What does it mean to be a "pacifist"?

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I'm curious what others think on this topic. I've heard that if you're simply not violent and don't believe in violence that you're a pacifist, but how does that actually live out in practice? What ideals would you need to realistically have to be considered genuinely a "pacifist"? Can you make the mistake of hitting a person if you're not otherwise violent a majority of the time, if it's for a seemingly justified reason, like standing up for another person who is being victimized and doesn't deserve the treatment they're getting? Can a person still be a pacifist if they lose emotional control and make a mistake, but make up for it after? Would them advocating against violence even if they made that mistake, the mistake of hitting a person, make them not a pacifist, or could they still be such?

And what about verbal hatred? Obviously racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.. would be obvious examples of things that aren't pacifist, but if a person is simply hateful in a verbal manner, without being obviously hateful in those ways, can they still be a pacifist? If they aren't even obviously hateful, as in they don't say the N word or advocate for hurting gay people, but then in a personal situation they argued that a person deserved to be hurt, even emotionally, for a more seemingly moral reason, like supporting someone who humiliates others and hurts them in that way, maybe by being just excessively and relentlessly overly truthful to the point of hurting them all the time, in front of a group, can a person still be a pacifist in that circumstance? Or would abusing or supporting an abuser in that context make them not a pacifist? Do you consider that mild?

What about victims of physical abuse? If they were otherwise non-violent and advocated for political views that were inherently not hateful, if they were then in an abusive relationship and came out the other side completely changing because of the abuse, but still barely hanging onto old ideals of non-hatefulness and opposition to violence, trying very hard to restrain themselves despite their emotional trauma and the issues they received from the abuse, could they still come out the otherside, in your view, being a pacifist? Or would they just not be such anymore even if their situation makes it forgivable? Would it be forgivable?

What world views or political views would a person need to have to be factually considered a "pacifist"? Could a person naively or foolishly contradict this and still be a pacifist?

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Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

So you're saying all centrists are non-violent? Isn't that generalising a bit? Otherwise not sure how you can claim all centrists would be non-violent when you simply can't know all centrists to know they are. Obviously it wouldn't be "bs" to ask people to get along assuming they aren't doing anything to instigate bad situations in the first place, which I guess the best way to know would be to simply stay away from any bad situation in the first place rather than taking jabs and baiting responses, as is sometimes seen in rioting. Since being in a heated situation can sometimes get out of hand and even the most civil person can sometimes lose their temper. Although from my view there are people whose view of instigating means that taking shots at a person on someone elses' behalf or even when they're not the person who started it all in the first place somehow justifies them to treat others badly. Not sure how personal responsibility plays into pacifism but obviously if pacifism means walking away because you know someone else will make personal attacks on your behalf that's kind of different. Could allowing others to do that for you by not speaking out against it be pacifism? On that point, can mild aggravations by a person be considered antagonization, and can that be considered pacifist and "not instigating"?

what I mean is they dont hold a particular set of beliefs

Okay? How are they identifiable as centrists then?

[dorkenstein]

pacifism doesn't exclude arguments, in fact it's in favor of it. Insulting people instead of hurting them is pacifism. Saying mean things isn't violence.

[Yavin Shikanoko]

TwisterCat님이 먼저 게시:

Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

what I mean is they dont hold a particular set of beliefs

Strongly disagree. On a hypothetical economic axis, where would you find a centrist? Obviously in the centre. Would it be reasonable to assume centrists are against very high taxation of certain brackets? Then they do indeed have a particular set of beliefs, even if the door is left open for others.

Still feels to me like "comfy", most of the people I know who claim to be a centrist are just right winged people who are to afraid to admit to be right wing. Always playing devil advocates for bigots and the rich.

[Yavin Shikanoko]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

what I mean is they dont hold a particular set of beliefs

Okay? How are they identifiable as centrists then?

