Daniel Akst: The World War II Pacifists Who Changed America Forever

"Christian libertarians" Bayard Rustin and David Dellinger challenged state power and ended up leading the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War protests.

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Daniel Akst: The World War II Pacifists Who Changed America Forever

My guest today is Daniel Akst, a journalist and novelist who has written one of the most remarkable books I've read in a while. War By Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation Who Revolutionized Resistance is an irresistibly readable history of peace-mongering practitioners of "Christian libertarianism" who refused to sign on to America's entry into World War II even after Pearl Harbor.

Two of the main figures in the book, Bayard Rustin and David Dellinger, served prison sentences in the 1940s for refusing to even register as conscientious objectors—they said the state had no right to make such demands on them. Along with others such as Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, they pioneered the use of nonviolent resistance that energized the Civil Rights Movement and anti–Vietnam War protests in which they would figure so prominently.

Akst discusses Dwight Macdonald, the leftist writer and editor who worked at Fortune magazine, staunchly opposed the Soviet Union, ruthlessly critiqued mass media, and mentored a generation of public intellectuals including Lionel Trilling, Mary McCarthy, and Bruno Bettelheim. He also explores the origins of the short-lived America First Committee, which opposed U.S. entry into World War II and whose members and sympathizers included a wide range of people, including future President Gerald Ford, Kennedy in-law and Peace Corps leader Sargent Shriver, author Gore Vidal, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, and National Review founder William F. Buckley.  

In War By Other Means, Akst recovers a lost current in American politics that will make you think differently about the past and the present, especially given how identity politics and the worst sort of unprincipled tribalism reign supreme in our world today.

Read Max Longley's review of War By Other Means in the March 2023 issue of Reason.

Read Akst's Reason archive.

Comments

[creech]

Rustin, for one, expressed a naive appreciation for communism when young.
Leaping forward to a naive belief in non-violence, it may have worked well in America in the Civil Rights Movement, but one wonders how it would have applied to Nazi or Jap Imperialist invaders? I once asked a Quaker how they would respond if they discovered an outlaw motorcycle gang had taken possession of their meetinghouse. His response is they would do nothing but fortunately they had non-pacifist neighbors who would call the cops for them! How nice to be able to outsource self-defense in order to stay true to your beliefs.

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[skunkman]

Good point. Pacifism appeals to me. I respect it. But there is a limit. Pearl Harbor and 9-11 are two examples of crossing a limit line. But this book sounds like it is worth the read.

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[Brandybuck]

I don't agree with the pacifism in such circumstances, but I will respect them for having standards in a world where moral standards are mocked.

I will turn my own cheek, but I draw the line at striking my neighbor's cheek. This is why I won't ever be a true pacifist.

[Childhood reader of SCOTUS opinions, really]

So when we counsel love of neighbor and turn the other cheek -- even the highest ideals --- are we condemning soldiering, for example?

NO
JACQUES MARITAIN
A crucial part of Augustine's account of "just war" lies in his interpretation of the scriptural passages which some Christians may take to prohibit Christians from participating in war. Augustine said that "If the Christian Religion forbade war altogether, those who sought salutary advice in the Gospel would rather have been counselled to cast aside their arms, and to give up soldiering altogether. On the contrary, they were told: 'Do violence to no man . . . and be content with your pay' [Lk. 3:14. If he commanded them to be content with their pay, he did not forbid soldiering." Or again that the precept to "turn the other cheek" means that our inner attitude should be not inclined to vengence and hence the precept "should always be borne in readiness of mind, so that we be ready to obey them." In his survey of just war in the middle ages, Jonathon Barnes says: "Augustine's scriptural exegesis may raise a sceptical eyebrow or an outraged hackle, but it was gratefully accepted and piously parroted by the medieval political theorists: by returning a negative answer to the question ''s soldiering always a sin?'' Augustine made room for a morality of warfare and a theory of just war.

[Childhood reader of SCOTUS opinions, really]

The Good Samaritan --- what would he do if he stumbled on the actual attack? He would fight like a Maccabee.

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[Mother's Lament]

"peace-mongering practitioners of "Christian libertarianism" who refused to sign on to America's entry into World War II even after Pearl Harbor."

Shrike and Jeff call them Christian Nationalists nowadays.

[Childhood reader of SCOTUS opinions, really]

If you would only respect FACTS

“There is no question we should have attempted … to go after Auschwitz,” [ George ]McGovern said in the interview. “There was a pretty good chance we could have blasted those rail lines off the face of the earth, which would have interrupted the flow of people to those death chambers, and we had a pretty good chance of knocking out those gas ovens.”

And that is George McGovern.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

David Dellinger went on to be one of the Chicago Seven, and was convicted for crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot.

Because he was a pacifist.

[Brandybuck]

But... but... but... we have to keep going to war otherwise the other side will win!

[MWAocdoc]

If they changed America forever, why is resistance still completely futile? If an aggrieved minority - i.e. libertarians - could resist tyranny by using their methods, why is tyranny large and growing? Also, I could have picked a better war to resist than World War II, even if the trend may have ended Vietnam sooner. And whatever happened to the war protestors in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Libya and Syria?

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[TheReEncogitationer]

I don’t know who said it, but I agree: “Those who beat their swords into plowshares end up plowing for those who don’t.”

Or as Clintie put it:

There’s Only Two Kinds of People
https://youtu.be/6YnryHbJqC4

While there's no dishonor in avoiding a fight, the bad guy always has the first shot and when a fight is unavoidable, free people with rational minds must prepare.

[Childhood reader of SCOTUS opinions, really]

WE should not assume that pacifism implies any stance at all towards grave unquestionable evils

“There is no question we should have attempted … to go after Auschwitz,” [ George ]McGovern said in the interview. “There was a pretty good chance we could have blasted those rail lines off the face of the earth, which would have interrupted the flow of people to those death chambers, and we had a pretty good chance of knocking out those gas ovens.”