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Title: Of holy disobedience
Author: A. J. Muste
Release date: January 22, 2024 [eBook #72786]
Language: English
Original publication: Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1952
Credits: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF HOLY DISOBEDIENCE ***
Of Holy Disobedience
_A. J. MUSTE_
_NUMBER 64_
_JANUARY, 1952_
_PENDLE HILL_
_WALLINGFORD_
_PENNSYLVANIA_
_35 CENTS_
1952 BY PENDLE HILL PRINTED IN THE USA
THE LAND OF PROPAGANDA IS BUILT ON UNANIMITY
The quotation which follows is from Ignazio Silone’s novel, _Bread and
Wine_, which was a moving exposition of life under Fascism in Italy. The
conversation between a young woman and an anti-Fascist priest takes place
in a small Italian town at the end of the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy.
During the night, anti-war and anti-Fascist slogans had been written on
walls and steps in the town.
Bianchina told Don Paolo she couldn’t understand why there was
such a lot of fuss about a few inscriptions on the wall.
Don Paolo was surprised, too. He tried to explain it.
“The Land of Propaganda is built on unanimity,” he said. “If
one man says, ‘No,’ the spell is broken and public order is
endangered. The rebel voice must be stifled.”
“Even if the voice is that of a poor, solitary sick man?”
“Even then.”
“Even if it belongs to a peaceful man who thinks in his own
way, but does nothing evil apart from that?”
“Even then.”
These thoughts served to sadden the girl, but gave the man new
heart. He felt ashamed of his previous discouragement.
“In the Land of Propaganda,” he said, “a man, any man, any
little man who goes on thinking with his own head, imperils
public order. Tons of printed paper repeat the government
slogans; thousands of loud-speakers, hundreds of thousands of
manifestoes and leaflets, legions of orators in the squares
and at the crossroads, thousands of priests from the pulpit
repeat these slogans ad nauseam, to the point of collective
stupefaction. But it is enough for one little man to say ‘No!’
in his neighbor’s ear, or write ‘No!’ on the wall at night, and
public order is endangered.”
The girl was terrified, but the man was happy again.
“And if they catch him and kill him?” the girl asked.
“Killing a man who says ‘No!’ is a risky business,” the priest
replied, “because even a corpse can go on whispering ‘No! No!
No!’ with a persistence and obstinacy that only certain corpses
are capable of. And how can you silence a corpse?”
* * * * *
A book which the French writer, Georges Bernanos, wrote in Brazil—to
which he had exiled himself because he would not remain in France under
Nazi occupation—has just been published in this country. It is entitled
_Tradition of Freedom_ and is a hymn to freedom, an impassioned warning
against obedience and conformity, especially obedience to the modern
State engaged in mechanized, total war.
In the closing pages of this work, Bernanos writes:
I have thought for a long time now that if, some day, the
increasing efficiency of the technique of destruction finally
causes our species to disappear from the earth, it will not
be cruelty that will be responsible for our extinction and
still less, of course, the indignation that cruelty awakens
and the reprisals and vengeance that it brings upon itself ...
but the docility, the lack of responsibility of the modern
man, his base subservient acceptance of every common decree.
The horrors which we have seen, the still greater horrors we
shall presently see, are not signs that rebels, insubordinate,
untameable men, are increasing in number throughout the world,
but rather that there is a constant increase, a stupendously
rapid increase, in the number of obedient, docile men.
It seems to me that this is a true and timely warning. It might serve as
a text for a general appeal to American youth to adopt and practice the
great and urgent virtues of Holy Disobedience, non-conformity, resistance
toward Conscription, Regimentation and War. For the present I want to
use Bernanos’ words as an introduction to some observations on the
discussion regarding the absolute and relative role of these “virtues”
which goes on chiefly among pacifists, members of the Historic Peace
Churches and other such groups. I think it will be readily apparent,
however, that the principles set forth have a wider bearing and merit
consideration by all who are concerned about the maintenance of freedom
in our time and the abolition of war.
Most believers in democracy and all pacifists begin, of course, with
an area of agreement as to the moral necessity, the validity and the
possible social value of No-saying or Holy Disobedience. Pacifists
and/or conscientious objectors all draw the line at engaging in military
combat and most of us indeed at any kind of service in the armed forces.
But immediately thereupon questions arise as to whether we should not
emphasize “positive and constructive service” rather than the “negative”
of refusal to fight or to register; or questions about the relative
importance of “resistance” and “reconciliation,” and so on. It is to
this discussion that I wish to attempt a contribution. It may be that it
will be most useful both to young men of draft age and to other readers
if we concentrate largely on the quite concrete problem of whether the
former should register, conform to other requirements of the Selective
Service Act which apply to conscientious objectors and accept or submit
to the alternative service required of them under the law as amended
in June, 1951; or whether they shall refuse to register, or if they do
register or are “automatically” registered by the authorities, shall
refuse to conform at the next stage; and in any event refuse to render
any alternative service under conscription. We deal, in other words,
with the question whether young men who are eligible for it shall accept
the IV-E classification or take the more “absolutist,” non-registrant
position. (For present purposes, consideration of the I-A-O position,
the designation used for draftees who are willing to accept service in
the armed forces provided this is non-combatant in character, may be
omitted. The IV-E classification is the designation used for persons who
are on grounds of religious training and belief opposed to participation
in any war. Those who are given this classification are required to
render alternative service, outside the armed forces and under civilian
auspices, and designed to serve “the health, safety and interest of the
United States.”)
Two preliminary observations are probably necessary in order to avoid
misunderstanding. In the first place, in every social movement there are
varied trends or emphases, and methods of working. Those who hold to
one approach are likely to be very critical of those who take another.
