A New-ish Cliché, Long Disproven

I am a subscriber to and enjoy Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day. The word itself is fairly often one I don’t know, and is accompanied by one or two quotations showing the word in context, as well as another at the bottom of the missive, presumably meant to communicate what Mr. Garg believes are wise thoughts. Sometimes the wisdom is true, but other times it is not. Mr. Garg seems to have a streak of pretty typical Western liberalism in him, all the details of which I cannot remember without looking back through a list of his quotations, but one of which is a penchant for – perhaps a conviction regarding – pacifism. (Take a look at his list of organizations which he supports, at the bottom of this page here, and you’ll see I’m correct about the general drift of his thought.) Thus this bit, which I regard as rather clichéd, but which may not have been at the time, from Tolstoy:

The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.

I have to say, not being able to find the context using Google, I can’t quite make out what Tolstoy’s trying to say, or at least how he’s trying to say what it seems he is saying, that violence is equivalent to evil. The literal effort – using violence to prevent evil – implies a paradox between the means and the end, but the metaphorical effort – stopping a cloud to prevent the rain – does not contain that paradox, illustrating only the uselessness of the means because of the inevitability of the unwanted end. Perhaps he feels that stopping a cloud would cause rain, which would lead to the idea that violence causes evil, but of course stopping a cloud would not cause rain but would merely delay it, as it drifted its way through the cloud to an unblocked exit point. Perhaps, though I doubt it, he feels that evil is a natural, inevitable force that should be allowed to do its work unmolested. I have some sympathy with Tolstoy on the first point, believing in original sin as I do: evil will never be fully destroyed, while this world lasts. But evil is not a substance that is everywhere the same. The evil that leached out in 2001 is not the same evil that was prevented in the second half of 1945. More importantly, the people who avoided evil in 1945 are not the same who suffered it in 2001. Nor are the people who prevented it in 1945 the same as those who prevented it in 2002. It is a good to be saved from evil. It is good to save others from evil. Both actions change individuals in ways different from, and seemingly better than, succumbing to violence or watching others do so would.

I’ve not read Tolstoy, so I can’t say what value he gave to the defense of Russia by her soldiers against Napoleon, but from my historical perspective, he’s all wrong. Whenever I hear this violence-is-inherently-evil-and-useless meme, from Tolstoy, from Lennon, from Edwin Starr, from the Pet Shop Boys, this is what I think of:

What other response can there be? Nothing to kill or die for? Violence … breeds violence? Tell it to the men in this photo. This is what war is good for. It is one thing to turn the other cheek, but it is another to look on while the other fellow gets struck, and then, placidly or with an air of tragic regret, advise him to turn his.
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Thanks, by the way, to the folks at A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust for posting the photo above on their site. The photo itself is by Hugh C. Daly, from his book, 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry Division: A Combat history of World War II. Photos from this book seem to show up here and there around the web, and the book seems to be out of print, so I thought it allowable to use one. If I am incorrect in that assumption, please contact me to let me know. Thank you.