Tag: pacifism, war

A.J. Kazinski

I think about something I once heard on the radio. About Abraham and Isaac.””I was afraid you’d say something like that.” “You asked.””So what about them? I don’t really know much about that kind of stuff.””There was a pastor on the radio who said nobody should ever preach that story. Do you remember how it goes? God tells Abraham that he has to sacrifice his son to prove his faith.””I agree with the pastor. It sounds like a sick story. Ban that shit.””But isn’t that exactly what we do? Send young men off to a war in the desert and ask them to sacrifice themselves for a belief?

Noam Chomsky

I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices. But the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice can only be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment-which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously and with a good deal of scepticism that this violence is being exercised because a more just result is going to be achieved.