Disagreements among those within the same movement may be more intense or
even bitter than with those on the outside. I suppose it can hardly be
denied that every movement has in it individuals whose contribution is
negative, and that such individuals do not all come from within one wing
of the movement. Objective evaluation also leads to the view that the
cause is forwarded by various methods and through the agency of diverse
individuals and groups. But this does not mean that discussion within the
movement of trends and methods of work is not useful and essential. Even
if it were true that each of several strategies was _equally_ valid and
useful, it would still be necessary that each be clearly and vigorously
presented and implemented in order that the movement might develop its
maximum impact.
Secondly, in what I shall have to say I am not passing moral judgment on
individual draftees. But from the fact that a pacifist minister should
not pass moral condemnation on the young man in his congregation who
in obedience to his conscience enlists or submits to conscription, we
do not deduce that this minister should abandon his pacifism or cease
to witness to it. Similarly, the fact that in the pacifist movement we
support various types of COs in following the lead of conscience does
not rule out discussion as to the validity and usefulness of various
strategies. It is one thing for a young and immature draftee to follow
a course which amounts to “making the best of a bad business” and for
others to give him sympathetic understanding and help. It is a very
different thing for pacifist organizations or churches to advocate such a
course or to rationalize it into something other than it really is.
As some of the readers of this statement are likely to be aware, the
writer has advocated the non-registrant position. The majority in the
pacifist movement probably believe that it is preferable for COs to
accept or submit to the alternative civilian service which was required
under the World War II Selective Service Act and is now again required
under “peacetime conscription.”
The varied considerations and arguments which currently enter into the
discussion of this choice confronting the youth of draft age tend, as I
see it, to fall into three categories, though there is a good deal of
overlapping. One set of considerations may be said to center largely
around the idea of Christian or human “vocation”; a second set has to
do with the problem of “the immature 18-year-old”; the third with the
relation of the pacifist and citizens generally to military conscription
and the modern Power-State.
The argument for accepting alternative service, under the first category,
has been stated somewhat as follows:
God calls us to love and serve our fellowmen. This is for
Christians and other pacifists a matter of vocation. If, then,
the government in war time, or under peace time conscription,
requires some service of mercy or construction from us, which
is not obviously and directly a part of war-making, we will
raise no objection to undertaking such work. We may even
seek, and shall certainly be grateful for the opportunity to
demonstrate our desire to be good citizens and helpful members
of society, and to show a reconciling spirit.
This question of the meaning and implications of Christian or human
vocation in the context of military conscription clearly needs careful
analysis.
Conscription and Vocation
The question of his vocation does not or should not arise suddenly
for the Christian or any morally sensitive and responsible individual
when Congress enacts a conscription law. The committed Christian has
presumably been engaged in an occupation and a way of living which he
believes to be in accord with the will of God. This need not be some
unusual or spectacular occupation. A Christian farmer, factory worker,
miner, teacher, raising a family and giving an example of unselfishness
to his neighbors; his wife maintaining an unobtrusively wholesome
Christian home; the children walking in the footsteps of such parents—all
these may be following a true Christian vocation.
Then war or peace time conscription comes along. If these people are
pacifists, they hold that direct participation in war or in combat
training is inconsistent with a Christian profession and calling. They
must, therefore, refuse such participation. At this point the government
tells those of them who come under the draft that they must nevertheless
render some civilian service within or under the conscription system.
In most cases this will be something different from what they have been
doing and will involve temporary removal from the home community.
It has for some time troubled me that a good many pacifists of draft age
seem ready to acquiesce in this situation and that, furthermore, many
who are not directly affected by the draft seem to feel that at such a
time they must immediately find something else to do than that which they
have been doing—something that is often referred to as “meaningful” or
“sacrificial.” Was what they were doing then so definitely not meaningful
or sacrificial? Unfortunately, this is very likely the case in many
instances. But it does not follow, as is seemingly often assumed, that
this justifies going into some entirely new work, a “project,” as we say,
and perhaps preferably some relief work which has some connection with
the war effort, something which society will regard as the “equivalent”
of support of the war effort. Certainly the fact that a young man of
draft age has not been following a meaningful or Christian vocation does
not automatically or by itself constitute a warrant for submitting to
conscription for so-called civilian service. It may well be that God
calls him at this juncture to put meaning into the life he has been
living and into the work he was supposed to be doing.
It is certainly incumbent on us to search our hearts as to whether this
rush to get into other jobs and to go to distant places may be motivated
by fear of men and of the authorities, by a desire to be thought well of,
by a dread of the social displeasure or actual legal punishment which
might fall upon us if we were to continue quietly at the work which we
had been doing, living in the home town when war fever, if not outright
hysteria, seizes the people. “If I were still pleasing men,” said St.
Paul, “I should not be the slave of Christ.”
The Normal as Meaningful
I am convinced that our thinking in these matters is often distorted.
What God calls men and women to, fundamentally, is to “be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion” over
the animal creation—to sow the grain, weave the cloth, build homes and
temples to the Eternal. That is what most people should be doing most of
the time. In fact, unless they did, even the armies would all soon have
to stop in their tracks! War comes along and breaks into this normal life
of human beings. That it does this is one of the gravest indictments of
war. To resist this breaking up of orderly family and community life—not
to yield to the subtle and insistent pressure to do something different
under the tacit assumption that the normal cannot be meaningful—is
one of the great services the people who believe in non-violence and
reconciliation may render. “In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”
To look at the matter from another angle, it is sometimes said that it is
important that pacifists should make it clear that they can face hardship
and danger and are ready to suffer, if need be, on behalf of their
convictions. Granted that this is true, it by no means automatically
follows that draft-age youths should submit to conscription or that
other pacifists should on the advent of war or conscription leave what
they are doing for other work. It may well be that the most challenging
opportunity to display courage, hardihood and readiness to suffer will
be found precisely in the community in which one has been living and
in trying to do the ordinary things about which we have been speaking.
