this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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Orwell couldn’t be more wrong about this, in my opinion.
Pacifism doesn’t mean inaction, it means opposing the use of violence as a way of resolving disputes.
There are lots of ways to resolve disputes that don’t involve violence, but they usually require significantly more effort and creativity than simply shooting someone in the face.
Anyone can change their mind, I firmly believe that, so I’m not going to generalize and say all people who are opposed to pacifism are evil or inherently violent themselves, but the inability to even imagine that there are alternatives to war and violence is a failure of one’s ability to empathize with others.
Empathy can be a superpower, lack of empathy can cause untold suffering.
Try being a pacifist Jew in Nazi Germany to see how much good that will do to you and how many alternative solutions you can find or how many soldiers you can convince. That is the context of the quote shared there, pacifist solutions should always be preferred, but sometimes that is not an option, it's the tolerance paradox.