Peace Now! Great American Pacifists

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.