Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist??

Question

George Orwell wrote: "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me. "
Agree?

I applaud- and surprised by the intelligent debate here. Hats off to some of you.

Answer 1

George Orwell wrote that in WW2, when it was widely believed that conscientious objectors (and there were around 50,000 in the UK alone) were helping the enemy by not fighting.

A few points here:
Conscientious objectors were recognised in law and could get exemption from combatant duty provided they were willing to do non-combatant duties e.g. rescue and relief, food distribution, etc.

Orwell should have known better. He knew people in the Peace Pledge Union (the main UK pacifist organisation) and was on the point of joining himself before war broke out.

A pacifist is someone who is against war on humanitarian grounds. All pacifists believe that killing anyone, even an enemy in wartime, is wrong, and many campaign for nonviolent forms of conflict resolution, e.g. diplomacy, and for nonviolent resistance to injustice as practiced by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, et al.

Far from being pro-fascist there were many pacifists in Nazi Germany who resisted Hitler. Many were imprisoned or forced into exile. Some lost their lives.

Today there is widespread opposition to the present Iraq/Afghanistan war. Some are opposed for political reasons and are not strictly pacifists while others are fundamentally against war. Nobody who opposes war should be accused of helping the enemy. That would make them a traitor and you cannot be branded as a traitor merely for disagreeing with the actions of your government.

Unless you are unlucky enough to be living in a fascist regime, of course.

Answer 2

Pro Fascist

Answer 3

In 1944, however, Orwell pulled back from his earlier statements:

For instance, I particularly regret having said in one letter that Julian Symons 'writes in a vaguely Fascist strain' - a quite unjustified statement based on a single article which I probably misunderstood. But this kind of thing results from the lunatic atmosphere of war, the fog of lies and misinformation in which one has to work and the endless sordid controversies in which a political journalist is involved.

It's fairly ridiculous to cherry pick that statement from Orwell. As a matter of fact, you'll need to read more than that to understand him at all. Here's some further reading.

http://www.idiocentrism.com/orwell.htm

Answer 4

Hermann Goering, Hitler's Propaganda Minister said, "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger". Does this seem eerilly familiar? Naziism is a form of Fascism. So is pacifism Pro-Fascist? You're not stupid! Get the truth.

Answer 5

Please read this letter of poet D.S. Savage.
It was written in 1942 as a response to Orwell's famous statement that "pacifism is objectively pro-fascist".
Here is an excerpt:
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It is fashionable nowadays to equate Fascism with Germany...Fascism is not a force confined to any one nation. We can just as soon get it here as anywhere else. The characteristic markings of Fascism are: curtailment of individual and minority liberties; abolition of private life and private values and substitution of state life and public values (patriotism); external imposition of discipline (militarism); prevelance of mass-values and mass-mentality; falsification of intellectual activity under State pressure. These are all tendancies of present-day Britain. The pacifist opposes every one of these, and might therefore be called the only genuine opponent of Fascism.

Don't let us be misled by names. Fascism is quite capable of calling itself democracy or even Socialism. It's the reality under the name that matters. War demands totalitariamn organization of society...Germans call it National Socialism. We call it democracy. The result is the same...
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To add my own two cents.

Orwell's statement implies that to practice pacifism invites destruction, sacrifice, and horror. And I ask why is the pacifists willingness to sacrifice for what he believes, less than the that of the Nationalist? If Orwell is correct - then in either instance we accept the fate of hardship.

This world consists of a spectrum of people.
There are infinite number of distinctions, however one distinction is humans willing to battle one another and humans willing to die rather than perpetuate a conflict they do not understand or accept. And I choose to live my life in the spectrum of the perpetually peaceful...

BTW if you are a huge Orwell follower - please read and analyse this passage also by Orwell:


The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.

Answer 6

It is so obvious that the common sense of Orwell is lost on those on the left

Answer 7

You are mistaking what he means by pacifism. Those who never fight back for anything and allow things to happen to them and the world around them. While, the people who want this war to end are by no means going to lay down and let terrorism happen to us.

Answer 8

Sure, but being anti-war in a conflict that had no bearing on US security isnt being pacifist, its being realist.

SUpporting every war cause your party tells you to is also pro-fascist.

Answer 9

This is a challenging question, and one that has intrigued me for quite some time.

Answer 10

I wouldnt say its an absolute trueism but yes in general its true.