I feel like to a certain extent pacifism has a privelege problem. A lot of people fail to understand that violence being framed as a choice is ignoring reality for those of us who face discrimination or have lived at the bottom of society, of which I have both. Everyone in society is either having violence constantly inflicted upon them, participating in the systems that push that violence down upon others, or a mix of both.
There is no peace in our current society. Society as a whole, as it exists today, is violence, and being able to ignore that reality is privelege. For pacifism to attain any viability requires a fundamental change in society. Otherwise all it will mean is "peaceful violence", meaningless to those of us subject to it, and a denial of reality by those who inflict it.
Raymond Reddington (one of my favorite TV characters) quoting Orwell in this way takes on way more meaning when you figure out that he's been transgender all along:
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