Important philosophers have contributed to peace movements and the critique of war and violence: Erasmus, Kant, and Bentham. Religious thinkers such as the Quakers, Mennonites, and other Protestants also had a profound influence on the development of peace philosophy and pacifism. A longer genealogy of pacifism would examine the pacifism of American abolitionists, religious visionaries, and advocates of nonresistance and civil disobedience, such as Adin Balou, Bronson Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau. One of the seminal thinkers for the development of twentieth-century pacifism is Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s nonresistant pacifism was based upon a close reading of the Christian Gospels. He explained, “Jesus said, simply and clearly, that the law of resistance to evil by violence, which has been made the basis of society, is false, and contrary to man’s nature; and he gave another basis, that of non-resistance to evil, a law which, according to his doctrine, would deliver man from wrong”.
This idea of nonresistant pacifism would set the stage for reflection upon pacifism in the twentieth century. Tolstoy influenced Gandhi (who named one of his early communes “Tolstoy Farm”). Gandhi and Tolstoy corresponded. Gandhi modified nonresistance and transformed it into active but nonviolent resistance. This idea influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., James Lawson, and other nonviolent activists in the twentieth century. Jane Addams was influenced by Tolstoy, as was James and Dewey. Addams traveled to Russia to meet Tolstoy; James wrote of Tolstoy in his Varieties of Religious Experience. And although Dewey studied Tolstoy, he rejected Tolstoy’s approach to life as requiring too much of an “all or nothing” choice (Dewey 1990). Dewey’s critique of pacifism—especially the “professional pacifists” of the WWI era—held that “the efforts of pacifists” were “idle gestures in the air.” Dewey wanted to see war made pragmatically effective—not abolish it.
He said in 1917 that the future of pacifism lies: in seeing to it that the war itself is turned to account as a means for bringing these agencies into being. To go on protesting against war in general and this war in particular, to direct effort to stopping the war rather than to determining the terms upon which it shall be stopped, is to repeat the earlier tactics after their ineffectualness has been revealed.
Dewey, like others of his generation, thought that war could be used to end war. He supported American efforts in World War I (also called “the war to end all wars”). Committed pacifists rejected this idea. Addams, James, and Dewey were members of the Anti-Imperialist League (along with Mark Twain, who mocked the cynicism of war, and Andrew Carnegie, who put his fortune behind philanthropic efforts to abolish war). Members were not necessarily pacifists even though they opposed American imperialism, including wars in the Philippines and elsewhere. In their work in different ways, Addams and James each advocated the development of a moral alternative to war. In a speech from 1910, published in 1911, entitled “A Moral Equivalent of War,” James discusses “Tolstoi’s pacificism”.
Reprints of this essay update the spelling, writing “pacifism” instead of “pacificism.” But this shows us that there was no agreement about the proper name for what we are describing here—whether it was pacific-ism or pacifism. The concept and terminology of pacifism was under development during this time. Scholars tend to agree that the term “pacifism” was coined by Émile Arnaud in 1901 at an international peace conference. Arnaud published a pamphlet in 1906, Le Pacifisme et ses Détracteurs, in which pacifism is described as the banner under which war is suppressed and a humane life is defended (Arnaud 1906). James’s usage of the term “pacificism” in 1910 shows that the idea was already spreading quickly. By the time of the First World War, Russell, Dewey, and others were arguing about the idea and employing the term “pacifism.”
Some authors have attempted to contrast pacifism and pacific-ism in a technical fashion. Dower explains—building upon the work of Taylor and Ceadel—that pacific-ism is focused on creating conditions for peace (which can also be open to limited and just wars), while pacifism is a moral rejection of violence (Dower 2009). In this sense, James would be a pacific-ist if he were not completely opposed to war, while being interested in imagining alternatives and preventing war. Indeed, James’s idea about a moral equivalent of war was primarily interested in finding ways to channel the human interest in warlike activity—in more peaceful and productive ways.
James died before the outbreak of World War I, but Addams and Dewey lived through it. The First World War caused philosophers to pick sides. Addams was opposed to the war. She supported Woodrow Wilson when he promised to keep the U.S. out of the war. She felt betrayed by Wilson when the U.S. entered the war. Addams connected her pragmatic hope for peace to democracy and the empowerment of women and the oppressed masses, who usually suffered silently from the horrors of war. Addams and her Women’s Peace Party worked to end the war and eventually ended up creating the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Nonviolence Activism in Twentieth Century
