The Amish Plot Against the Superheroes

I’ve been reading The War of the Lamb, the last book written by John Howard Yoder. Yoder was the most important theologian of pacifism in the last century or so, I think. Appropriately enough for a pacifist theologian, he was a Mennonite.

And, of course, the subject of Mennonite’s made me think again (mostly to my sorrow) of writer and illustrator Alan Davis’ 1998 JLA alternate reality exercise The Nail. For those fortunate enough to have missed the series, it’s high concept is that John and Martha Kent ran over a nail on day that Superman’s rocket ship landed on earth. As a result, the Kent’s didn’t find the ship. Instead (as we learn towards the end of the book) an Amish family found it. Since the Amish won’t interact with the rest of the world and since they are (like most Mennonite sects) pacifist, the fact that this family discovered Supes meant that he never became a superhero; he just stayed on the farm. Without his iconic presence, superheroes (and especially aliens) are distrusted, Lex Luthor becomes mayor, no one is tough enough to stand up to Kryptonian technology…etc., etc. In short, things go to the bad, and it’s all because of the stupid Amish.

Most superhero comics are stupid, and The Nail is no exception. Still, there is something of the idiot savant about it. Davis was looking for a way to neutralize Superman and, by extension, all of superdom. What is the opposite of the superhero? The obvious answer is, a supervillain. Too obvious — and, incidentally, untrue. Superheroes and supervillains are part of the same world, the same milieu. Superman being a supervillain doesn’t remove or negate him; it just puts him front and center in a different role (Earth 3! And god help me that I know that….but anyway….)

So, supervillain is no good. But…what if you make him a pacifist? Then he’s ineffectual, irrelevant — he’s nothing. Which is to say, it’s not supervillainy that’s the opposite of superheroics — it’s pacifism.

The book in its final pages, then, glorifies superheroness not primarily through derring-do, but rather through a thumbnail repudiation of non-violence. This repudiation is sealed by the gratuitous and gruesome obliteration of Superman’s Amish parents, who barely get a panel or two to express their misguided philosophy before Davis reduces them to ash. That’s what you get for keeping Superman down, you religious weirdos!

Yes, that’s Jimmy Olsen as the supervillain. Don’t ask.

Anyway, following this sequence in which Supes sees his (Amish) parents killed, and then attacks the evil Jimmy superOlsen, the Supes and Jimmy battle. Unfortunately, Supes (being Amish and not good at fighting) can’t beat him. Luckily, though, Olsen spontaneously disintegrates because his powers are unstable (again, not worth explaining why.) In the aftermath, Superman decides to become a standard issue superhero, and the implication is that his innate awesomeness will defuse the anti-alien hysteria that has swept the world.

So…parents killed, check; vengeance inflicted, check; dedicate life to superheroics to honor parents, check. Except that, from the point of both the drama and the plot, Superman’s repudiation of nonviolence is completely superfluous, and even, arguably, detrimental. Supes could have just as easily handled Olsen through nonviolent means — getting in his way, or holding on to him. Since Olsen essentially disintegrated on his own, the outcome would have been the same — except that Supes would have actually kept faith with his parents rather than betraying their beliefs for nothing. Similarly, if the world is terrified of malevolent aliens, the sudden revelation of an even more powerful violent alien in their midst seems unlikely to calm things down. On the other hand, had Supes revealed himself to the world as a superpowerful alien who embraced nonviolence and noninterference in the affairs of the world…well, it seems like that might have been a more effective statement.

The logic of the story Davis has constructed, in other word — with Superman as Amish — seems to lead naturally to a parable about the triumph of nonviolence. After all, if the greatest hero in the world is a pacifist, it makes sense that you’d end up with a story in which pacifism is heroic. Unless, of course, you see pacifism and heroism as mutually exclusive, in which case the heroism comes, not from the pacifist witness, but from repudiating your entire past in order to embrace violence in the name of your dead parents who would, undoubtedly, be appalled.

Davis’ story also resonates oddly with broader arguments about pacifism. The usual dig against pacifism is that it is foofy pie-in-the-sky nonsense. As an ideal, it’s all well and good, but in the real world, violence is sometimes necessary. Davis’ story makes this argument by, in part, going out of its way to make the Amish impractical to the point of callousness. Not only do they advocate non-intervention, but they argue that their son shouldn’t help Batman in any way, even though he’s being beaten to death literally on their doorstep. This is surely a bastardization of Amish beliefs; the Amish, after all, can vote; they can interact with outsiders. The depiction here is a caricature, intended to make their position seem ridiculous…and unrealistic.

But the irony is that the world where Superman stays in his Amish community and doesn’t interfere in the outside world is actually more realistic. Because, you know, Superman doesn’t interfere in the world. Because there isn’t a Superman. Nobody has to resort to violence to defeat supervillains, because there aren’t supervillains. The DC Universe is unrealistically violent. The opposite of the superhero is the Amish not just because the superhero is violent and the Amish are not, but because the superhero doesn’t exist, and the Amish do. What happens at the end of The Nail is not an eruption of realism into the Amish fantasy of nonviolence. It’s an eruption of fantasy violence into the Amish’s realistic pacifist community. Perhaps that’s why the Amish parents have to be so summarily dispatched; if they were allowed to stick around, they’re solidity would have made Davis’ entire farrago of nonsense dissolve into mist.

In The War of the Lamb, John Howard Yoder talks a little about heroism, specifically in terms of Martin Luther King and Che Guevara. Both men, he points out, were killed; both have, as a result, been viewed as martyrs. Yoder points out that following King’s assassination:

] Many leaped to the conclusion that nonviolent alternatives had thereby been refuted. At the same time, all over Latin America, the fact that Che Guevera had been gunned down in the Bolivian mountains did not mean that guerrilla violence had failed. Why not?

