No wonder so many people, gentle and kind people, quiet and unaggressive people, find themselves saying at long last: “There’s only one way to deal with the Marcoses and Enriles. There’s only one way to deal with the Khmer Rouge. There’s only one language these people understand—we say it not joyfully, but reluctantly and sadly—the only thing they understand is the gun.”
To such people I say: Welcome home, welcome to the largest consensus the world has ever known: a consensus between east and west, between capitalist and communist, between mosque, church and synagogue. All agree that there comes a time when it is just to kill each other. Welcome home to the consensus on which our world is built.
Ultimately we are faced with two choices: to accept the “myth” of the just war, that as a last resort killing is moral, or to accept the “myth” of nonviolence: we have no last resort; killing is never right. In the first case, sooner or later we will come to the moment when the conditions for using violence are verified, when we reach the “last resort.” In the second case, believing in our “myth,” that violence is never justified, having no “last resort,” human beings come up with alternatives from the depths of their creativeness … We can and we will learn to live together, but only when we have closed off that escape route known as the last resort.
—Niall O’Brien, “Making the Myth Real”
[i:f7a3af0f2f]Quoted by Walter Wink in [/i:f7a3af0f2f]Engaging the Powers
laurencer
Nov 22 2004
02:36 pm
No wonder so many people, gentle and kind people, quiet and unaggressive people, find themselves saying at long last: “There’s only one way to deal with the Marcoses and Enriles. There’s only one way to deal with the Khmer Rouge. There’s only one language these people understand—we say it not joyfully, but reluctantly and sadly—the only thing they understand is the gun.”
To such people I say: Welcome home, welcome to the largest consensus the world has ever known: a consensus between east and west, between capitalist and communist, between mosque, church and synagogue. All agree that there comes a time when it is just to kill each other. Welcome home to the consensus on which our world is built.
Ultimately we are faced with two choices: to accept the “myth” of the just war, that as a last resort killing is moral, or to accept the “myth” of nonviolence: we have no last resort; killing is never right. In the first case, sooner or later we will come to the moment when the conditions for using violence are verified, when we reach the “last resort.” In the second case, believing in our “myth,” that violence is never justified, having no “last resort,” human beings come up with alternatives from the depths of their creativeness … We can and we will learn to live together, but only when we have closed off that escape route known as the last resort.
—Niall O’Brien, “Making the Myth Real”
[i:f7a3af0f2f]Quoted by Walter Wink in [/i:f7a3af0f2f]Engaging the Powers