We Are All Warmongers, We Are All Pacifists

Myths about violence (and about nonviolence) support ineffective or potentially harmful policy decisions, domestic and foreign. Belief in such myths also supports colonial and anti-democratic movements and erodes the most effective strategies to counter them. I have identified a number of tropes or themes that can be used to evaluate or critique literature and media with regard to how well they represent both violence and nonviolence. I will also provide examples and techniques from science fiction and fantasy literature that writers can use to represent violence and nonviolence in a way that supports pragmatic pacifism. These points are informed by my background as both a pacifist and a martial artist, the history and evolution of pacifist thought, especially since World War I, and the detailed historical survey of resistance movements since 1900 conducted by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, published in Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.