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MEANING AND IMPLICATION
Luther King.
Such men reject violence because of a deeply held conviction that the use of violence leads men and nations away from the decent society which is their goal. Wars fought to end war, though calling forth tremendous courage and immeasurable sacrifice, have led to more rather than less war; and they have not made the world free or safe for democracy. Even highly motivated revolutions have more than once eventuated in bloody tyrannies. When the pacifist analyzes such events, he is driven to the conviction that there is an inexorable relationship between the methods used to achieve the goal and the goal itself. The pacifist concl udes that the end is, in fact, the sum total of the means used to reach it.
*The law of the harvest' is not just a quaint phrase to be found in holy scriptures. We reap what we sow and only what we sow, and, for all our lofty ideals, thorn bushes refuse to produce grapes and thistles figs. Nor is this all. Not only do violent methods betray us in our efforts to reach a constructive goal, but, in addition, in a subtle and seldom recognized fashion, their user is transformed into the image and likeness of the very evil he was opposing. While outwardly he appears untouched and unchanged, his behaviour has actually become so brutalised that he has become the practitioner of the very callousness and brutality from which he was determined to rescue mankind.
Physical and material force is not the only power in this world. There is another power and way to frie
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