Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, we are going to continue our season of great works by taking a look at Clarence Darrow and one of the the pieces of work that he did. The work is entitled Resist Not Evil. So one of the reasons I wanted to to include this work is, sure, I think that there are some insightful aspects to it that are worth highlighting. But, know, Darrow is a unique figure and he is if you are familiar with his name, it's probably because of the SCOPES trial or the SCOPES monkey trial, you know, where he defended a teacher's right to teach evolution against he defended him against the famous Williams Jenning Bryan.

Derek: 01:18

And so it was, you know, it was one of those sorts of trials that everybody in the country was following, and it it kind of became what was known for. But if you read enough justice literature, you come across Darrow in a number of other situations. He was, I know, The Color of Law, I think it was. I was reading it. It was one of those types of books where his name comes up as representing blacks who are defending their homes.

Derek: 01:44

I think there's a case in Michigan, I think it was. I don't remember exactly, but Darrow is a defender of the defenseless a lot of times, and he was extremely critical of hypocritical Christianity. And I believe Darrow was an agnostic, I don't think he was a hardline atheist, but, now one of the things that he took significant issue with was the the inconsistency, the hypocrisy, just the the power mongering of Christians, the Christians of his day. And unfortunately, I don't think that's changed and it's probably only gotten worse. So I wanted to include Darrow because I think he provides some insight and from a a different sort of vantage point, more of an agnostic vantage point who might be able to see things in a way that those inside the Christian community might not be able to see.

Derek: 02:37

The nature of the state. In this heroic age given to war and conquest and violence, the precepts of peace and goodwill seem to have been almost submerged. The pulpit, the press, and the school unite in teaching patriotism and in proclaiming the glory and beneficence of war. And one may search literature almost in vain for one note of that peace on earth and goodwill towards men in which the world still professes to believe, and yet these benign precepts are supposed to be the basis of all the civilization of the Western world. The doctrine of non resistance, if ever referred to, is treated with derision and scorn.

Derek: 03:15

At its best, the doctrine can only be held by dreamers and theorists and can have no place in daily life. Every government on earth furnishes proof that there is nothing practical or vital in its teachings. Every government on earth is the personification of violence and force, and yet the doctrine of non resistance is as old as human thought. Even more than this, the instinct is as old as life upon earth. Armies and navies.

Derek: 03:43

How is the authority of the state maintained? In whatever guise or however far removed from the rudest savage tribe to the most democratic state, this autocratic power rests on violence and force alone. The first great instrument which supports every government on earth is the soldier with his gun and sword. True, the army may be but rarely used. The civil power, the courts of justice, the policemen, and the jails generally suffice in civilized lands to maintain existing things.

Derek: 04:13

But back of these to enforce each decree is the power of armed men with all the modern implements of death. Thousands of church organizations throughout the Christian world profess the doctrine of non resistance to evil, of peace on earth and goodwill to men. Yet each of these Christian lands trains great bodies of armed men to kill their fellows for the preservation of existing things. Europe is made up of great military camps where millions of men are kept apart from their fellows and taught the trade of war alone. And democratic America, feeling the flush of victory and the glow of conquest, is turning her energies and strength to gathering armies and navies that shall equal those across the seas.

Derek: 04:52

Not only are these trained soldiers a living denial of the doctrines that are professed, but in obedience to an external law, deeper and more beneficent than any ever made by man, these mighty forces are working their own ruin and death. These great armies and navies which give the lie to our professions of faith exist for two purposes. First, to keep in subjection the people of their own land. Second, to make war upon and defend against the other nations of the earth. The history of the world is little else than the story of the carnage and destruction wrought on battlefields.

Derek: 05:26

Carnage and destruction springing not from any difference between the common people of the earth, but do alone to the desires and passions of the rulers of the earth. This ruling class, ever eager to extend its power and strength, and ever looking for new people to govern and new lands to tax, has always been ready to turn its face against other powers to satisfy the ruler's will. And without pity or regret, these rulers have depopulated their kingdoms and carried ruin and destruction to every portion of the earth for gold and power. Not only do these European rulers keep many millions of men whose only trade is war, but these must be supported in worse than useless idleness by the labor of the poor. Still other millions are trained to war and are ever ready to answer to their master's call, to desert their homes and trades and offer up their lives to satisfy the vain ambitions of the ruler of the state.

Derek: 06:19

Millions more must give their strength and lives to build forts and ships, make guns and cannon, and all the modern implements of war. Apart from any moral question of the right of man to slay his fellow man, all this great burden rests upon the poor. The vast expense of war comes from the production of the land and must serve to weaken and impair its industrial strength. This very force must destroy itself. The best talent of every nation is called upon to invent new implements of destruction, faster sailing boats, stronger forts, more powerful explosives, more deadly guns.