The inconguity is even more striking when we remember that King…had expected to be martyred. This was true both in the general sense of the knowledge that nonviolence will be costly, undergirded by the Christian readiness to ‘share in the sufferings of Christ’ and in the more precise sense that King gave voice to ominous premonitions in the weeks and days just before his death. Che’s defeat, on the other hand, was not in the Marxist scenario. On the general level, for the Marxist the victory of the revolution is assured by the laws, as sure as those of mechanics of dialectical materialism. In the narrow sense as well, Guevara, just before he was captured and killed, was still expecting to win as head of the violent insurgency in Bolivia.

Is there not some flaw in the logic here? Of a man who predicted his death, who explained why he accepted it, whose work did not perish with his death, the critics argue that his view is refuted by that death. Of the other man, who premised victory and whose campaign did collapse with his death, his faithful proclaim his resurrection…. The Marxist believe that their hero’s death is powerful on some other level than his military defeat. Whatever that reasoning may be called, it is not standard Marxist pragmatism, but some kind of apocalyptic myth.

The Nail suggests that, for “apocalyptic myth,” we might substitute “genre fairy tale.” The narratives that justify violence are, predominantly, not about realism, but about revenge or excitement or masculinity — which is to say, they’re pulp. Perhaps, The Nail suggests, nonviolence isn’t wrong because its unrealistic, but rather because it gets in the way of the really quite embarrassingly stupid stories we like to tell ourselves.
____________________
For more on superheroes and pacifism, here’s my essay about Spider-Dove.

59 thoughts on “The Amish Plot Against the Superheroes

  1. Noah, you shouldn’t be so squirmingly apolegetic about reading superhero comics!

    Granted the unreality of superheroes vs the reality of the Amish. Well, let’s replace Olson with a gangster and Superman with…Harrison Ford?

    I don’t personally hold with pacifism as an absolute value. I’ve quoted this here before: as George Orwell stated, the right to speak of British pacifists was guaranteed by the guns of the Royal Navy.

    The peacefulness of the Amish is guarded by the vigilance of the armed forces of the United states.

  2. I’m not embarrassed about reading superhero comics. This one just sucked.

    The Anabaptists were pacifists when they were persecuted by the government. Today, Christians in China are effectively pacifist (they’re not rising in armed revolt) but they’re not protected by the government; quite the contrary.

    You’re welcome to object to pacifism in various ways — I’m not necessarily a doctrinaire pacifist myself. However, I think you owe pacifists, and yourself, a more thoughtful response than knee-jerk charges of hypocrisy which can be disproven by about 30 seconds of thought.

  3. The Anabaptists? Oh, you mean those charming folks who established a murderous theocracy in Münster?

    Re your second paragraph: you don’t seem to realise that it makes the case AGAINST pacifism.

    ‘Tis the sport to hoist the engineer by his own petard…

  4. Are you saying that Christians should revolt in China? Why would that be a good idea, Alex?

    The Amish have a religious commitment to pacifism. That commitment is not based on the fact that the government supports them; it’s based on their religious beliefs. Christians in the early church were pacifists even though they were persecuted. It’s way, way too easy to accuse those you disagree with of hypocrisy.

  5. Also…was King a hypocrite? Was Gandhi? Was their pacifism enabled by a government which protected them from all harm? Or what?

    For most people, most of the time, especially in the age of modern weapons, violent resistance to the state isn’t a real option to begin with. Nonviolence is more realistic, not less. The Amish are more real than Harrison Ford playing some pulp hero. They’re more real than fantasy gangsters. They’re more real than your implied vision of an all-against-all world in which without our military we’d be invaded by Canada or some such.

    And Orwell repudiated his most violent statements against pacifism. Here’s the link, in which Andrew Sullivan also issues a mea culpa for his anti-pacifist statements.

  6. Alex, inconsistency in moral matters is called hypocrisy. You’re saying that they would resort to violence if the U.S. military didn’t protect them. In short, you’re claiming that they don’t have the courage of their convictions. That’s a charge of hypocrisy — and it’s exactly the sort of glib dismissal which occurs in this comic, and in many discussions of pacifism.

    I hadn’t been aware of the crazed violent Anabaptists. There were also less radical, pacifist groups who were persecuted and sometimes killed while refusing to fight back. This Wikipedia article discusses their history some. I’m too lazy to find a better source, but it doesn’t seem controversial.

    There are good arguments against pacifism. But glib dismissal and charges of hypocrisy are, in my view, both inadequate and dangerous. Many of the people who have thought hardest and most seriously about violence are pacifist. Mennonites and the peace churches generally have a sustained and systematic argument against violence based both on efficacy and faith. Many of them have held to their beliefs under very difficult circumstances (such as facing the draft.) Many of them have been flagrantly, painfully right when “realist” thinkers were embroiling us in idiotic foreign adventures for really dumb reasons.

    There’s a case to be made against the extremes of pacifism (what would have happened if the passengers on that hijacked 9/11 plane that went down without hitting its target had refused to fight the hijackers, for example?) But that case should be made really carefully, and ideally with a firm understanding of the contrary critiques of violence. Glib dismissals of pacifism lead to fuzzy thinking about war and peace, and that can get, and has gotten, lots of people needlessly killed. (IMO, anyway.)

  7. Thanks for reminding me why I don’t bother with current superhero comics. This book looks absolutely dreadful. I have to wonder if DC was willing to publish it because the Amish are non-confrontational–they aren’t likely to protest the way just about any other religious group would.

  8. Well, it’s 12 years old, so it’s not that current!

    To be fair, I don’t hate Alan Davis’ art. It’s not great or anything, but it’s clean and clear. There’s worse out there!

  9. Actually, regarding how Ghandi & King used Pacifism, you could say that pacifism only works if there’s an audience. That is, if people see how oppressors are striking down defenseless protestors, that’s cause for justice on their side. It doesn’t work if there’s nobody present to bring outrage to an outside media.

    It also helps if the protestors don’t have any hidden weapons on their person as well.

  10. Hey DeBT. I think Orwell made a similar point. I guess in response I’d say a couple of things. First, for the Amish and others, pacifism is not solely (or even primarily) about effectiveness; it’s a matter of religious faith. There is a sense that it’s better for the world to be nonviolent, but not necessarily that that is going to solve all the world’s problems immediately.

