PACIFISM - AN INTRODUCTORY PERSPECTIVE
AUTHOR: Hugh Underhill
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DESCRIPTION: Pacifism is not a panacea; it asks only that people should relinquish the habit of deliberate imposition of suffering. It is only a beginning in terms of people's struggle with existence, of their realisation of their full humanity. It is an exploratory and creative habit of living, whether collective or individual, rather than a faith or dogma. It cannot ossify into obsolescence but is constantly renewed, re-defined, in the dialectic of history.

EXCERPT: Pacifism has meant different things to different people at different times. People of significantly diverse backgrounds, temperaments and beliefs would apply the term to themselves.

Moreover, there has for long existed a cardinal division between those who regard pacifism as perfidious or as the ultimate practical lunacy, and those for whom it is the fullest expression of morality and sane conduct. On the one hand it may be held to evidence an extreme and apocalyptic retreat from the realities of the human condition; on the other it may be thought an eminently mature and balanced response.

Pacifism is sometimes a term of contempt. This book seeks to open up the whole range of implications present in the term and to invalidate that particular usage.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Abolition of War
A Broadening Definition
The History of an Idea
Vision and Compassion
Reason and Reality
Today and Tomorrow
The Single Word - Life
Bibliographical note