Perfect Pacifist People

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

—Isaiah 2:4

This trope describes one of the most common forms of Utopia: a society, nation, or world that has ascended so far beyond petty divisiveness that everyone is a pacifist living in peace and harmony.

This is generally a starting point for stories; either someone's bored of the Sugar Bowl life and wants to overthrow it, or invaders think it's ripe for conquest, or the protagonist discovers an Awful Truth about it. Needless to say, such a setting is easy pickings for Author Tracts and Strawman Political characters.

This trope can be either played straight or subverted. When played straight, the Perfect Pacifist People will be Actual Pacifists, shunning all physical violence even when their society is threatened. In these cases, a common plot point is for a character to learn the ways of war (so he can teach it to his people), or find others to do the fighting for them.

Subversions happen when the pacifist utopia isn't perfect. Perhaps they're pacifists in name only who have no qualms fighting outsiders, or it's a façade for the elites, with lesser citizens relegated to a Dystopia Beneath the Earth. Or perhaps they preach and (non-violently) enforce pacifism at the price of any individuality whatsoever.

It's worth noting that the utopian society described in Plato's Republic both subverts this trope and plays it straight. The Republic has a general pacifist attitude, but its citizens are ready to fight if necessary; on the other hand, it's not above hiring mercenaries from its neighbours as well, both to defend the Republic and to weed out their most violent members.

Also see Rousseau Was Right (which believes that such a future is inevitable), Crystal Spires and Togas, No Poverty and Mary Suetopia. May overlap with Veganopia. Crap Saccharine World is the trope for utopias that aren't what they seem.

See also City in a Bottle, Space Elves and more specifically Proud Scholar Race Guy (Type I), which is a sister trope.

Examples of Perfect Pacifist People include:

Straight Uses of This Trope

Anime & Manga

Stellvia of the Universe is set in such a world.
- Except for the civil unrest, the quiet hints of xenophobia.. The point is that humans are capable of this given a unifying factor such as the second wave, but go right back to causing trouble without one. Besides, who was it went and deployed children in combat craft without any need for preparation?
The planet Aqua (Mars after extensive terraforming) in Aria plays the trope straight.
Deeply, deeply subverted in Texhnolyze. The Theonormals who inhabit Earth's surface exiled everybody with genetic tendency towards violence underground, and created a utopian society free of fear. As a result the said society became horribly stagnant, losing all passions and interest to do anything but remniscence the old days. Even the threat of the exiles returning to slaughter them all fails to provoke any reaction beyond "that's nice".
Although it's not seen, since the story happens in the beginning of the second War Games, this is supposedly the reason that the Chess of MAR began their campaign seven years ago.
Subverted in the Gundam Wing side story "Battlefield of Pacifists," in which the actual name of the antagonists is the Perfect Peace People. It turns out their idea is peace is policing the now (mostly) demilitarized Earth Sphere by acquiring all remaining war machines for their own use.

Collectible Card Game

Following the Bible-quote at the top of the page, Magic has the very powerful Swords to Plowshares, which doesn't actually kill a creature, but removes it from the game entirely and gives the previous owner life equal to its power. Apparently, this is because the horrible extradimensional monster you just hit with the spell has suddenly turned to a life of peace and productive farming. We can only assume a planewalker did it.

Comic Books

The people of Zenn-La, the homeworld of the Silver Surfer, became this during their Golden Age of Reason. When Galactus came to consume the planet, they had no defense against him.
- Not quite, they had a single 'ultimate weapon' of such 'terrible' power that they were certain if a threat came along that required deploying it it would defend them against all threats (since they were after all the pinnacle of perfection). Galactus didn't even appear to notice its deployment as it didn't even slow his ship down. At which point they were helpless as they'd put all their defensive eggs in one basket.
According to the first issue of Marvel's |Transformers comic book series, the original Transformers were such a society. Megatron creates the Decepticons out of disgust at their satisfied lives, and the Autobots learned to fight back by copying their example. This origin was Ret Conned away in later stories.
In Elf Quest, The Sun Folk are like this for much of their history before the Wolfriders joined them, confident no invader would ever make through the desert to reach them. Leetah, their powerful healer, eventually realizes that she made this situation worse by taking care of the slightest medical problem immediately and thus made her people a bunch of wimps. However, when things start getting more dangerous, they willingly accept combat training in order to defend themselves.
The Wosk in Atavar sealed themselves off from the rest of the galaxy to avoid war, and when threatened by the UOS, decided to pray instead of fighting. Too bad their god turned out to be galactic cancer aiming to wipe out all life.