Maybe I worded it wrong, I just used them as an example

[Holografix]

Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

TwisterCat님이 먼저 게시:

Strongly disagree. On a hypothetical economic axis, where would you find a centrist? Obviously in the centre. Would it be reasonable to assume centrists are against very high taxation of certain brackets? Then they do indeed have a particular set of beliefs, even if the door is left open for others.

Still feels to me like "comfy", most of the people I know who claim to be a centrist are just right winged people who are to afraid to admit to be right wing. Always playing devil advocates for bigots and the rich.

you are correct, Yavin.
centrism is a marketing term used to re-brand the right-wing.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Okay, so you agree that you can be a pacifist even if you're being verbal?

Yes. As I said in the very beginning, many shades of gray. A semi-pacifist, if you want to call it that. People do need to voice their feelings and not be a door-mat.

[20000Aggro]

Out Of Bubblegum님이 먼저 게시:

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Right... so you're invalidating peoples fears as the excuse? Also paraphrasing what I wrote rather than directly just pointing out what you said too. Have you read my post history before? Because I vaguely remember you, just not sure if it was here or somewhere else.

Yes. Correct. I am invalidating your fears. That is all they are. Fears and fantasy. We may have argued before. I look for threads to post in while watching streaming shows. Here and on another site. The shows usually do not need much attention. So I come here to chew bubblegum and post. And I am all ...

Fair enough. "My" fears? I'm not the one who brought it up. It's not very reasonable to be excusing how a large number of people feel. I mean, I get that you're trying to say it's not needed to have guns, but clearly it would be more reasonable to say elsewise? Calling other peoples fears a fantasy is kind of .... insensitive, at best.

[TwisterCat]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

TwisterCat님이 먼저 게시:

To me, pacifism is a term for people who strongly dislike aggressive action, usually meaning violence. That doesn't mean they won't partake in it, however, if they're forced to.

Okay, so you agree that you can be a pacifist even if you're being verbal? People like to directly ignore or redirect most of my questions in regards to the verbal hatred aspect. I mean, I always assumed like others did that pacifism included idealistic and verbal non-violence as well as physical non-violence, but then one day I kept seeing people arguing in unrelated threads saying how you're a pacifist if you don't physically hurt someone even if you're verbally hateful, and it made me question why it was I always thought it included verbal passivity, too. I don't personally own a gun, but do you also agree that it's unrealistic to think having a gun for protection isn't needed? Canada is considered a golden utopia compared to other countries with more strife and more neighbours at their door, so I'm not even sure if it's a good comparison. No one has given any sort of idea other than anti-war about what it means to be a pacifist. I would take a guess but not sure how well I would do with it.

It's usually very idealistic, that's why the idea of a pacifist bodybuilding football player seems comical. My stance on gun control is the Canadian population doesn't need guns. I don't feel the government here feels even remotely threatened by armed citizens, so the excuse of protecting freedoms with arms doesn't really check out. Most of the crimes in our country are also petty, and I don't feel life-threatening violence is a concern for us Canadians, on either coast.

In the United States, I think it depends on the state. If one wants to tighten gun control in Detroit, they'd better be sure they can increase the law enforcement budget by a vast amount, alongside increasing the budget for public education. That's a costly affair, many things are, however that's not a concern in Canada, at least not yet. I'm not aware of Detroit's current situation, however I know there was major discussion over gun control in the past.

[20000Aggro]

Out Of Bubblegum님이 먼저 게시:

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Okay, so you agree that you can be a pacifist even if you're being verbal?

Yes. As I said in the very beginning, many shades of gray. A semi-pacifist, if you want to call it that. People do need to voice their feelings and not be a door-mat.

I didn't even know there was such a thing, I thought there were violent people and pacifists.

[Yavin Shikanoko]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Out Of Bubblegum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes. As I said in the very beginning, many shades of gray. A semi-pacifist, if you want to call it that. People do need to voice their feelings and not be a door-mat.

I didn't even know there was such a thing, I thought there were violent people and pacifists.

isnt that what non-confrontational is?

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Calling other peoples fears a fantasy is kind of .... insensitive, at best.

