Claim OwnershipPeace Now! Great American Pacifists
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© 2026 Peace Now! Great American Pacifists
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First episode of the new podcast, which will devote an episode each to figures such as Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Dorothy Day, Bayard Rustin, and Judith Butler.
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One of the most important living intellectual figures, Judith Butler has, in this century, developed a very profound and original pacifist ethics. I kept using 'she' pronouns right until the end when I suddenly realized it should be 'they.' I am apologizing to them and everyone else.
Sharp's work on practical ways to transform totalitarian systems non-violently has proven important to resistance movements all over the world, including in the color revolutions and the Arab Spring, in Myanmar and Serbia and elsewhere. His years: 1928-2018. https://commonslibrary.org/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/: 198 techniques of non-violent resistance
The astonishing Berrigan brothers, Roman Catholic priests and peace activists of total commitment.
A leader of the Farm Workers, and an amazingly effective one, with a beautiful commitment of the most serious kind.
I argue in this episode that pacifism entails the repudiation of utilitarianism (as well as other forms of teleological ethics) and also anti-statism. Around 20:49 I say 'Dorothy Day' when I mean Jane Addams.
The great spiritual teacher, Trappist monk, and advocate of universal spirit (1915-1968) and his development of Catholic teachings and Dorothy Day's radicalism and anarchism.
The great civil rights organizer, close collaborator of A.J. Muste, A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, immersed in Gandhi, whose movement he brought to the US. His directness and vulnerability.
The founder of the Catholic Worker, prospective saint, helper of all who need and incandescent advocate of peace in World War 2 and Vietnam. The clearest, fastest American protest against the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The short-lived, physically challenged young intellectual who attacked his teacher John Dewey and other liberals who endorsed WWI (Herbert Croly, e.g.) to do a lot better in various respects.
In 1935, the last year of both of their lives, Herman Bernstein (my mother's mother's father) asked Jane Addams and many other eminent people whether permanent peace was possible. I read in her response, from his book "Can We Abolish War?"
The brilliant Nobel Prize winner, Hull House founder, associate of Dewey etc and her embroilment in the anti-war movement in the lead-up to World War I.
I'm stunned to find out that William James accounted himself a pacifist. The context at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century has been entirely transformed. His problematic relation to his own hypermasculine student Teddy Roosevelt.
An amazing and seemingly destined transmission and return: Ballou to Tolstoy, Tolstoy to Gandhi, Gandhi to King. If the podcast makes an historical contribution, it is in this episode.
A hero of Thoreau and Emerson ("Civil Disobedience" is Lucretia Mott without Jesus), spearhead of abolitionism, feminism (a convener of Seneca Falls), and pacifism. One of the greatest persons and personalities America has produced. I use her sermons to talk about the crisis of pacifism produced by the Civil War.
One of the fundamental influences on Tolstoy (with whom he corresponded), and hence on Gandhi and King, Ballou (1803-1890) gave much more careful and elaborate accounts of non-resistance than most of his contemporaries. Also, he completely destroyed social contract theory.
Wright "shocks all the old women with his infidel writings," said Thoreau in his journal. Boy we can see why.
An ethical hero who lived from 1805 to 1879: direct influence on Tolstoy and hence on Gandhi and King.
The mediator's kingdom is not of this world, b! The founder of the New York Peace Society (1774-1852) was one of earliest American anti-war advocates. A source for the Garrisonians and others who followed, Dodge taught "the government of God", the centrality of the Sermon on the Mount, and an absolute prohibition on violence.
Discusses the spiritual classic The Journal of John Woolman, which is a fundamental document of American radical conscience. As represented in section 5 of the Journal, Woolman (1720-1772) had to help work out collective resistance to the French and Indian Wars (in which, for example, slave owner and militarist George Washington made his reputation). Why pacifism is not (merely) individualistic.
and what it means. A preview of the 15-or-so episodes to come.
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