    Second, Gandhi and King were very smart tactically in how they used nonviolence. Other situations might call for other tactics. But it’s worth remembering that violence doesn’t always (or even often) work very well either; violent protests are defeated with some frequency, usually ending in greater loss of life. And, as Yoder points out, even when violent revolutions are successful, the bitterness engendered can often lead to a replication of the oppressive power structure, rather than to a more just peace.

  11. Noah:
    “You’re saying that they would resort to violence if the U.S. military didn’t protect them. In short, you’re claiming that they don’t have the courage of their convictions.”

    I said nothing of the kind.

    I am merely stating a fact: pacifists in America are protected by the military. This hardly makes me a warmonger.

    To get back to that extract from ‘The Nail’: here Olson isn’t just another gangster or supervillain. Read his rants: he’s a Nazi in all but name. A Nazi can’t be placated and won’t be ignored. He must be fought.

  12. ——————–
    DeBT says:
    Actually, regarding how Ghandi & King used Pacifism, you could say that pacifism only works if there’s an audience. That is, if people see how oppressors are striking down defenseless protestors, that’s cause for justice on their side. It doesn’t work if there’s nobody present to bring outrage to an outside media…
    ———————

    And, if the “oppressor” – British colonialism in India, white Americans – has a sufficiently large and politically powerful group of liberals to sympathize with the nonviolent protesters, take their side. (Indeed, Noah, “…Gandhi and King were very smart tactically in how they used nonviolence.”)

    Alas, half a century of nonviolence practiced by the Dalai Lama and Tibetans who followed his exhortations, the significant amount of international support for a “free Tibet,” didn’t so much as get the Red Chinese government to ease their boot back a millimeter from the Tibetans’ collective neck.

    In the one country which could have made a difference, Bill Clinton put American corporate interests ahead of morality (what a surprise!), and pushed to renew China’s “most-favored-nation” trade status, without demanding an iota of concessions re Tibet in return…

    ———————-
    Noah Berlatsky says:
    The usual dig against pacifism is that it is foofy pie-in-the-sky nonsense. As an ideal, it’s all well and good, but in the real world, violence is sometimes necessary.
    ———————-

    Though winning the Nobel Peace Price for urging and working for a nonviolent solution to the oppression of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama has come to the conclusion that (quoting from memory) “sometimes it’s the right thing…to fight!” (He actually made a fist while saying this…)

    I think of the renunciation of violence as an ideal to strive for – like “perfect justice” – even if may never be achieved. And, an attitude making violent action and reaction an appalling thing, rather than cool, badass, certainly makes it more likely we won’t rush into war with Iraq based upon dubious reasons, storm the Branch Davidian compound, etc.

    But, pretty good essay overall, Noah! Lots of meat to chew upon…

    Was curious about whether the Amish practiced “non-interference” (as opposed to simple pacifism), and did some research. An article about “The Amish in Missouri” is introduced by these Biblical quotes:

    ——————-
    “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (I Corinthians 6:14)

    “Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (II Corinthians 6:17)
    ——————-

    Which – as, presumably, chosen for their significance in forming Amish beliefs – certainly would encourage a “don’t get involved in the conflicts of the non-Amish” mentality. And gives impetus to Davis having Kal El’s Amish father saying, “To walk in righteousness you must ignore worldly affairs.”

    The article goes on to mention…

    ——————-
    The Amish typically migrate in search of more reasonably priced farmland, or to avoid government regulations which conflict with their religious beliefs (they will not defend themselves in court)…

    We…may find it puzzling that a people who value generosity, hospitality and gentleness do not also hold tolerance — or at least non-interference with others’ private business — as the highest virtue. The bewilderment is lessened, perhaps, as one comes to understand that in a communitarian (as opposed to individualist) worldview, there really is no such thing as a private matter. Amish separatism is the necessary condition for maintaining their dependence on one another…

    …It is a widespread misconception that the Amish are opposed to modernity or to technology. What they oppose are those features of the modern world which might lead away from a life of mutual dependence and responsibility, or might encourage competition for status. Thus, most Amish communities reject mechanized farming not because machines are evil, but because a farmer with a tractor has less need of neighbors’ help…Their rejection of public high schools is similarly misunderstood: it is not that they do not value knowledge…but that the public school system foregrounds competition, careerism, independence, individual vision, personal understandings and self-advancement – all values of the larger society which the Plain People, for whom humility and community are the greatest of virtues, reject.

    …This affectionate if patronizing view of the Amish is fairly recent. Their pacifism drew public ire during the World Wars and through the Vietnam era (including vandalism of their property and jailing and abuse of their young men), and they have been at odds with much of the regulatory apparatus of the modern welfare state. They do not wish to participate in unemployment insurance or social security programs, as these would reduce their reliance on each other, the glue which holds their community together.
    ——————–
    http://missourifolkloresociety.truman.edu/Amish.htm

    Hmm! Aside from not being pacifists, aren’t superheroes (for all their frequent forming into crime-fighting groups) exceptionally striking examples of individualism in action? With – usually – distinctive costumes, wildly different powers, etc.? Standing above the mass of “regular humans”?

    ——————
    Noah Berlatsky says:
    Alex, inconsistency in moral matters is called hypocrisy…
    ——————-

    Mmmnooo, sometimes it’s “situational ethics”:

    ——————-
    Situational ethics, or situation ethics, is a Christian ethical theory that was principally developed in the 1960s by the Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher. It basically states that sometimes other moral principles can be cast aside in certain situations if love is best served; as Paul Tillich once put it: “Love is the ultimate law”…

    Fletcher believed that there are no absolute laws other than the law of Agap? love and all the other laws were laid down in order to achieve the greatest amount of this love. This means that all the other laws are only guidelines to how to achieve this love, and thus they may be broken if the other course of action would result in more love.

    Situational ethics is a teleological, or consequential theory, in that it is concerned with the outcome or consequences of an action; the end, as opposed to an action being intrinsically wrong such as in deontological theories. In the case of situational ethics, the ends can justify the means.
    ——————-
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_ethics

    And, is someone a hypocrite if they believe hat stealing is wrong, but when faced with his family’s starving, steals some bread from a well-off grocer?