True. But the 2A people will never listen to any argument and they love to insult others. So I will not treat them like snowflakes. They are the ones spreading the fear.

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Out Of Bubblegum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes. As I said in the very beginning, many shades of gray. A semi-pacifist, if you want to call it that. People do need to voice their feelings and not be a door-mat.

I didn't even know there was such a thing, I thought there were violent people and pacifists.

Nothing is ever black and white. Even the colors black and white come in variations.

[TwisterCat]

Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

TwisterCat님이 먼저 게시:

Strongly disagree. On a hypothetical economic axis, where would you find a centrist? Obviously in the centre. Would it be reasonable to assume centrists are against very high taxation of certain brackets? Then they do indeed have a particular set of beliefs, even if the door is left open for others.

Still feels to me like "comfy", most of the people I know who claim to be a centrist are just right winged people who are to afraid to admit to be right wing. Always playing devil advocates for bigots and the rich.

Would you entertain the idea that's because the political wings have shifted over time? What once was considered centrist, might now be considered right-wing. If that's the case, you could say I'm right leaning, but that's not entirely the truth.

[Holografix]

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Out Of Bubblegum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes. As I said in the very beginning, many shades of gray. A semi-pacifist, if you want to call it that. People do need to voice their feelings and not be a door-mat.

I didn't even know there was such a thing, I thought there were violent people and pacifists.

you can be assertive and still be a pacifist.
pacifist doesn't mean passive.

[20000Aggro]

TwisterCat님이 먼저 게시:

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

Okay, so you agree that you can be a pacifist even if you're being verbal? People like to directly ignore or redirect most of my questions in regards to the verbal hatred aspect. I mean, I always assumed like others did that pacifism included idealistic and verbal non-violence as well as physical non-violence, but then one day I kept seeing people arguing in unrelated threads saying how you're a pacifist if you don't physically hurt someone even if you're verbally hateful, and it made me question why it was I always thought it included verbal passivity, too. I don't personally own a gun, but do you also agree that it's unrealistic to think having a gun for protection isn't needed? Canada is considered a golden utopia compared to other countries with more strife and more neighbours at their door, so I'm not even sure if it's a good comparison. No one has given any sort of idea other than anti-war about what it means to be a pacifist. I would take a guess but not sure how well I would do with it.

It's usually very idealistic, that's why the idea of a pacifist bodybuilding football player seems comical. My stance on gun control is the Canadian population doesn't need guns. I don't feel the government here feels even remotely threatened by armed citizens, so the excuse of protecting freedoms with arms doesn't really check out. Most of the crimes in our country are also petty, and I don't feel life-threatening violence is a concern for us Canadians, on either coast.

In the United States, I think it depends on the state. If one wants to tighten gun control in Detroit, they'd better be sure they can increase the law enforcement budget by a vast amount, alongside increasing the budget for public education. That's a costly affair, many things are, however that's not a concern in Canada, at least not yet.

You mean being anti-war, or just being the ambiguous pacifist in the first place? Other than just talking down tense situations I'm not actually sure what kind of ideals would make a person "non-violent" in the first place, and the only direct answer I've seen is anti-war. That's why I'm asking. There was a video posted earlier, and the guy could have any ideals. What if his ideals don't match how he was in that situation? You would think there would be specific ideals a person would have to have in order to be "pacifist", but no one seems to know what that is other than being "anti-war", and just not hurting others.

I don't find a bodybuilding pacifist hard to believe, seeing as bodybuilding may be physical but it doesn't require violence. Being strong has it's usefulness outside of violence.

Why, though? What makes Canada so different, other than only having the U.S as their neighbour? Canada and the U.S get a lot of the same news, the same t.v, the same memes and messages online. It can't simply just be the messages creating fear in people.

[20000Aggro]

Yavin Coyote 69% More Cheese님이 먼저 게시:

Pavlov님이 먼저 게시:

I didn't even know there was such a thing, I thought there were violent people and pacifists.

isnt that what non-confrontational is?

I don't know.