Derek: 06:55

As one nation adds to its military stores, so every other nation is also bound to increase its army and navy too. Thus, the added force does not augment the military power, but only makes larger the burden of the state. Until today, these great armies, aside from producing the moral degradation of the world, are sapping and undermining and consuming the vitality and strength of all the nations of the earth. Cost of labor and strength means cost of life. Thus, in their practical results, these armies are destroying millions of lives that a policy of peace and non resistance would conserve and save.

Derek: 07:31

But when the armies are in action, how stands the case? Over and over again, the world has been submerged by war. The strongest nations of the earth have been almost destroyed. Devastating wars have left consequences that centuries could not repair. Countless millions of men have been used as food for guns.

Derek: 07:50

The miseries and sufferings and brutality following in the wake of war have never been described or imagined, yet the world persists in teaching the glory and honor and greatness of war. To excuse the wholesale butcheries of men by the governing powers, learned apologists have taught that without the havoc and cruel devastation of war, the human race would overrun the earth. And yet, every government in the world has used its power and influence to promote and encourage marriage and the rearing of children, to punish infanticide and abortion, and make criminal every device to prevent population, have used their power to heal the sick, to alleviate misery, and to prolong life. Every movement to overcome disease, to make cities sanitary, to produce and maintain men and women and children has received the sanction and encouragement of all governments. And still, these glorious rulers have ruthlessly slaughtered in the most barbarous and cruel way tens of millions of their fellow men to add to their glory and perpetuate their names, and philosophers have told us that this was necessary to prevent the overpopulation of the earth.

Derek: 08:54

No single ruler, however cruel or ambitious, has ever yet been able to bring the whole world beneath his sway, and the ambitions and lusts of these separate chiefs have divided the whole world into hostile camps and hostile states. Endless wars have been waged to increase or protect the territory governed by these various rulers. In these bloody conflicts, the poor serfs have dumbly and patiently met death in a thousand sickening ways to uphold the authority and prowess of the ruler whose sole function has ever been to pillage and rob the poor victims that fate is placed within his power. To these brutal, senseless, fighting millions, the boundaries of the state or the color of the flag that they were taught to love could not in the least affect their lives. Whoever their rulers, their mission has been to toil and fight and die for the honor of the state and the glory of the chief.

Derek: 09:47

But today, even national preservation demands that the rule of peace shall give place to the rule of war. In the older countries of the earth, the great drains made upon industry and life to support vast armies and equip them for slaughter is depopulating states and impoverishing the land. And besides all this, so far as external power is concerned, no nation adds to its effectiveness to battle with the others by increasing its army and navy. This simply serves to increase the strength of the enemy's guns and to make new combinations between hostile lands until the very strength of a nation becomes its weakness and must in turn lead to its decay and overthrow. The nation that would today disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrung from its hostile and unwilling serfs.

Derek: 10:35

A nation like this would exhibit to the world such an example of moral grandeur and true vitality and worth that no nation, however powerful, would dare to invite the odium and hostility of the world by sending arms and men to conquer a peaceful, productive, non resistant land. If the integrity and independence of a nation depended upon its forts and guns, the smaller countries of Europe would at once be wiped from the map of the world. Switzerland, Holland, Greece, Italy, and Spain are absolutely powerless to defend themselves by force. If these nations should at once disarm every soldier and melt every gun and turn the worse than wasted labor into productive life saving work, they could but greatly strengthen themselves amongst the other nations of the earth. Not only this, their example would serve to help turn the tide of the world from the barbarous and soul destroying path of war towards the higher, nobler life of peace and goodwill towards men.

Derek: 11:31

But not alone are these small nations made still weaker by war, but every battleship that is built by England, Russia, France, Germany, or The United States really weakens those nations too. It weakens them not alone by the loss of productive power, but by the worst and wasted energy which is required to support these implements of death from the time their first beam is mined in the original ore until scarred and worthless and wracked by scenes of blood and violence and shame, they are thrown out upon the sands to rot. But every battleship weakens a nation by inviting the hostility of the other peoples of the earth, by compelling other rulers to weaken their kingdoms, to build mighty ships and powerful guns. Every preparation for war and violence is really a violation of the neutrality under which great nations profess to live. They are a reflection upon the integrity and humanity of their own people and an insult to every other land on earth.

Derek: 12:24

The building of a man of war, the rearing of a fort, or the planting of a gun can be likened only to a man who professes to live in peace and quiet with his neighbors and his friends, and who goes about armed with pistol and with dirk. But these patent evils and outrages are far are after all the smallest that flow from violence and strife. The whole pursuit of war weakens the aspirations and ideals of the race. Rulers have ever taught and encouraged the spirit of patriotism, that they might call upon their slaves to give their labor to the privileged class and to freely offer up their lives when the king commands. Every people in the world is taught that their country and their government is the best on earth, and that they should be ever ready to desert their homes, abandon their hopes, aspirations, and ambitions when their ruler calls, and this regardless of the right or wrong for which they fight.

