Human Smoke

[monk222]

The most horrible weapon in any arsenal is the madness of men. We see this time and time again, and sometimes the only way to stop them is by war. "War is an ugly thing," John Stuart Mill wrote, "but not the ugliest of things." Far uglier, he wrote, is the feeling that nothing in life is worth fighting for. World War II was fought for several reasons but above all -- and proudly -- because the only way to stop the killing was to stop the killers.

-- Richard Cohen for The Washington Post

Cohen is reacting to the new book by Nicholas Baker, "Human Smoke", in which Baker argues for the virtues of a pure and total pacifism, such that even World War II should not have been fought.

Comments

[honestblue.livejournal.com]

Applause for Cohen.

I'm all for peace, but a person has to be completely retarded to think their sit-ins and huggings are going to persuade an impassioned nationalist not to put a bullet in their head.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

You'd think such an instinct would already be worked out of the gene pool, but I guess it can take root and thrive on heavily protected soil.