{"id":522,"date":"2015-09-06T16:02:38","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T23:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/?p=522"},"modified":"2016-05-17T18:18:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T01:18:40","slug":"not-ashamed-pacifist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/06\/not-ashamed-pacifist\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Ashamed: Pacifist"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the introduction post<\/a>. That will give you context for this page.<\/p>\n

\n

Whilst it might seem a contradiction to my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153violently angry\u00e2\u20ac\u009d post of last week, I am a pacifist. And it hurts my heart that anyone would feel that pacifism is something to be ashamed of.<\/p>\n

My pacifism is not born of fear or weakness. It is not born of some delusion that all people are fluffy kittens. Nor, as you learned last week, is it born of a lack of violent inclinations.<\/p>\n

My pacifism is rooted in my idealism and in my oft-disappointed belief that we humans could<\/em> do so much better. I believe in love and light, in peace and harmony. We really could<\/em> do so much better…<\/p>\n

My pacifism is not restricted to physical violence; I also oppose emotional, spiritual, psychological, and sexual violence and warfare. And I believe that all violence begets violence.<\/p>\n

I believe that most violence (perhaps all) is born of other violence or of fear. That oppression is a form of violence.<\/p>\n

I believe that pacifism must extend to ourselves. That was the hardest one for me. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the one that we have the most power to apply. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one that most helped me start being my own better self.<\/p>\n

I reluctantly try to live with the apparent fact that the world we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built includes people whose violent acts require physical responses. That oppression is sometimes only thrown off by violent acts. That we are unlikely to ever achieve a non-violent world.<\/p>\n

However, I also believe that violence is too frequently applied as an answer, pushing people deeper into the well of darkness from which their own violent behaviours originate. That we humans are too wont to follow our violent and angry impulses in our search for solutions.<\/p>\n

So I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t apologise, and I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel ashamed, for trying to be part of the peace, for trying to remove myself from the violence. That garbage is best left to fiction.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted<\/a> to the Not Ashamed section of my site (so that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all tidy).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the introduction post. That will give you context for this page. Whilst it might seem a contradiction to my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153violently angry\u00e2\u20ac\u009d post of last week, I am a pacifist. And it hurts my heart that anyone would feel that pacifism is something to be ashamed of. My pacifism is not born of fear or weakness. It is not born of some delusion that all people are fluffy kittens. Nor, as you learned last week, is it born of a lack of violent inclinations. My pacifism is rooted in my idealism and in my oft-disappointed belief that we humans could do so much better. I believe in love and light, in peace and harmony. We really could do so much better… My pacifism is not restricted to physical violence; I also oppose emotional, spiritual, psychological, and sexual violence and warfare. And I believe that all violence begets violence. I believe that most violence (perhaps all) is born of other violence or of fear. That oppression is a form of violence. I believe that pacifism must extend to ourselves. That was the hardest one for me. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the one that we have the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-ashamed"],"yoast_head":"\nNot Ashamed: Pacifist - Amber Bird | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/06\/not-ashamed-pacifist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Ashamed: Pacifist - Amber Bird | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the introduction post. 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