Very good comment, rare for HuffPo, I think, over at Prof. Adam Winkler’s post talking about Dr. King’s guns:
Pacifism and non-violent activism have little in common, which perhaps explains the author’s confusions. Pacifism is a personal ethic adopted for a variety of reasons but generally not particularly well respected since it places a higher value on personal moral vanity than it does on making the hard choices in critical moments; no one appreciates the pacifist who stands by while you are attacked just because they don’t feel like doing anything that might sully their principles regardless of the consequences to others. Non-violence on the other hand is a conscious choice to refrain from violence even though it is a completely viable option; it is part of a deliberate commitment to risk oneself for the sake of accomplishing something for oneself and others, not merely a personal desire to be something for personal reasons. The key point is that non-violence is conscious restraint in the course of an active project whereas pacifism is just self indulgence and indifference to what’s happening around you. Non-violent activists make the decision from a position of strength and judgment while pacifists are just blindly adhering to an ideal which conveniently disguises their moral and physical weakness and indifference. There’s no problem with a practitioner of non-violence being *capable* of violence or even willing, should the situation force his or her hand, to forgo one principle in favor of doing something to ameliorate a bad situation even if it’s not the purest most special ideal response.
That’s an interesting way of looking at the distinction. The Civil Rights Movement was correct to be committed to nonviolence, but it was not a pacifist movement.