence on their borders. All in all I'd say:
not a moral crusade and not political expediency - for Rome, anyway.
        
Sam Dodsworth (sam@aristos.demon.co.uk)
"He thought he saw an argument that proved he was the Pope
 He looked again and saw it was a bar of mottled soap
 'A fact so dread', he faintly said, 'extinguishes all hope.'
                                - Lewis Carrol