There is reason to think that some Congressmen may have been influenced
in supporting the “deferment,” or virtual exemption, for COs under the
original 1948 United States Selective Service Act because they were
convinced that few who claim to be COs would have the nerve to stand up
against the pressure to which one would be subjected as he tried to
go his normal way in his home town or college, when others were being
drafted and forced to leave home or college. Obviously, only a pacifist
who was leading, not a self-indulgent but a disciplined life, who was
ready to face danger and suffering and who deeply loved his fellows,
could follow such a course. It is possible that some leave the home or
college environment not because they wish to face hardship but because
they yield to the temptation to try to avoid it.
Let us, after these preliminary observations, try to determine how—from
the standpoint of the concept of Christian vocation—the pacifist may
judge the action of a government which requires so-called alternative
conscript service of him or of his children or fellow-pacifists. There
are, so far as I can see, only three possible verdicts. One possibility
is to say that the government is demanding that these conscripts shall
at least temporarily _abandon_ their Christian or true vocation for work
to which they clearly are _not_ “called.” A second possibility is to
say that the government is competent in these special circumstances to
determine, and has correctly determined, that the alternative service
to which it assigns COs constitutes their Christian vocation for the
time being. The third possibility is to reason that when the government
thus forces a Christian into another occupation, it is performing an
unwarranted and sinful act but that the Christian’s duty in such a
situation is to practice non-resistance. It, therefore, becomes his
vocation to undertake the work which is imposed upon him, not because it
is in itself somehow good but because non-resistance to evil constitutes
Christian behavior.
The first case is easily disposed of. If the individual is convinced
that he is being forced out of his Christian or human vocation into
something which, therefore, requires him to disobey God or conscience,
he has no alternative but to refuse to comply with the State’s demand,
perhaps resist it non-violently, and take the consequences. He will
still probably be forced out of his accustomed place and work but his
non-conformity or non-cooperation with the State’s demand at this point
becomes his true vocation.
The second possible attitude listed a moment ago is to hold that, in the
context of conscription and provided it does not require service in the
armed forces, the State may determine what one’s Christian vocation is.
Some of the Mennonite statements and those of some other pacifists seem
to me to fall under this head. The position seems to me a very precarious
one and I question whether Mennonites, for example, can maintain it as
consistent with their own theology and Christian ethics.
The Role of Jehovah’s Witnesses
In the first place, it is essential in the Christian concept of vocation
that the “call” is from the Spirit speaking in the heart of the believer.
And the believer must always remain in a position where he can be free
to respond to the prompting of the Spirit. But how can this be under a
conscription regime? The position of Jehovah’s Witnesses that they cannot
submit to conscription because they must always be free to “witness” to
the faith, is in this respect surely a strong and impressive one. It has
a bearing also, incidentally, on what we said some paragraphs earlier
under general observations about Christian vocation. It seems to me that
Christian pacifists need to give much more thought than they have done
to the question whether in this particular respect the Witnesses, so far
from being eccentric, are not taking the clear and consistent, centrally
Christian, stand. The fact that the Witnesses can hardly be classified as
pacifists in the usual sense of the term does not affect the relevance
of this question for pacifists and indeed for Christians generally.
Furthermore in Mennonite thought, government, the State, though it is “an
ordinance of God” to curb sin, is itself by definition also sinful, not
Christian, not a part of “the order of redemption.” Where, then, does the
State get the competence, or the mandate to determine, of all things, the
_Christian_ vocation of a _believer_? And particularly the war-making
arm or department of the State? If the war department or its adjunct,
Selective Service, is qualified to determine Christian vocation as part
of its conduct of, or preparation for, a war, then why should not the
labor department in peace time tell Christians where to work?
There remains a third possible position, namely, that the State is
undoubtedly doing an evil thing in taking the individual out of the
work to which he feels God has called him but that the principle of
non-resistance to evil then comes into operation and submission to this
evil becomes the vocation of the persecuted Christian. Given certain
premises, there is logic in this position, but it is nevertheless open to
serious question. In the first place, non-resistance to an evil should
not mean cooperation with it. “Depart from evil and do good,” is the
law. Pacifists in general, and Christian pacifists in particular, have
to ask whether in conforming with any of the provisions of a draft law
and especially in rendering conscript service regarded as of “national
importance” by a war-making state, they are not helping conscription to
run smoothly, helping thus to force conscription on millions of youth and
thus in turn promoting war, since conscription is an integral part of
an armaments race. The phenomenon of increased tension between nations
when they lengthen the compulsory service period for youth is a familiar
one. This, of course, raises the whole question of our evaluation of the
meaning and role of military conscription, to which we shall return
later.
In the meantime, one or two other comments need to be made on the phase
of our problem under discussion. If what is really happening is that
the war-making state is inflicting an evil on people, forcing them away
from their vocation, subjecting them to a measure of persecution, then
it seems we ought to keep this clearly in our own minds and ought not
to let the government or public assume that we think otherwise. The
expressions of “gratitude” which we have sometimes heard addressed to
government for “permitting” pacifists to render alternative service seem
inappropriate. We cannot have it both ways: accuse the State of the grave
sin of invading the realm of Christian vocation and at the same time
thank it for doing us a “favor” by making the invasion less than total.
The State is not doing God or Christian people a favor in recognizing
conscience, though that is what most United States Congressmen think they
are doing in making some provision for COs. The pacifist who in any way
encourages this notion is in danger of helping to give currency to the
idea that conscience is a private whim which legislators may see fit to
indulge for prudential reasons, as long as those who are afflicted with
this peculiarity are very few in numbers. If non-resistant pacifists
get off the high ground of patiently bowing the neck to Caesar’s yoke,
letting Caesar inflict the scourge of civilian conscript service upon
them, they are immediately on the low ground of bargaining for indulgence
for a small and, in that view, not too principled or brave a minority.
