I haven’t read Nicholson Baker’s latest, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, nor do I plan to. Having run into positive reviews, negative reviews, and general discussions during my usual perusing, however, I’d like to add my little bit to the fray.

Baker (whose The Mezzanine I thoroughly enjoyed) writes that American and British pacifists “failed, but they were right.”

Pacifists will always fail because war is inevitable. Pacifism will never offer the world hope for its future because war is inevitable. That is the human condition. It is naïve to believe otherwise.

I won’t deny war is terrible . . . but I can think of worse things than war. Isn’t that fucking sad?