    ——————-
    You’re saying that [the Amish] would resort to violence if the U.S. military didn’t protect them. In short, you’re claiming that they don’t have the courage of their convictions. That’s a charge of hypocrisy — and it’s exactly the sort of glib dismissal which occurs in this comic, and in many discussions of pacifism.
    ——————-

    Maybe, when saying the “peacefulness of the Amish is guarded by the vigilance of the armed forces of the United States” (not to mention our police and legal system), Alex Buchet meant that without that protection, they’d be annihilated. No more “peacefulness” for the Amish, if attackers from a foreign dictatorship or some heavily-armed motorcycle gang rolled into their settlements and started blazing away.

  13. What I find most interesting in all the examples of pacifism is how they’re all in a position of either resistance to authority (MLK, Gandhi, early Christians) or relative isolation from the rest of the world (the Amish).

    What’s depressing to me isn’t that pacifism doesn’t always work, but that advocates of pacifism tend to abandon their philosophy if, by luck, they gain real power.

  14. “Maybe, when saying the “peacefulness of the Amish is guarded by the vigilance of the armed forces of the United States” (not to mention our police and legal system), Alex Buchet meant that without that protection, they’d be annihilated”

    Hmm. I can see that as an interpretation. I don’t find it convincing, though. From your notes, Mike, the Amish actually avoid using the protection of the legal system, and I doubt they’re especially eager for police interference either. And pacifist groups have often lived in situations where the government was hostile (including in Tibet, as you note.) This is bad news, but rarely results in annihilation — and, indeed, violent resistors don’t necessarily fare tons better than pacifist ones in the face of a hostile government. (I don’t know that Tibet would be tons better off if it embraced violent resistance, unfortunately. Probably more people would be killed, but I’d imagine the vast majority of those would be Tibetans.)

    Richard, there’s something of a catch 22. Pacifists don’t tend to be angling for real power in the sense of control of vast nation states. The Amish run their own communities. Those communities aren’t necessarily ideal in every way, but they are pacifist. And I think you could argue that in general nonviolent resistance leads to more peaceful, more just outcomes than violent resistance. The South African transfer to majority rule has, again, not been perfect, but it didn’t result in a bloodbath or a civil war, and in part that was because the resistance held (fitfully, but in general) to nonviolent means. Indian independence did lead to a mess, but the fact that the British got out nonviolently was certainly a result of the way Gandhi conducted his campaign.

    Pacifists are people, and therefore flawed. But I think there’s evidence that nonviolence has positive results.

  15. I’m pretty much onboard with pacifist ideas. If everyone had them, after all, we’d be in better shape. Still…the question “was Gandhi a hypocrite” could be answered with “yes” in some ways (given the ways he was in bed with rich industrial capitalists…if not exactly on the matter of his pacifist beliefs). It’s also true that Gandhi’s pacifist resistance to imperialism was supplemented by more violent means of resistance over the years (not by him, but by others). Without the violent resistance, there’s no guarantee that the nonviolent means “work.” Likewise, King’s nonviolent resistance was supplemented by more militant resistance (Malcolm X and others). In these circumstances, anyway, both sides of the coin may have been necessary to get any kind of positive movement.

    The comment about Nazis is kind of lacking in nuance. Nazis were, after all, people—whose motives were linked to their own economic/social mistreatment in the aftermath of an extremely violent war. The sequence of events did not begin with Nazis dropping out of the sky…and requiring violent resistance. Rather, violence and its aftermath bred more violence on the part of the Nazis, which bred more violent resistance. Nothing exists in a social/political/historical vacuum, which is why pacifism may be an effective means of resistance (or just a way of living) in some situations, but may be impracticable or dangerous in others.

  16. Alan Davis did great work on several early Alan Moore titles (Captain Britain, D.R. & Quinch, Marvelman)—

    I also remember disliking his work on Batman and the Outsiders many years back….

    I had no idea that he ever wrote his own scripts though. Seems like this may have been a bad idea.

  17. Hey Alex. I missed your comment. I think it’s worth pointing out, though, that the existence of the military also threatens the Amish. As CO’s, they have faced persecution because of the draft. And, as I intimated, it’s really unclear what enemies the military is defending the Amish against. Terrorists aren’t likely to be going after rural farming communities. I mean, if terrorism is the worry, the Amish would be better off in a country with a much smaller military and imperialist footprint, like Canada or Sweden, or on an island with no military, really.

    Jimmy Olsen isn’t a Nazi. He’s nothing; he doesn’t exist. But, within the logic of the story, as I said, nonviolent resistance seems like it would have burned him out as easily as violent resistance.

    I don’t think I called you a warmonger, Alex. I very much doubt you supported the Iraq invasion, for example. But knee-jerk dismissals of pacifism and broad statements about Nazis are the kinds of rhetoric deployed to justify wars. Both (HItler analogies and pacifist-baiting) were used extensively in the run up to Iraq. That kind of rhetoric matters, and I think it’s worth calling it out when I see it.

    Eric, nobody is morally pure. I’m not as up on Gandhi, but I think it’s probably a little much to argue that King relied on the violent rhetoric of Malcolm X in quite the way you’re saying. Most of the successes of the civil rights movement really were predicated on nonviolence and on relationships within Southern communities, not on (completely hollow) threats of a militant black uprising. By the time more radical rhetoric came into play, it was a sign of the movement’s weakening, not of its success.

    Also, it’s worth noting that King came out against the Vietnam War at a time when that was really not a good move tactically, alienating his government support and many allies within the movement. His commitment to nonviolence was impressive, brave, and principled, as far as I can tell (though of course that didn’t mean he didn’t have moral lapses just like the rest of us.)

  18. Pacifism is complicated and while some pacifists don’t engage in the world, plenty do. I think it’s important to point out that the signing of the Declaration of Independence came about in a Quaker city. It could be argued that the American military wouldn’t exist without the pacifism of the Quakers.