Standing on that lower ground they have very little bargaining _power_
and the results will reflect that fact—and pretty much did during World
War II. On the other hand, both in Great Britain and in the United States
the sufferings which the COs endured in World War I when there was
virtually no legal or social recognition of them, were, according to all
competent observers, largely responsible for the fact that fairly liberal
provisions for COs were made in World War II. The Army did not want to
“be bothered with these fellows again.”
Two Miles or None
This does not, of course, mean that if the imposition of alternative
service is accepted, it should be rendered grudgingly or that feelings
of hostility toward government officials with whom one may deal are
appropriate. Quite the contrary. If we decide to go with Caesar one mile,
the Gospel enjoins us to go two! We have the choice of not going along at
all or going two miles, but not a skimpy one mile.
I think it is now generally admitted that there was not a great deal of
this glad, spontaneous “second miling” on the part of the conscript COs
in World War II, though there was considerable talk about it among older
folks. Civilian Public Service in large measure simply did not operate on
the high spiritual plane that was originally hoped and is still sometimes
implied or stated, but was for many making the best of a bad business,
perhaps for lack of clear leading or the courage to follow another course.
It will be recalled that there were a considerable number of Civilian
Public Service men who declared flatly that it was inconsistent, and
indeed hypocritical, to talk of spontaneous service under conscription.
“We are here,” they said, “not because our desire to serve brought us
here. We are here because the government as part of its war program
passed a conscription law and under that law took us by the scruff of the
neck and is forcing us to do this job. We have no choice but this or the
army or jail. That fact is bound to color this whole experience, except
perhaps for those who can shut their eyes to reality. Any one who denies
this is a hypocrite.”
It seems to me these COs placed the finger on an essential point.
Compulsion does enter into “service” under a conscription law. It
affects the whole picture. Therefore, the evaluation to be made of the
IV-E position and of alternative service under it is not disposed of
by asserting that “service is at least as real a part of Christian or
pacifist life as witness or resistance.” That statement is perfectly
correct. Service of men, fellowship with them, on the one hand, and
non-cooperation with evil, witness against injustice, non-violent
resistance, on the other hand, are both essential in the pacifist
way of life. There is some of each in every pacifist life. The most
“reconciling” one refuses to use a gun or even, probably, to put on
a uniform. Some of the most extreme “resisters” in prison were known
for the thoughtful and gentle service they rendered to criminal
fellow-inmates. A very discerning English pacifist observed: “For some
their witness is their service, for others their service is their
witness,” or resistance. Each type needs to be on guard against the
temptations peculiar to it, including the temptation to question the
motives or underestimate the contribution of pacifists of the other type.
But the service which is the essence of pacifism is free, spontaneous,
joyous, sacrificial, unbought. To magnify or glorify this is by no means
automatically to magnify or glorify the IV-E position _under the draft_.
Here, as we have pointed out, an element enters which is contradictory to
pacifism, freedom and spontaneity—_the element of compulsion in a context
of war and war preparation_.
It seems to me that it is important for pacifists to bear this in mind
as we make plans to deal with the problem of alternative service under
the amended 1948 Selective Service Act. No matter how “liberal” or
“considerate” the conditions for administering alternative service may
be in the estimation of government officials or the pacifist agencies,
if alternative service is accepted or acquiesced in at all, it will
inevitably pose grave problems from the standpoint of Christian vocation
and it will not, I think, be possible to escape the contamination or
corruption which “conscription” infuses into “service.” At the moment
it seems possible that Selective Service regulations will permit some
individuals to remain at their accustomed occupations. We put aside for
the time being certain questions to which we shall return as to what
the act of registration itself implies in the context of conscription
for atomic and biological war. Here we emphasize that once a man has
appealed to the State to permit him to remain in his job and has been
granted such permission, it is not exactly the same job as it was before.
Others will not be given the same permission, and he should not evade the
question whether he can acquiesce in and to a degree benefit from such
discrimination. He will have to consider whether the consideration in his
case arises from the fact that officials regard his work as in some way a
contribution to the war effort, or from a desire to placate and silence
an influential person. If he should conclude that he ought to change
jobs, he would have to consult the authorities again, and what then?
In conferences with Selective Service officials efforts are being made to
avoid some of the features of the war-time Civilian Public Service set-up
which deeply troubled a good many Friends—such as the close supervision
by military men allegedly functioning as civilians and the undesirable
and frustrating character of much of the work to which IV-E men were
assigned. Even if substantial concessions are obtained, it will be well
for us to be on guard against idealizing the situation. It is hoped that
a good many young men will be in effect furloughed to projects at home
and abroad which will not be exclusively for COs of draft age and which
will have real social value. It will not be the same as if these men had
undertaken these jobs out of a sense of vocation and mission, apart from
the context of conscription. We know that for the most part they did not
volunteer until conscription came along. The same questions which the
man who is permitted to remain in his own job faces, will confront these
young men on projects. In addition, their term of service and rates of
pay will be set by the government.
To sum up this first part of our analysis, it is my conclusion that the
one consistent attitude toward conscript alternative service from the
standpoint of Christian vocation—if one accepts such work at all—is that
which regards submission or non-resistance to the evil which the State
imposes upon him when it interferes with his normal occupation, as the
vocation or duty of the Christian man. Any other attitude seems to me
to involve a considerable measure of rationalization. The Mennonites
came nearest to adopting this non-resistant position and the fact that
the experience of Mennonite youths in Civilian Public Service was less
frustrating and brought better results than was the case with others,
save in exceptional instances, seems to me to bear out my analysis. As
we have pointed out, those who non-resistantly take up their cross of
conscription should bear it joyously and be ready to carry it the second
mile.
