Pacifism as Pathology - part II

This is a different article than the book that I was reading. I found the first two sections to be a bit ridiculous, especially the section called "Like Lambs to Slaughter". Thus, this blog will be concerning the first two sections. In the first section, the author speaks about non-violent resistance as a new "fad" which is becoming more and more popular. He talks about it as if it is completely ineffective. What he is failing to recognize is the countless successes that non-violence has had. But what really offended me was the second section, where he basically says that the Jewish leaders led their people to their deaths passively during the Holocaust. Not only is this a very daring thing to say, but it is simply inaccurate. There were many uprisings, including the large Warsaw uprising. However, these uprisings were kind of a joke - they were very ineffective, obviously because the people in the ghettos were completely under control and had no access to weapons of any kind. Nonviolent resistence certainly wouldn't have worked in a dictatorship, and when many people in power viewed the Jews as "subhuman". Thus, the Jewish people during the Holocaust should be given much credit for trying - in addition, there were non-violent protests which included secret meetings for religious ceremonies, and countless other acts of bravery. The Jewish people were in a situation where little could be done to help them without outside help. They should not be regarded as hopeless little lambs being led to slaughter, because it simply isn't true. There is plenty of information out there on uprising within the Jewish community during the Holocaust - just because this is an example of ineffective uprising does not mean that it did not exist or that nonviolence doesn't work elsewhere.