People ask me a lot: Do you condone the use of violence? or Are you a pacifist?
Violence is a loaded word that I do my best not to use, so I refuse to answer the first question. The meaning of the word pacifism is something along the lines of “an opposition to violence”. Because the word pacifism is tied directly to the word violence I refuse to answer the second question. Be more specific! Violence means many different things.
I could just answer the questions truthfully based on the many meanings of the word violence, YES to the first question and NO to the second, but those answers don’t say anything at all! But, people will try to make them mean things. They will try to extrapolate something out of those one word answers, something like “Because you condone violence, you must condone all violence! Bad person!” or “Because you’re not a pacifist, you condone violence, so you must condone all violence! Bad person!” Those are simply illogical interpretations of my answers.
Read this Ran Prieur essay for more info.