The Immature Eighteen-Year-Old
We turn next to a brief consideration of the arguments for the IV-E as
against the non-registrant position which center around the problem of
“the immature 18-year-old youth.” A number of 18-year-olds, it is pointed
out, have a strong aversion to war and a leaning toward pacifism. They
are, however, emotionally immature. If they have no choice but the army
or jail all but a few will choose the army and are likely to be lost
to the pacifist cause. They could be held and possibly even developed
into a radical pacifist position, if they had a third choice, namely,
civilian service. On the other hand, the youth who in the absence of such
a third possibility, chooses prison rather than the army may suffer grave
psychological injury.
I am sure no one will be disposed to be callous or “tough” in his
attitude toward any youth faced with a problem such as we are discussing.
Any one in the position of a counselor to an individual will want to
avoid “psychological pressuring” to induce him to take this or that
course, and will strive to help the young man to make his own decision,
in accord with his own inner need and conviction, rather than to impose a
decision upon him. But I conceive that it would be my duty as a Christian
minister to have this same attitude in talking and praying with a young
man who was going into the Army. I would have no right, nor do I think
it would do any good, to “pressure” him against his conviction and
inner need, to refuse service. But this would certainly not mean that I
give up my own pacifist convictions, or refrain from doing all I can in
general to spread them or from making this particular young man aware of
my own thoughts and feelings. This in spite of the fact that if young
men who had planned to submit to the draft are consequently won to the
pacifist position, this may entail considerable suffering on their part,
anguish for parents who disagree with them, and so on. It is fairly
certain, incidentally, that in many typical Southern communities—and by
no means exclusively in the South—a youth who chose the I-A-O (medical
corps) position, not to mention IV-E, would have as tough a time as a
non-registrant in many metropolitan centers. We cannot, then, escape the
conclusion that as we have a responsibility to decide for the pacifist
or non-pacifist position and to bear witness for pacifism, if that is
the stand we take, so as pacifists we have a responsibility to decide
whether complete non-cooperation with military conscription is the more
consistent, committed and effective stand or not, and if we decide for
the former, then to do what we can to make our stand and the reasons for
it known.
I have the impression that even a great many, perhaps the majority, of
pacifist ministers will work harder to keep a young pacifist parishioner
from taking the “absolutist” position and going to jail rather than into
civilian service, than they would work to get the run of the mill young
parishioners to think seriously about not going into the army. They
seem somehow to feel that a more awful thing is happening to the young
CO who goes to jail than to the 18-year-old who goes into the army. It
is my impression that this same feeling is an unconscious factor in the
thinking of many lay pacifists when they react strongly against the idea
of COs going to prison. This puzzles me greatly. Why should they have
this reaction?
Army or Jail?
To my mind—even apart from the sufficiently appalling factor of being
systematically trained for wholesale killing and subjected to the risk of
being killed in brutal war—there are few if any more evil and perilous
situations to put young men into than the armed forces. I should feel
much deeper grief over having possibly had some part in getting some
youth to go into the armed forces than over having some responsibility
for bringing a young man to go to prison for conscience’s sake. Are
the qualms people feel about youthful COs going to prison in certain
instances perhaps due to the fact that taking the non-registrant position
is something very unusual and regarded with social disapproval, whereas
becoming a soldier is extremely common and meets with the highest social
approval? It may be, therefore, that there are some ministers and other
older people who should examine themselves as to whether their feelings
in the matter under discussion are due to the fact that they themselves
might find life in the community or in the church very uncomfortable
if they were suspected of having influenced a youth to take a radical
anti-draft stand, whereas all men will speak well of them—or at least not
too ill—if they have helped, or at least not hindered, young Christians
in adjusting themselves to the idea of going into the army. Is it just
possible that we older people are sometimes concerned with sparing
ourselves when we think we are solely concerned about sparing teen-agers?
To return to the 18-year-old. There are young men who on physical and
psychological grounds are exempted from army service. There may well be
COs who should on similar grounds be exempted from any kind of service.
If such a physically or mentally ill CO is refused exemption, he should
perhaps be discouraged from undergoing the risks of prison experience if
there is an alternative for him. This still leaves us with the problem of
the majority of pacifist and non-pacifist youth who are not ill.
When we find ourselves concerned about what the teen-age religious CO who
goes to prison must undergo and inclined to think that there is here an
absolutely conclusive case for providing alternative service and urging
most such COs to avail themselves of it, we might first take a look at
two other categories of youth who are subject to the draft. One of them
consists of those actually drafted into the armed services; the other of
the so-called non-religious COs.
The great mass of teen-agers are going to be put through rigorous
military training with all the hardships, the toughening and the
temptations which this entails. They have to be ready to undergo actual
battle experience. Many of them will actually experience modern war at
the front. Is what the CO undergoes in prison vastly more terrible than
this? Is it as terrible? It may be said that the soldier has social
approbation whereas the pacifist, especially the “absolutist” meets
social disapprobation and even ostracism. This is indeed a sore trial and
many cannot endure it. Frankly, I am still left with more grief and pity
in my heart for the teen-age soldier than for the teen-age “absolutist”
CO. I am still left with a question whether we have a right to take any
time and energy away from the struggle to lift the curse of conscription
from the mass of youth and put it into an effort to secure alternative
conscript service for COs.
There are, as we know, teen-age “absolutists” who feel the same way and
who have demonstrated that they can endure whatever they may be called
upon to endure. Nor is their lot without its compensations. They, also,
“have their reward.”
The So-Called Non-Religious CO
Religious COs who accept the IV-E classification and older pacifists
who advocate this course have also to consider the non-religious CO.