    One of the reasons Philly was such a powerful force for good back then was the Quaker belief in non-violence. Even though William Penn got a charter, he went ahead and *bought* the land from the current Native Americans. That’s pretty shocking behavior, for the time. It was important, though, and I think it informs a lot of the good that happened.

    One of the things that the Quakers still do is teach non-violent techniques of reconciliation and communication, respect and so on, which does help deal with violence. It’s just a different approach.

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  20. I’m less up on the King/X chronology…but, for instance, the most widespread Af-Am social resistance movement was that of Marcus Garvey, not King…and it was certainly more militant.

    Right…well, I’m not suggesting that anyone is “beyond moral reproach” or not contradictory…but Gandhi, for instance, was promoting rural handicraft as a means of rewinding imperialist/capitalist history…while he himself took all advantages of the education and career opportunities (Oxbridge, law) that imperialism offered him. I’m not dissing Gandhi, per se, but his relationship to that which he was resisting is complicated and sometimes contradictory.

    Indian violent resistance to imperialism goes at least as far back as 1857–which is actually when the British government itself began governing India (as opposed to the East India company)— My sense is that, paradoxically, this was also the beginning of the end of British rule—and the switch was sparked by the 1857 Mutiny. There were a number of important figures who contributed to the resistance to imperialism (Bose, Tagore, Nehru), some of whom were violent and some not. Gandhi is a popular figure in the West (moreso than any of the others—even Nehru seems to be virtually unknown to my undergraduates, for instance)— but it’s worth asking why the image of pacifist (and long dead) resistance is more attractive (in this case) than the violent alternatives.

    Che Guevara is obviously a romantic figure and still lionized by many in different circumstances, though, so I don’t think we can make generalizations that are too broad about why people get attached to certain figures and not others.

  21. Was King for pacifism as an end in itself/religious requirement, or did he just see it as a strategy that worked in certain situations? It’s not the kind of thing I can find in a quick Google search, so I thought I’d ask you guys.

    Andrew Sullivan is just a complete idiot. I don’t know why anyone cares what he thinks about the war, or Orwell, or his past idiotic statements, or anything else.

  22. I should really get back to work but …

    I think one has to draw a distinction between resistance to oppressive regimes and resistance to murderous ones. Nonviolent resistance to the former can get results (over the long run), but nonviolent resistance to the latter will probably get you killed. Fortunately, while oppressive regimes are all too common, truly murderous regimes (which I define as regimes with the specific purpose of killing huge numbers of a despised group) are quite rare.

    This is why you can’t analogize resistance to the Nazis to resistance to the British Raj (or apartheid South Africa, or racist Southern states). The regimes’ goals were quite different.

  23. Eric, Gandhi was the one who was successful. I think that counts for a lot. Also, he was such a huge influence on the civil rights movement, which is obviously a lot closer to home for Westerners.

    Jack, King was committed to nonviolence as a matter of faith and principle. He certainly used it strategically, but he was willing to jettison strategy (as in the case of his anti-Vietnam speech) in order to stay true to the nonviolence. He definitely opposed violence categorically, not just as one possible strategy among many.

    And I like Andrew Sullivan!

    Richard, it’s true that pacifism isn’t necessarily going to help save lives against pathological regimes like the Nazis or Pol Pot or N. Korea or Stalin. Armed resistance by civilian groups isn’t likely to be of much help in those cases either, though (maybe the Warsaw Ghetto uprising could be a counter-example — but they didn’t win either.) On the other hand, those pathological regimes tend to come into power as the fallout of wars. Basically, without war, it’s hard to see how a society can become so damaged, bitter, and crazy that it would allow that kind of regime to get into power in the first place.

  24. Noah:
    “Jimmy Olsen isn’t a Nazi. He’s nothing; he doesn’t exist.”

    Sorry, Noah, but you’ll have to do better than that. Olson doesn’t exist. Superman doesn’t exist. The crisp-fried Amish parents don’t exist.

    So why the indignation, Noah? It’s nothing but lines on paper.

    Of course, what Noah wants is to have his cake and eat it. We are supposed to admit a diegetic treatmant of the scene when it suits his argument, but not when it doesn’t.

    True, super-powered villains with heat vision don’t exist. But the archetype behind them does.
    Olson:
    ” replace Super-Olson with a Sondernkommando butcher with a flame-thrower, and the Amish with peaceful orthodox Jews circa 1942. There, does that make sense now?

    That said– this was a very good essay, and in fact I share much of Noah’s disgust. though, in my case, it’s not so much the individual story that exasperates me, but its presence in an ongoing, hellish continuum.

    Basically, all superhero stories teach the same lesson: violence is the solution to every problem.

    ‘The Nail’ seems to encapsulate this falsehood to a grotesque extent.

    (BTW, an interesting superhero series that went against this dogma was Alan Moore’s “Tom Strong”. Sure, it featured plenty of violence, but resolutions generally came about through compromise and negociation, or the sharing of information.)

  25. Thanks, Noah. I know Gandhi was a pacifist to the point where he argued that Jews should have gone to the gas chambers more willingly, but I’ve never been clear on how pure of a Gandhi disciple King was. His famous anti-Vietnam speech doesn’t depend on pacifist arguments.

    Andrew Sullivan just seems like a really dumb and boring (and slightly gayer) version of Christopher Hitchens to me. “Those who oppose invading Iraq are objectively pro-Saddam.” Yeah, and I’m sure that back when the U.S. actually was pro-Saddam, Sullivan was taking the unpopular route and screaming about it at the top of his lungs, right? I guess it’s good that he repudiates that comment, but I wish he’d take it to the next level and think, “Wow, maybe I should just shut up from now on.”

  26. “the one who was successful…”????

    Not sure what you mean here. Gandhi and Nehru were both successful. Nehru was the one who was named PM, but it’s Gandhi who is cuddly to the West.

    Part of this is because of the unique ways he is (at least in representations like the movie _Gandhi_) a nonthreatening figure.

