Jump to content

User:Roar00/sandbox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a school of thought within anarchism that advocates for the use of peaceful, non-violent forms of resistance in the struggle for social change.[1][2] Anarcho-pacifism rejects the principle of violence, which is seen as a form of power and therefore as contradictory to key anarchist ideals such as the rejection of hierarchy and dominance.[2][3] However, anarcho-pacifists do not reject the use of non-violent revolutionary action against capitalism and the state with the purpose of establishing a peaceful voluntarist society.[1][4] The main early influences were the philosophies of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, while later the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi gained significance.[1][2] Anarcho-pacifist movements primarily emerged in Russia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States before and during World War II.[2]

Anarcho-pacifism is frequently associated with various forms of religious anarchism such as Tolstoyan Christian anarchism and Buddhist anarchism. Notably, Christian anarchism places emphasis on Jesus Christ's blessing of peacemakers and teachings involving non-violent resistance.[5] Concerning the anarchistic characteristics of Christianity, Greek author Alexandre Christoyannopoulos argues that the concept of the state should be rejected by Christians due to its inherent contradiction of the teachings of the religion.[6] Following the definition of the state posited by Max Weber in his 1921 essay Politik als Beruf, Christoyannopoulos contends that the state is founded upon a monopoly over the use of violent force in order to enforce law and order, and is therefore directly at odds with the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ.[6][7] Reflecting on the implications of this contradictory relationship, Christoyannopoulos invokes the Tolstoyan notion that the force utilized by the justice system to enforce the outcomes of legal proceedings is also at odds with the teachings of Christianity.[6] Aylmer Maude (the friend, biographer and translator of Leo Tolstoy) states that Christianity involves anarchism as it necessitates the "abolition of all compulsory legislation, law courts, police, and prisons, as well as all forcible restraint of man by man".[6][8] Due to Tolstoy's religious views combined with his advocacy for the total dismantlement of the state and its apparatus in favour of the establishment of a voluntarist society, he is seen as a prominent instigator of the Christian anarchist movement.[4][6]

Anarcho-pacifism is often combined with socialist critiques of capitalism regarding economic class.[4] The anarcho-pacifist ideal of a peaceful classless society is claimed to be incompatible with the competitive nature of capitalism, which can ultimately lead to violent conflict.[4] Anarcho-pacifists frequently denounce the perceived tendency of the capitalist economic system to perpetuate systematic violence in the forms of exploitation, hierarchies of political and economic power, and dispossession.[9] However, the socialist critiques of capitalism that often appear within the movement do not imply that anarcho-pacifism is inherently socialist in nature.[4] The various schools of anarchism can be generally distinguished from one another by their perspectives on two key elements: revolutionary methods and economic organisation.[2] Anarcho-pacifism differs from anarchist socialism in the use of violent revolutionary methods to achieve social change and the abolition of the state.[4]

  1. ^ a b c Ostergaard, Geoffrey (1982). Resisting the Nation State: The Pacifist and Anarchist Traditions. London: Peace Pledge Union. ISBN 9780902680357.
  2. ^ a b c d e Woodcock, George (1962). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140168211. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  3. ^ Williams, Dana (24 August 2017). "Contemporary anarchist and anarchistic movements". Sociology Compass. 12 (6). doi:10.1111/soc4.12582. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e f Atack, Iain (2005). The Ethics of Peace and War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748622450.
  5. ^ Underwood, Sam (2018). "Blessed Are the Peacemakers: The Contribution of Christian Nonviolence to Anarchism". Essays in Anarchism and Religion. 2: 196–231. doi:10.16993/bas.g. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d e Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre (2010). "A Christian Anarchist Critique of Violence: From Turning the Other Cheek to a Rejection of the State". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ Weber, Max (1921). Politics as a Vocation. Munich.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Maude, Aylmer (2015). The Life of Tolstoy. Creative Media Partners, LLC. p. 36. ISBN 1296442322.
  9. ^ Llewellyn, Joseph (2018). Envisioning an Anarcho-Pacifist Peace: A case for the convergence of anarchism and pacifism and an exploration of the Gandhian movement for a stateless society (PDF). Dunedin: University of Otago. Retrieved 14 May 2020.