Under United States Law it is the so-called religious CO who is eligible
for this classification; the so-called non-religious CO, though he
may by unanimous consent be equally sincere, is not. The latter has
no choice except the army or jail. The fact that he is only 18 years
old does not alter that. Nothing in this entire field of pacifist
policy and behavior is, frankly, harder for me to understand than how
religious COs and many of the leaders of the peace churches and of
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, can acquiesce in this situation and
accept what is regarded as an advantage, a preferred position, under
it. The white CO who accepted conscript alternative service when the
Negro CO was automatically forced to choose the army or prison would be
in an invidious position. So would the Gentile when his Jewish comrade
was thus discriminated against. But in my mind the case is far more
deplorable when it is the religious and the supposedly non-religious man
who are involved. The white man or the Gentile might actually believe in
discrimination or not regard it too seriously when the discrimination is
in his favor. But for the religious man it should surely be a central and
indispensable part of his faith that discrimination, most of all where
two men acting in obedience to conscience are involved, is unthinkable
and that if there is discrimination, he cannot be the beneficiary of it.
At any rate, the argument that there must be alternative service
because _immature_ 18-year-olds must by no means be subjected to prison
experience seems to me to become completely impotent in the mouths
of those religious pacifists who acquiesce in the arrangement under
discussion and enable it to work—unless indeed they mean to contend that
the average religious CO has less stamina than the non-religious CO and
that, therefore, the former should be given gentler treatment.
Advocacy of alternative service for the teen-age CO is based on
considerations relating to the future of the pacifist movement, as well
as on the effect on the COs themselves. It is argued that if the only
choice young pacifists have is the army or jail, there will be very few
pacifists. This argument was not, however, first advanced when the draft
age was lowered. It was often heard during World War II when most COs
were older and more seasoned. It has always impressed me as a dubious
argument and I wonder where it leads us. What, for example, is the
relationship of this argument to the one which is also advanced—sometimes
by the same person—that the IV-E position is very meaningful and perhaps
to be preferred to the more “absolutist” one, because it is the IV-E man
who gives a glorious demonstration of the spirit of selfless service
which is the essence of pacifism at its best? These two concepts cannot
very well be harnessed together as a team. We can hardly contend in one
and the same breath that we want alternative service because most young
pacifists are not ready to follow a stronger and more sacrificial course
_and_ that we want it because it is the strongest and most meaningful
course pacifists can follow. It seems to me we have to decide whether our
problem is to find shelter for COs or whether it is to find freedom and
the opportunity for self-expression and service, even though the price be
high.
To consider the matter for a moment from the tactical viewpoint, it seems
quite certain that the number of 18-year-olds who take either the IV-E
or the non-registrant position (perhaps even the I-A-O position might be
included) will at least at the outset be small. The draft now gets the
young man at the very age when it is most difficult for him to stand out
in any way from the mass of his fellows. Even if he is intellectually
pretty well convinced of the pacifist position, he is not emotionally
mature enough to take it. It is a fair guess that the accessions to
the pacifist movement, if military service and/or training becomes
universal, will in the future come mainly from young people who have gone
through the experience of life in the armed forces. In other words, the
additional number of pacifists recruited because alternative service is
provided may turn out to be very small. If so, the numerical advantage
from the adoption of a less uncompromising pacifism is illusory.
There is one other factor which may be mentioned in this context, that we
live in an age when the role of minorities is an increasingly difficult
one. The pressures and the actual persecution to which they are subjected
are severe. The trend is still partially obscured in the United States
but if we pause to reflect that not a single bomb has as yet fallen on
this country, we shall realize that this country is not an exception to
the trend toward greater conformity and regimentation. As the New York
_Times_ editorialized some time ago in commenting on some features of the
McCarran Act, if we are already resorting to such repressive measures,
what will we do when a real crisis comes? In other words, while we spend
a good deal of time arguing that COs should have some choice other than
the army or jail, we are probably moving into a time when that will
essentially be the only choice that members of minorities, including
pacifists, have. It would seem then that our thought and energy should be
devoted to two issues: whether and how this trend toward totalitarianism
can be halted and how we may prepare and discipline ourselves to meet the
tests which our fellow-pacifists in some other lands have already had to
meet?
The Nature of Conscription
This, however, leads to the third and last of the issues we are trying
to explore: the true nature of conscription, of modern war, and of
the conscripting, war-making State—and the attitude which pacifists
consequently should take toward them.
Participation in alternative service is quite often defended on the
ground that our opposition is to war rather than conscription; except
in the matter of war we are as ready to serve the nation as anybody;
therefore, as long as we are not drafted for combat or forced against
our will into the armed services, we are ready to render whatever service
of a civilian character may be imposed upon us.
Is this a sound position? Let me emphasize that it is conscription for
war under the conditions of the second half of the twentieth century that
we are talking about. The question as to whether sometime and under some
circumstances we might accept conscription for some conceivable purpose
not related to war, is not here at stake. It is academic and irrelevant.
The question with which we are dealing is that of conscripting youth in
and for modern war.
As pacifists we are opposed to all war. Even if recruitment were entirely
on a voluntary basis, we would be opposed. It seems to me we might
infer from this that we should be _a fortiori_ opposed to military
conscription, for here in addition to the factor of war itself, the
element of coercion by government enters in, coercion which places young
boys in a military regime where they are deprived of freedom of choice
in virtually all essential matters. They may not have the slightest
interest in the war, yet they are made to kill by order. This is surely a
fundamental violation of the human spirit which must cause the pacifist
to shudder.
The reply is sometimes made that pacifists are _not_ being conscripted
for military purposes and therefore—presumably—_they_ are not faced
with the issue of the nature of military conscription. I shall later
contend that it is not really possible to separate conscription and war,
as I think this argument does. Here I wish to suggest that even if the
question is the conscription of non-pacifist youth, it is a fundamental
mistake for pacifists ever to relent in their opposition to this evil,
ever to devote their energies primarily to securing provisions for COs
in a draft law or to lapse into a feeling that conscription has somehow
become more palatable if such provisions are made by the State. It is
not our own children if we are pacifist parents, our fellow-pacifist
Christians if we are churchmen, about whom we should be most deeply
concerned. In the first place, that is a narrow and perhaps self-centered
attitude. In the second place, pacifist youths have some inner resources
for meeting the issue under discussion. The terrible thing which we
should never lose sight of, to which we should never reconcile our
spirits, is that the great mass of 18-year-olds are drafted for war. They
are given no choice. Few are at the stage of development where they are
capable of making fully rational and responsible choice. Thus the fathers
immolate the sons, the older generation immolates the younger, on the
altar of Moloch. What God centuries ago forbade Abraham to do even to his
own son—“Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto
him”—this we do by decree to the entire youth of a nation.
