More great psychological insights.

Man, is today the day for finding psychological insight on the web, or what?

First Baron Bodissey. Now Bjorn Staerk:

The neo-pacifists make up most of the Norwegian peace movement. They are, perhaps, not pacifists in principle, but pacifists in practice. A product of generations of peace, democracy and capitalism, they identify war as the only possible threat to their security. Therefore, war is the ultimate evil. Able to imagine war, but not oppression, they value life over freedom, and will oppose almost any war up to the moment where the enemy forces actually cross your borders, (which some will see only as a sign to begin a peace process). Neo-pacifists imagine that an enlightened international state of affairs that will make war unnecessary, even impossible, is in the process of being formed. An American war on Iraq threatens that process, and violates the basic creed of neo-pacifism, which is that violence never solves anything. ("Tell that to" [the city fathers of ancient Carthage.) Exceptions are made for historical evils, like Nazism, precisely because they are historical, not current evils. Neo-pacifism appears to be popular all over Europe, Germany in particular.

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. . . At the very least, neo-pacifism is a significant long term threat to Norway, being both seductive and suicidal. Norway's future may not turn on whether we follow the US into Iraq, but it does turn on our ability to recognize and respond to military threats. Iraq is not yet a direct threat to Norway, and there are, of course, good arguments against this war, but neo-pacifist opposition to war isn't about carefully weighed pro's vs con's. In the neo-pacifist worldview there are only con's, no pro's, and the solution to all the worlds problems seems just a hand-joining folk-song singing session away.

"The city fathers of Carthage." Bjorn Staerk Blog, 2/15/03 (emphasis added).