[lurk2]

It’s an incentive problem. If even one party defects in a society of pacifists, the pacifists have no real method of recourse besides refusing to interact with the defector, and how many people are going to do that if the defector starts killing people to enforce compliance?

Some subscribe to a soft pacifism where non-destructive violent resistance like disarming the defector or disabling the defector using less-lethal technologies like a tazer would be fine. Pure pacifists who don’t believe in any kind of physical resistance whatsoever are almost exclusively religious practitioners who don’t ascribe a high degree of value to life in this world because they believe non-resistance will bear spiritual fruit in the next world.

[hackable_sand]

Under scrutiny I'm sure your comment falls apart, but it is accurate from orbit.

I happen to hold this philosophy under different words.

[mystraline]

Its also appropriate to remember that MLK was friends with Malcolm X, and both chose their own means to support the same end goal.

MLK chose nonviolent shows of force, whereas Malcolm X chose more direct forms of violence.

Governments could save face by negotiating with MLK, as he used nonviolent means. They couldn't negotiate with Malcolm X because thats the whole "we cannot negotiate with criminals and terrorists".

[marklemay]

In Malcolms auto biography they it was explicit that they were not friends.