We need to ask ourselves whether such conscription is in any real sense
a lesser evil. As we have already said, the pacifist is opposed to war
and we have all sensed the danger of arguing against conscription _on the
ground that_ the nation could raise all the troops it needed by voluntary
enlistment. Nevertheless, there is a point to an impassioned argument
which George Bernanos makes in the book we mentioned at the outset.
He states that the man created by western or Christian civilization
“disappeared in the day conscription became law ... the principle is a
totalitarian principle if ever there was one—so much so that you could
deduce the whole system from it, as you can deduce the whole of geometry
from the propositions of Euclid.”
To the question as to whether France, the Fatherland, should not be
defended if in peril, he has the Fatherland answer: “I very much doubt
whether my salvation requires such monstrous behavior” as defense by
modern war methods. If men wanted to die on behalf of the Fatherland,
moreover, that would be one thing but “making a clean sweep, with one
scoop of the hand, of an entire male population” is another matter
altogether: “You tell me that, in saving me, they save themselves. Yes,
if they can remain free; no, if they allow you to destroy, by this
unheard of measure, the national covenant. For as soon as you have, by
simple decree, created millions of French soldiers, it will be held as
proven that you have sovereign rights over the persons and the goods of
every Frenchman, that there are no rights higher than yours and where,
then, will your usurpations stop? Won’t you presently presume to decide
what is just and what is unjust, what is Evil and what is Good?”
It is pretty certainly an oversimplification to suggest, as Bernanos
here does, that the entire totalitarian, mechanized “system” under
which men today live or into which they are increasingly drawn even in
countries where a semblance of freedom and spontaneity remains, can be
traced to its source in the military conscription which was instituted
by the French Revolution in the eighteenth century. But what cannot,
it seems to me, be successfully denied is that today totalitarianism,
depersonalization, conscription, war, and the conscripting, war-making
power-state are inextricably linked together. They constitute a whole,
a “system.” It is a disease, a creeping paralysis, which affects
all nations, on both sides of the global conflict. Revolution and
counter-revolution, “peoples’ democracies” and “western democracies,” the
“peace-loving” nations on both sides in the war, are cast in this mold of
conformity, mechanization and violence. This is the Beast which, in the
language of the Apocalypse, is seeking to usurp the place of the Lamb.
We know that “war will stop at nothing” and we are clear that as
pacifists we can have nothing to do with it. But I do not think that it
is possible to distinguish between war and conscription, to say that the
former is and the latter is not an instrument or mark of the Beast.
Disobedience Becomes Imperative
Non-conformity, Holy Disobedience, becomes a virtue and indeed a
necessary and indispensable measure of spiritual self-preservation,
in a day when the impulse to conform, to acquiesce, to go along, is
the instrument which is used to subject men to totalitarian rule and
involve them in permanent war. To create the impression at least of
outward unanimity, the impression that there is no “real” opposition,
is something for which all dictators and military leaders strive
assiduously. The more it seems that there is no opposition, the less
worthwhile it seems to an ever larger number of people to cherish even
the thought of opposition. Surely, in such a situation it is important
not to place the pinch of incense before Caesar’s image, not to make
the gesture of conformity which is involved, let us say, in registering
under a military conscription law. When the object is so plainly to
create a situation where the individual no longer has a choice except
total conformity or else the concentration camp or death; when reliable
people tell us seriously that experiments are being conducted with drugs
which will paralyze the wills of opponents within a nation or in an
enemy country, it is surely neither right nor wise to wait until the
“system” has driven us into a corner where we cannot retain a vestige of
self-respect unless we say No. It does not seem wise or right to wait
until this evil catches up with us, but rather to go out to meet it—to
_resist_—before it has gone any further.
As Bernanos reminds us, “things are moving fast, dear reader, they are
moving very fast.” He recalls that he “lived at a time when passport
formalities seemed to have vanished forever.” A man could “travel around
the world with nothing in his wallet but his visiting card.” He recalls
that “twenty years ago, Frenchmen of the middle class refused to have
their fingerprints taken; fingerprints were the concern of convicts.”
But the word “criminal” has “swollen to such prodigious proportions that
it now includes every citizen who dislikes the Regime, the System, the
Party, or the man who represents them.... The moment, perhaps, is not
far off when it will seem natural for us to leave the front-door key in
the lock at night so that the police may enter at any hour of the day or
night, _as it is to open our pocket-books to every official demand_. And
when the State decides that it would be a practical measure ... to put
some outward sign on us, why should we hesitate to have ourselves branded
on the cheek or on the buttock, with a hot iron, like cattle? The purges
of ‘wrong-thinkers,’ so dear to the totalitarian regimes, would thus
become infinitely easier.”
To me it seems that submitting to conscription even for civilian service
is permitting oneself thus to be branded by the State. It makes the work
of the State in preparing for war and in securing the desired impression
of unanimity much easier. It seems, therefore, that pacifists should
refuse to be thus branded.
In the introductory chapter to Kay Boyle’s volume of short stories about
occupied Germany, _The Smoking Mountain_, there is an episode which seems
to me to emphasize the need of Resistance and of not waiting until it
is indeed too late. She tells about a woman, professor of philology in
a Hessian university who said of the German experience with Nazism: “It
was a gradual process.” When the first _Jews Not Wanted_ signs went up,
“there was never any protest made about them, and, after a few months,
not only we, but even the Jews who lived in that town, walked past
without noticing any more that they were there. Does it seem impossible
to you that this should have happened to civilized people anywhere?”
