More with the history lesson you say? Why, I’m happy to oblige. You’ll recall a group of renegades in central Europe running around and baptizing adults in the 1520s, and as it turns out, the government and religious leaders at the time were not thrilled. The Anabaptists were viewed as a dangerous threat, and extreme efforts were made to squash the movement. In fact, by 1530, most of the founding leaders had been killed. For further reading: the Martyr’s Mirror is a significant book that documents the many ways in which these forerunners were tortured, beheaded, drowned, or burned (including the quintessential story of a man named Dirk who evaded capture but returned to save his pursuer who had fallen through the ice, and was subsequently apprehended and burned at the stake).
These leaders were by-and-large defenceless, and not because they were unable to fight back against their persecutors, but because they were unwilling. While there were small pockets of violent Anabaptists, there were many for whom a key tenet in the reformed church was the belief in and practice of non-violence. These folks, then Menists, were pacifist, and thus practiced non-resistance.
Quick overview:
Non-Resistance - the principles or practice of passive submission to constituted authority even when unjust or oppressive
Non- Violence - the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change
Pacifism - the belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means.
Mennonites were welcomed by political leaders of some regions because they were known as hard-working and peaceful, but such refuge was often temporary: tides would turn and persecution would resume. As they did not believe in violence, they did not fight back, and generations of successive Mennonites have fled conflict rather than confront it. These humble roots have led to a long history of Mennonites as volunteer medics and international peace-keepers: avoiding violence personally yet fighting for peace globally.
That’s what I was taught growing up, and something I believe in still. Now this is not to say that I can’t love the movie Gladiator, or that I am well enough informed on international conflict to propose a sound peace-keeping strategy that no one else has yet come up with. But! as a general value and a one-word distillation of the golden rule, peace is a both respectable start and a lofty goal.
Even in other forms, the guiding principle of non-violence evidently resonates, such as:
the physicians oath:
“first, do no harm”
or the Confucian golden rule:
do unto others as you would have others do unto you
or the revised and expanded version we had in my house:
“We treat ourselves with respect, we treat others with respect, and we treat our things with respect”,
or a lil more Confucius:
It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence.
The right and freedom of choice is followed by the responsibility to choose. Starting with “Try not to hurt other living things” is a good choice, and if you want to get into the nitty gritty of what qualifies as “hurt” and “living things”, this choice has implications for all kinds of lifestyle decisions.
Besides, as every good beauty pageant contestant knows: what is the one thing our society needs?
That would be harsher punishments for parole violators, Stan.
And world peace.