    Also, Che Guevara was unsuccessful and is still lionized as a pop culture figure of worship in the West. Lots of Che t-shirts around…although it’s unclear if the wearers always know what they’re promoting.

    Anyway, your response doesn’t make sense to me. Gandhi and Che are both popular figures in the West. One was successful, one wasn’t. Nehru, successful, is largely unknown (to the masses)…Etc.

  27. Gandhi gets a lot of his pacifism from Percy Shelley, interestingly enough, who promoted people throwing themselves under the trampling horses of their oppressors. (Kind of like the Jews shuffling off to the gas chambers). He kind of got what he “wanted” at the Peterboro massacre…but it certainly was not successful in any short term way…

    at least that’s my fuzzy recollection of things…

  28. Last one…

    My favorite pacifist piece is Woolf’s _Three Guineas_. She took all kinds of shit from friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers for it as WWII approached…but it’s still pretty damn smart. Not shockingly, there were no superheroes in it.

  29. Alex, I pruned your (triple!) post.

    I’m happy to talk diagetically about fascism (I did above.) I still think the Amish are more real than supervillains, though, and that it’s worth pointing that out.

    Alan Moore has done interesting things with violence/nonviolence issues in a superhero context on a bunch of occasions. “What Ever Happened to the Man of Steel?” ends with Superman retiring, and there’s a definite sense that the world doesn’t need superheroes or the violence that comes with them. Watchmen is also very ambivalent about violent solutions. And of course Lost Girls is explicitly pacifist (though kind of stupidly so, unfortunately.)

    There are other superhero stories that talk about the problems with violence (Morrison’s Animal Man series does towards the end; Steven Grant’s punisher too in a slightly more elliptical way.) It’s hard to do, though, because, as Alex says, it’s so much a part of the genre tropes.

    Eric, I hadn’t thought about Nehru. Duh. I think there is obviously something appealing in pacifist solutions. Some argue that this is because they’re less dangerous; perhaps it’s also because they have more moral force. I think Yoder is right, though, that pacifism tends to be judged more harshly by its failures. That is, when a pacifist strategy fails, people tend to point to that as invalidating pacifism, whereas violent solutions fail all the time, but people don’t necessarily see that as invalidating violence.

    Jack, I think Andrew Sullivan is often thoughtful and interesting. He’s quite different from Hitchens in that he’s not anti-religion (he’s a Catholic.) I think his anti-torture positions have been honorable, and he’s been very open about screwing up in the run-up to the Iraq war. Obviously I wish he had just not been such a jerk to begin with, but if someone says they screwed up and tries to make amends (as he does, for example, in that Orwell post) I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  30. All that’s very interesting, Noah, but I’m trapped in a logic loop trying to figure out just how in hell Jimmy Olson burned Superman’s Amish beard and just a convenient little bit of his hair off. Was Superman wearing a fake beard and hair extensions? Riddle me that and THEN we talk violence/nonviolence.

  31. Sorry, I know you’ve moved on to despeptic ouroboros, but I find this topic a lot more interesting than criticism…

    I’ll definitely have to pick up Yoder’s book. Does he offer his opinions on why pacifism is so easily discredited in comparison to violence?

    I think it has something to do with the vested interests of nation-states and their dominant class. Most nation-states (at least the powerful ones) came about through a series of violent events, and their national myths are steeped in glorious wars and revolutions. To discredit war would be to undermine cherished myths which are closely tied to identity, so people resist the idea that war is ineffective, even when their own personal interests aren’t served by war.

    Pacifism can cast national myths in a less flattering light, and that upsets people. From this view, pacifism can seem threatening, or even unpatriotic. No surprise then that many people are always looking for evidence to discredit pacifism.

  32. Noah Berlatsky says:
    ———————–
    “Maybe, when saying the “peacefulness of the Amish is guarded by the vigilance of the armed forces of the United States” (not to mention our police and legal system), Alex Buchet meant that without that protection, they’d be annihilated”

    Hmm. I can see that as an interpretation. I don’t find it convincing, though. From your notes, Mike, the Amish actually avoid using the protection of the legal system, and I doubt they’re especially eager for police interference either…
    ————————

    Indeed; but whether they want it or not, they nonetheless benefit from the military defense, infrastructure-building, crime-fighting activities that the rest of us support and pay for with our taxes. (As do all the “I don’t want to be taxed to pay for Big Government” jerks. Stick ’em to live on an ice floe in Antarctica, then, if they want to reap the benefits of society without paying for ’em…)

    ————————
    And pacifist groups have often lived in situations where the government was hostile (including in Tibet, as you note.) This is bad news, but rarely results in annihilation — and, indeed, violent resistors don’t necessarily fare tons better than pacifist ones in the face of a hostile government. (I don’t know that Tibet would be tons better off if it embraced violent resistance, unfortunately. Probably more people would be killed, but I’d imagine the vast majority of those would be Tibetans.)
    ————————

    Yes; and I agree that violent resistance would usually yield a harsher response.

    And certainly, [i]under the right circumstances[/i], pacifist actions can be more effective. Especially in attracting sympathy to the cause; hence the frequent police approach of sneaking in “agents provocateurs” to encourage or perpetrate violence in protesting groups. Interesting how there were stories that the police weren’t arresting masked window-smashers who were supposedly part of the “anti-globalization” protests in Seattle in 1999, for instance.

    “This became the mainstream media’s major coverage focus often portraying all the protestors as ‘loony leftists’ or violent groups with no clue as to what they are talking about.”
    http://www.globalissues.org/article/46/wto-protests-in-seattle-1999

    ————————-
    Eric, nobody is morally pure…but I think it’s probably a little much to argue that King relied on the violent rhetoric of Malcolm X in quite the way you’re saying. Most of the successes of the civil rights movement really were predicated on nonviolence and on relationships within Southern communities, not on (completely hollow) threats of a militant black uprising.
    ————————–

    Still, even if surely not consciously planned, wouldn’t King and his movement benefit from being seen as the “good,” nonviolent Negroes in contrast to Muslim “by any means necessary” Malcolm?