Derek: 13:17

The teaching of patriotism and war permeates all society. It reaches to the youngest child and even shapes the character of the unborn babe. It fills the soul with false ambitions, with ignoble desires, and with sordid hopes. Every sentiment for the improvement of man, for human injustice, for the uplifting of the poor is at once stifled by the wild horse shout for blood. The lowest standard of ethics of which a right thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow man.

Derek: 13:49

In youth, he may have learned the command thou shalt not kill, but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart. And this unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right a wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word. It is not the privilege of the common soldier to ask questions, to consider right and wrong, to think of the misery and suffering his act entails upon other innocence of crime. He may be told to point his gun at his neighbor and his friend, even at his brother or father. If so, he must obey commands.

Derek: 14:26

There's not to reason why, there's but to do and die, represents the code of ethics that governs a soldier's life. And yet, for men who believe in these ideals, men who sacrifice their right of private judgment in the holiest matter that can weigh upon the conscience and the intellect, the taking of human life, men who place their lives, their consciences, their destinies without question or hesitation into another's keeping, men whose trade is slaughter and whose cunning consists in their ability to kill their fellows, from such men it is expected to build great states and rear a noble humanity. These teachings lead to destruction and death, the destruction of the body and the destruction of the soul. Even on the plea of physical evolution in the long sweep of time, these men must give way to the patient, peaceful non resistance who love their brothers and believe in the sacredness of life. Long ago, it was written down that he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.

Derek: 15:26

Like I said, I don't know that there's anything in this work from Darrow that hasn't really been talked about elsewhere, but and reading it again, it's been a while, And reading it again, just the eloquence of Darrow, like, I can imagine him in a courtroom and, you know, making arguments. It's just the way that he puts things is is very beautiful. But he hits on on a lot of things that we've talked about. He talks about the poor, how it's the poor who go and fight for rulers. He talks about, you know, the the ruling class, and and he sees this, that that it's the the poor who really suffer.

Derek: 16:04

While talking about it, it reminded me of Eisenhower's speech, you know, his famous military industrial complex where, you know, every whatever aircraft, every bomber is 10 schools or 50 schools or whatever it is. And here, Darrow is kind of saying that before Eisenhower does where he's like, look, there's there's a huge opportunity cost here. He talks about things about this cycle of violence, even the cycle of preparation for war. How when you have big battleships and stuff, you invite people to attack you, Pearl Harbor. Right?

Derek: 16:41

But at the same time, you are you're basically causing your enemy to try to build bigger battleships and and to improve their armies. And what you end up doing is you not only harm your own people, but you harm other people. This is basically he's basically talking about the cold war. Like, this is what the cold war is. Right?

Derek: 17:02

Huge opportunity cost, huge cost to the poor, influence on other nations making them poor, and there's just so much here that Darrow I don't know when he lived until, but like basically yeah. Basically, Darrow it says he lived till 1938. So basically Darrow didn't quite get to see World War two, but in all through World War one, Darrow saw this come to fruition and and I bet by 1938, you know, with what was going on, he had a good idea of of where things were headed. Now, you might say, look, Darrow is being one of the critiques would be that Darrow is being really naive because his solution, he says that, hey, if if everybody would just stop building military, then they would be able to provide for their people, they wouldn't force other countries to build big armies, and then they would, you know, be a shining example to everybody of success. And that's probably if probably naive to a certain extent, but I guess the question is, would it be would they be worse off?

Derek: 18:09

Right? If The United States right now would stop investing in in the military, even if they they cut their spending in half, would we be worse off? That's a hypothetical, I don't know. But to say that the only way is to militarize is, you know, I think that's hard to say. And you do have other countries, think it's Costa Rica, but you have is one of them, but you have several countries that they basically have a police force but they don't have like a standing military.

Derek: 18:40

Probably because every every country who's had a standing military, you've got the US CIA coming in and using that against you. But, you know, it you have countries who are examples of this. But a couple of the other big ideas that Darrow has in here, you know, towards the beginning, there's some anarchic sorts of ideas just talking about how the government is is really bad and how behind behind all legislation and all that kind of stuff, there's always the sword, how governments run on violence, which is absolutely true. And then in that, he also talks about indoctrination, you know, even from from babies, we're having indoctrination, national anthems, pledges in school, all that kind of stuff. So there's there's a lot here in Darrow.

Derek: 19:27

Again, not new stuff if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time or if you've listened to this season, but very eloquent and and concise and a beautiful piece. So I hope you enjoyed it. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network.

Derek: 20:10

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