The philology professor went on to say that after a while she put up a
picture of Hitler in her class-room. After twice refusing to take the
oath of allegiance to Hitler, she was persuaded by her students to take
it. “They argued that in taking this oath, which so many anti-Nazis had
taken before me, _I was committing myself to nothing, and that I could
exert more influence as a professor than as an outcast in the town_.”
She concluded by saying that she now had a picture of a Jew, Spinoza,
where Hitler’s picture used to hang, and added: “Perhaps you will think
that I did this ten years too late, and perhaps you are right in thinking
this. _Perhaps there was something else we could all of us have done,
but we never seemed to find a way to do it, either as individuals or as
a group, we never seemed to find a way._” A decision by the pacifist
movement in this country to break completely with conscription, to give
up the idea that we can “exert more influence” if we conform in some
measure, do not resist to the uttermost—this might awaken our countrymen
to a realization of the precipice on the edge of which we stand. It might
be the making of our movement.
The Reconciling Resistance
Thus to embrace Holy Disobedience is not to substitute Resistance for
Reconciliation. It is to practice both Reconciliation and Resistance. In
so far as we help to build up or smooth the way for American militarism
and the regimentation which accompanies it, we are certainly not
practising reconciliation toward the millions of people in the Communist
bloc countries against whom American war preparations, including
conscription, are directed. Nor are we practising reconciliation toward
the hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa whom we condemn to poverty
and drive into the arms of Communism by our addiction to military
“defense.” Nor are we practising love toward our own fellow-citizens,
including also the multitude of youths in the armed services, if, against
our deepest insight, we help to fasten the chains of conscription and war
upon them.
Our works of mercy, healing and reconstruction will have a deeper and
more genuinely reconciling effect when they are not entangled with
conscript service for “the health, safety and interest” of the United
States or any other war-making State. It is highly doubtful whether
Christian mission boards can permit any of their projects in the Orient
to be manned by men supposed to be working for “the health, safety and
interest” of the United States. The Gospel of reconciliation will be
preached with a new freedom and power when the preachers have broken
decisively with American militarism. It can surely not be preached at all
in Communist lands by those who have not made that break. It will be when
we have gotten off the back of what someone has called the wild elephant
of militarism and conscription on to the solid ground of freedom, and
only then, that we shall be able to live and work constructively. Like
Abraham we shall have to depart from the City-which-is in order that we
may help to build the City-which-is-to-be, whose true builder and maker
is God.
It is, of course, possible, perhaps even likely, that if we set ourselves
apart as those who will have no dealings whatever with conscription, will
not place the pinch of incense before Caesar’s image, our fellow-citizens
will stone us, as Stephen was stoned when he reminded his people that it
was they who had “received the law as it was ordained by angels, and kept
it not.” So may we be stoned for reminding our people of a tradition of
freedom and peace which was also, in a real sense, “ordained by angels”
and which we no longer keep. But, it will thus become possible for
them, as for Paul, even amidst the search for new victims to persecute,
suddenly to see again the face of Christ and the vision of a new
Jerusalem.
Some one may at this point reflect that earlier in this paper I counseled
against people too readily leaving the normal path of life and that I
am now counseling a policy which is certain to create disturbance in
individual lives, families and communities. That is so. But to depart
from the common way in response or reaction to a conscription law, in the
attempt to adapt oneself to an abnormal state of society, is one thing.
To leave father, mother, wife, child, yea and one’s own life also, at the
behest of Christ or conscience is quite another. Our generation will not
return to a condition under which every man may sit under his own vine
and fig tree, with none to make him afraid, unless there are those who
are willing to pay the high cost of redemption and deliverance from a
regime of regimentation, terror and war.
Finally, it is of crucial importance that we should understand that for
the individual to pit himself in Holy Disobedience against the war-making
and conscripting State, wherever it or he be located, is not an act of
despair or defeatism. Rather, I think we may say that precisely this
individual refusal to “go along” is now the beginning and the core of any
realistic and practical movement against war and for a more peaceful and
brotherly world. For it becomes daily clearer that political and military
leaders pay virtually no attention to protests against current foreign
policy and pleas for peace when they know perfectly well that when it
comes to a showdown, all but a handful of the millions of protesters will
“go along” with the war to which the policy leads. All but a handful
will submit to conscription. Few of the protesters will so much as risk
their jobs in the cause of “peace.” The failure of the policymakers to
change their course does not, save perhaps in very rare instances, mean
that they are evil men who want war. They feel, as indeed they so often
declare in crucial moments, that the issues are so complicated, the
forces arrayed against them so strong, that they “have no choice” but
to add another score of billions to the military budget, and so on and
on. Why should they think there is any reality, hope or salvation in
“peace advocates” who when the moment of decision comes also act on the
assumption that they “have no choice” but to conform?
Precisely in a day when the individual appears to be utterly helpless, to
“have no choice,” when the aim of the “system” is to convince him that he
is helpless as an individual and that the only way to meet regimentation
is by regimentation, there is absolutely no hope save in going back
to the beginning. The human being, the child of God, must assert his
humanity and his sonship again. He must exercise the choice which he
no longer has as something accorded him by society, which he “naked,
weaponless, armourless, without shield or spear, but only with naked
hands and open eyes” must create again. He must understand that this
naked human being is the one _real_ thing in the face of the mechanics
and the mechanized institutions of our age. He, by the grace of God, is
the seed of all the human life there will be on earth in the future,
though he may have to die to make that harvest possible. As _Life_
magazine stated in its unexpectedly profound and stirring editorial of
August 20, 1945, its first issue after the atom bombing of Hiroshima:
“Our sole safeguard against the very real danger of a reversion
to barbarism is the kind of morality which compels the individual
conscience, be the group right or wrong. The individual conscience
against the atomic bomb? Yes. There is no other way.”
* * * * *
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