    Also interesting is how Malcolm X was assassinated once he changed his mind about his “the white man is the devil” days, moved more towards King’s attitude.

    Because the violence-preaching black man is a more useful bogeyman for the “power structure” (sorry, my 60’s roots are showing!) to scare the masses with.

    (If that violent talk actually turns to action, though, the cops come down on those groups like a ton of bricks. And the Black Panthers were infiltrated by the FBI all along…)

    —————————
    Steven Grant says:
    … I’m trapped in a logic loop trying to figure out just how in hell Jimmy Olson burned Superman’s Amish beard and just a convenient little bit of his hair off. Was Superman wearing a fake beard and hair extensions?…
    —————————

    (????) Right you are! (Pretty good artwork, though. With clear, dynamically varied compositions…)

  33. Hey Richard. No need to apologize! I like talking about pacifism.

    Yoder doesn’t systematically answer your question, but he makes a gesture or two at it. I think he basically argues for something like original sin. Revenge and bloodshed are humanity’s characteristic failings; Christ died for those sins, and the good news is the breaking of the cycle of violence. For him, nonviolence really is at the center of the Christian witness.

    I think you’re right that national identity is often martial, which may create a prejudice against pacifism. There’s something to Yoder’s take too; people do like violence and stories about violence. In the Iraq war runup, you could see people like Chritopher Hitchens reveling in the idea of a final showdown which was essentially based on genre tropes. I mean, in this essay anyway I’m suggesting that the enthusiasm for violence may not be so much about theology or nationalism as about narrative.

    Mike:

    “Indeed; but whether they want it or not, they nonetheless benefit from the military defense, infrastructure-building, crime-fighting activities that the rest of us support and pay for with our taxes. (As do all the “I don’t want to be taxed to pay for Big Government” jerks. Stick ‘em to live on an ice floe in Antarctica, then, if they want to reap the benefits of society without paying for ‘em…)”

    As I said, the Amish and pacifist groups often are *hurt* by the existence of the military, either because they face persecution during wartime or because imperialist policies make them a target when they wouldn’t otherwise be (there may well have been pacifists killed in the WTC disaster.) The Amish aren’t benefiting from the legal system if they refuse to involve themselves in it — and if they see police interference as interference rather than benefit, it’s not clear why we should then determine that it’s a benefit. I doubt they are especially opposed to infrastructure improvements, and they wouldn’t be rallying against paying taxes since they stay out of political activism. And, you know, if they were put somewhere remote, they have a lot more skills for taking care of themselves than the rest of the population.

    Given all that, pointing to the government and saying, “Hey! It exists! They’re inconsistent!” seems silly. They do what they can to create a separate community, and they interact with the government when they have to. They’d behave the same way if there were a different government which was more hostile (or presumably less hostile.) It’s like arguing that opponents of the Afghan war are inconsistent because we’re at war in Afghanistan, or like saying that supporters of war with Iran are inconsistent because we’re not actually dropping bombs there. Just because the government doesn’t do exactly what you want it to doesn’t mean that you’re culpable or inconsistent for living here.

  34. I think the only reason why pacifism is rejected in many cultures is because of the phallic-centric nature of most cultures, and to accept pacifism is a form a self castration… your observation about MLK vs. Che is right on point… it doesn’t matter that Che was killed he “fulfilled” his manhood/gender and therefore was victorious… MLK is thought of as failing b/c he went against his manhood and therefore when he was killed it was further sign of his failure.

  35. Last commet kind of silly. Is MLK really thought of as failing? Just the opposite—like Gandhi, he’s a martyr to his supposed success (Civil Rights/improved race relations)

  36. Hey Eric. Well, Yoder’s argument is that King’s death is usually seen as a failure of pacifism (even if King himself may have been successful) while Che’s death is seen as part of his heroism/maryrdom. I think there’s truth to that…and I don’t think it’s silly to point out that there are gendered connotations to that.

  37. Right…the gendered stuff makes sense, if it were true that King was seen as a failure because of his pacifism. Just the opposite seems to be the case in the popular imagination, however (that he was a success because of his pacifism). You frankly don’t hear very much that King was somehow less of a man because of his failures. He’s the one who is lionized, while X, for instance, is seen as a failure and the less heroic figure.

    In fact, the rhetoric I think is more prevalent is that King “succeeded” (and therefore there is no more need for affirmative action, complaints of racism, etc.

  38. Did you see Do The Right Thing? I think Malcolm X is far, far from being seen as a failure. And he’s very heroic for a lot of people.

    King’s death isn’t folded into his myth the way Che’s is into his, though. And Yoder is arguing that immediately after his death, the assassination was seen as a failure of nonviolence. Certainly I know at the time that the fact that King’s nonviolent actions sometimes caused a violent reaction was also seen as a refutation of his tactics. (Though, on the other hand, his death was obviously important in getting a holiday declared in his name, so there is some sense in which the assassination was seen as a fulfillment or as adding to his heroism.)

    King’s legacy is pretty interesting. He is revered, obviously, but the reverence doesn’t seem to extend to embracing his tactics. That is, everyone says how great he was but nobody actually seems especially interested in adapting nonviolence as a strategy (least of all our Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winning and Afganistan-escalating President.)

  39. I don’t know, I think King was directly inspiring in such peaceful triumphant regime overthrows as the ‘carnation revolution’ in Portugal or the ‘velvet revolution’ in Czechoslovakia…

  40. I don’t know about Czechoslovakia, but there was nothing non-violent in the Portuguese revolution. Many things happened, but there’s a crucial moment in which a soldier refused to kill a captain when a general gave him said order. He knew that the revolution was happening to stop him from being killed in the colonial war (it wasn’t pacifism, it was self-interest). During the year that followed the civil war was near several times, but, fortunately, it didn’t happen.

  41. ———————-
    Noah Berlatsky says:
    The Amish aren’t benefiting from the legal system if they refuse to involve themselves in it — and if they see police interference as interference rather than benefit, it’s not clear why we should then determine that it’s a benefit.
    ———————-

    Even if us “non-Amish” never have the need to call a cop, report a crime to our persons, take someone to court, we still benefit from the legal system. Just as they do.

