Debbie's beef with pacifism, and What about me?

Ever since COVID-19, the Unitarian Sangha that I meet with has been meeting over Zoom. This has meant, in turn, that Debbie (who founded the Sangha years ago) has been able to join us regularly, even though she now lives in a different state far away. We met last night, and during the Dharma study we were talking about some of the Buddhist precepts. 

One of these is the precept not to kill, and—to my real surprise—Debbie said she had a problem with it. 

Then she went on to explain.

She started by explaining that she had lived in the Soviet Union for three years when she was a young woman. Although she herself was never bothered (perhaps partly because she was an American citizen with some kind of service job at the embassy) she did see people arrested on flimsy charges and taken away in the middle of the night. She admitted that she had flirted with pacifism before going to the Soviet Union; but after her experiences there she said she could never be a pacifist all the way because in a situation like one of these secret arrests she would resist. She would fight. Even if that meant killing people. Sometimes, she believed, fighting was appropriate. And so she struggles with this precept now that she is a Buddhist ordained into a lay order.

I found this fascinating. We had never discussed the issue, so I had no idea that she had formulated that specific a position against pacifism. Nothing else that she has ever said to me in the years we've known each other prepared me to expect this.

But it also made me think, Well, what about me? Where do I fall on this question?

In fact, I have long known the answer. My answer is not heroic, but at least I'm pretty sure it's true and not just self-delusion.

The answer is that I get along well inside systems. I have made a career as (more or less) a professional bureaucrat. I know how to shine at my job, but I take roles that nobody else wants—so I'm pretty sure I've never caused anyone any political anxiety in the workplace. If anything, I assume that people find me slightly comical, at the same time that they find me useful.

That's what I do in the office, and I don't turn into a rebellious firebrand at home. I obey the law, even if it's stupid. Or if I'm not going to obey the law (speed limits on certain stretches of highway, for instance), I make sure that it's in an area where the consequences are acceptable in case I'm caught. When I think the world has gone crazy I keep my mouth shut, write in my blog, and stay out of the way.

This means I wouldn't be a pacifist, because pacifists call too much attention to themselves. (Also there are times that it is simply necessary to kill other people, for example in self-defense.) But it also means I wouldn't expect to get into a firefight with the secret police. And I wouldn't expect to be arrested. Sure, probably some of those who were arrested didn't expect it either. But, as I say, I work well inside systems. I think it is not just self-flattery that I believe it is unlikely I would ever show up on someone's arrest list.

After the Reign of Terror had run itself out, someone asked the Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès what he had done during that time. His answer was, "I survived." My aspirations are exactly the same. No better, no nobler, to be sure. But also, be it noted, no worse.