A Pacifist's Reflections on a War Hero

"... When we send soldiers off to war, we reduce them. We split their minds. We ask them to believe something illogical, insupportable – that suddenly some lives are sacred while others are not – and we ask them to kill in service of that belief. Love’s spotlight narrows and brightens. Soldiers submit.

So who is to blame for all of this? If I am to blame anything, I think I must blame evil, which does not abide in any one person but sweeps through each of us, like visiting weather, condenses in the soul, and, when it is not checked, spawns a storm. Evil is a narrowing. Evil is a dearth of love. But evil is never an army of people and never a person. This is why trying to eradicate evil by laying waste to bodies only increases its amount. Arms that do evil are always the arms of beloveds ..."