    A system which puts a huge amount of criminals away, where they can’t be committing crimes (against us on the “outside,” anyway); which has laws and punishments to intimidate those who might be thinking of committing crimes; police and informers keeping an eye on possible criminal activity…

    And those “total pacifists” who think the process of even defending oneself against brutal, unprovoked aggression makes one just as bad are likewise shielded from the consequences of their ideology (that they make themselves prey to victimization) by a police and military which they condemn as “violent.”

    The “Buddhist Temple Massacre” comes to mind; where some vermin, thinking an Arizona temple held loads of gold and valuables, robbed the place and slaughtered all within. ( http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/forensics/buddhist_temple/index.html )

    When the murderers were arrested, other Buddhist monks strongly argued against their receiving the death penalty they richly merited. (Alas, they got their wishes; none were executed.)

    But, what does that do to protect the rest of us if these casual, remorseless killers escape, or should be paroled? And, what about justice?

    Gandhi famously said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” The logic of which falls apart the moment you start examining it.

    Yes, that can be valuable in ending cycles of “tit for tat” violence such as went on for decades in Northern Ireland.”

    But, it also assumes that everyone is an “eye-gouger”; puts those who retaliate against the attacker as no different than the criminal; says that at the very least, such an attacker should get a mild punishment, definitely nothing to compare in severity with the violence of their original crime.

    Bah! A head for an eye, I say…

  42. Well, the argument about whether mass incarceration and/or the death penalty actually makes anyone in particular safer is probably not one I really want to get into here. I’ll just say it’s not an uncontested point, and maybe leave it at that.

  43. One more thing…your comment sort of crystallized why I think calling the Amish inconsistent (or, I think, by implication, hypocritical) really doesn’t wash.

    The charge of inconsistency is supposed to demonstrate, or buttress, the idea that pacifism is wrong. But Amish are only actually inconsistent *if you assume they’re wrong in the first place* about the relationship between violence, power, and safety. So to throw the charge of inconsistency around isn’t really an argument so much as it is an elaborate begging of all the relevant questions.

  44. Sure, I saw Do The Right Thing. But how many people did? Does Spike Lee speak for the masses? I guess it was fairly popular for an art film… as was the Malcolm X film. Is it telling that neither Denzel nor Spike Lee won the Oscar for that film, but Ben Kingsley and Attenborough did for _Gandhi_? I would say, categorically, “maybe.” I don’t think movies or the reactions to them are really good evidence for much, but there’s an argument to be made there, I guess. X an important and inspirational figure for a portion of the African-American populous, certainly…but, by and large, the white majority prefers King (no day off for X’s birthday). Wonder why. X often gets recuperated by his turn away from being militant at the end of his life as well…. To many, I think, this “proves” that X’s earlier tactics were “wrong”–justifying the non-violent road King took (since the two are inevitably paired with/against each other). Obviously, I’m generalizing about public opinion without a whole lot of evidence…but King remains the more “central” figure to the majority–and it’s only as the memory of X fades into the distance that he can be seen as “heroic.” Until fairly recently (maybe the Malcolm X movie was something of a turning point), King was the face of the Civil Rights movement…and X was something unfortunate to be ignored or forgotten.

  45. Militant black politics a la Malcolm X are way more popular in hip hop than is King. And hip hop has a huge white audience — especially the most violent hip hop.

    King is obviously more acceptable and more popular with the majority who mostly wants to ignore the whole civil rights issue. I think there’s a smaller, more passionate, but still quite significant group that finds Malcolm X more congenial.

    Obviously there isn’t really an objective way to settle this. But I think it’s indisputable that, whatever the relative popularity of various figures, pacifism remains a minority position among almost everyone.

  46. Noah,

    One big difference between Che and King is that Che supported Castro, who killed enemies, imprisoned enemies without trial. As you noted, Che also tried to violently overthrow Bolivia. I’m not saying Bolivia was nice or that Batista Cuba was perfect. They weren’t. Those places could have used a King or Ghandi.

    I’m just trying to sound smart, but I do believe King and Che are on opposite ends of the violence spectrum.

  47. I got about 15 comments into this before I gave up, so please forgive me if someone has covered this, but I have to disagree with the OP’s analysis of this comic series. Its not pacifism that’s the problem here, its that the cartoon Amish people in this story have withdrawn from the world. You cannot be a superhero if you’re in a community that shuts everything but itself out, which I know certainly doesn’t apply to all Amish communities; if any of them, and whether the portrayal of these communities in this series is fair or not, my point stands. There’s plenty of pacifists out there that remain engaged in society — had Superman been raised by the Dalai Lama, for example, he could easily have had a great impact on the world without landing a single punch.

  48. I think it’s both the pacifism and the withdrawal from the world, surely. After all, he didn’t make supes a Branch Davidian. There are ways to be violent and separatist, as well as pacifist and engaged.

  49. To be fair to Marxists, it’s hardly the case that dialectical materialism demands anything like “this particular revolutionary movement, of which I am currently a part, using its particular tactics, is bound to succeed.” Rather, SOME Marxists maintain that the unstable, unsustainable nature of capitalism means that a socialist revolution must eventually take place, albeit possibly many failed attempts at such. Others maintain that all this means is that capitalism is bound for a final collapse – and that socialists have to build a revolution by then, or else everyone is more or less fucked.

    I don’t think any Marxist would claim that dialectical materialism means “I’m not going to get killed in the midst of pursuing this risky, life-threatening endeavor,” as Yoder seems to caricature Guevera’s followers.

  50. I don’t think that’s what Yoder’s saying. He’s not saying Guevera/Marxism expected Guevera to live; he’s saying it expected Guevera to win. Marxism isn’t about the nobility of lost causes. If you lose, you can try again, but a loss doesn’t validate the attempt. Winning validates the attempt. Marxism is a pragmatic ideology (at least in that way). I think Yoder’s got a point there.

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