Film

In The Last Starfighter, the Star League is so devoted to pacifism that when they are threatened by the Ko-Dan, they could only find a few dozen members from all of their member planets with sufficient bloodlust to become Gunstar gunners. In desperation, Centauri searches barbarian worlds outside the league (such as Earth) for others with the ferocity and skill they needed. This was especially evident in the Novelization, where the mere mention of physical violence made many League members uneasy.
The musically-inspired future in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey appears to be a textbook example of this trope. Even a classroom invasion by De Nomolos to destroy their world elicits nothing worse than insults.
Star Trek: Insurrection has the Ba'ku, who refuse to fight even when they discover that invaders are trying to forcibly relocate them off their tranquil planet. Their leader even says "The moment we pick up a weapon, we become one of them."
- Although that reluctance may not be solely a result of Perfect Pacifism, so much as a result of some of the invaders being their own children.
  - Considering the Ba'ku kicked them off the planet, effectively condemning them to a slow, horrible death (of "natural causes"), they obviously didn't care about them that much.
The Amish in Witness. A notable scene features an able-bodied young Amish man refusing to fight back when some tourists smear him with ice cream, prompting Harrison Ford to deliver an ass-whuppin' in his stead. Despite the fact that Ford uses violence to take on the villains in the climax, the Amish actually use their nonviolence to defeat the final villain by witnessing his evil actions. Even though they won't fight him, there are simply too many of them to kill, so he's already lost.
In Star Wars a New Hope, Pricess Leia pleads that the people of Alderaan are this. It doesn't sway Grand Moff Tarkin.
- In the Expanded Universe novel The Bacta War, one expatriate Alderaanian, now a starfighter pilot for the New Republic, ponders the implications of such a society. He concludes by finding himself disagreeing with the idea:

Wrapped up in it's cocoon of pacifism, Alderaan had seemed insulated from things going on in the galaxy. It was as if when we disarmed we set ourselves above the petty concerns of the galaxy, and we thought doing so would keep us safe. ... He had long since seen the error of that philosophy. Pacifism for the sake of pacifism is the height of arrogant selfishness when that belief prevents you from acting to save others from harm.

The Krell in Forbidden Planet are referenced as having moved to this point, at least until their psychic monsters were unleashed.
The Day the Earth Stood Still has a version of this. Klaatu says that his people live in peace and are free from aggression and war because of the creation of the Gorts and giving them absolute,irrevocable power over the people.

Literature

Planet Tenara from the Star Trek novel "Captains' Honor" is a perfect example, as the people have long renounced violence (the last murder was 30 years ago). When they are attacked by the M'Dok, they must either re-learn violence or get slaughtered. And then an overzealous captain jumps off the slippery slope...
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski have a race called the Sharers, Actual Pacifists who use genetic engineering to manage their world's ecology. When traders and soldiers threaten their world, they have to repel the invaders without compromising their pacifism.
James Morrow's The Wine Of Violence plays this trope on an uncharted planet.
The Time Machine plays this trope straight, but with a twist. While the Eloi truly are pacifists living a life of automated luxury, it's only because they're livestock being herded by the Morlocks.
Larry Niven's Known Space is like this for a while, although it seems the peace is somewhat forced by the A.R.M., basically benevolent Secret Police who rule Earth with a soft but tight iron grip backed up by Government Drug Enforcement. The golden age comes to an end upon First Contact with the Kzin.
- The Pierson's Puppeteers are like this, but not because of idealism; rather, cowardice is their hat, and they almost never attack openly for fear of retribution (except Nessus, who's the Puppeteer equivalent of Axe Crazy). Their other hat, however, is Manipulative Bastard, so they find other ways to defend themselves. One semi-canon offshoot novel by a different author implies that they once had a protective Proud Warrior Race Guy caste, but they have not been seen in the main continuity and are implied to be rare nowadays anyway.
Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, gives us the "Prettytime," in which everyone is sweet-tempered and a little bit lazy. This is because after the operation, everyone gets brain lesions. So it gets played with somewhat.
Animorphs has the Pemalites, a ridiculously peaceful race who were completely obliterated by a more militaristic species. Tragically, their incredible technology could have been converted into weapons that would easily destroy their opponent, but as a species they couldn't bear to do so.
- Said technology lives on in the form of the equally pacifistic Chee, a robotic "race" created by the Pemalites, dog-like in their natural state but able to project an image of being human. Their programming doesn't allow them to be violent.
- Animorphs also has the Hork-Bajir, who while not as advanced, were also totally peaceful, and were enslaved when they caught the attention of a more aggressive race. Notable in that both of these species were created artificially, and designed to be non-violent by their creators. The series seems to give the impression that while being a pacifist sounds great, in reality it isn't a good survival tactic.
The Green-Sky Trilogy has the Kindar, who can't even stand to say "kill" (although they can use "dead" as a verb, and cringe while doing so). Subverted, however, by the fact that their governing council has no qualms about exiling dissenters to what they believe is certain death.
Deconstructed by the Bandakar society in the Sword of Truth series. Exiled beyond a magical boundary for being pristinely ungifted, they adapted by forming a near-unbreakable community bond, going so far as to outlaw any form of violence against each other. The deconstruction comes when the heroes find out that their pacifist philosophy extends even to self-defense in any form. Deviant criminals who've committed murder are attempted to be rehabilitated several times beyond the point of common sense. As a last measure, they subdue the offender and dump him down a cliff that leads outside the boundary as a form of exile. They won't attack or drive off predatory birds that occasionally fly off with young children. And when the Imperial Order comes to call, the most they offer is a meek protest when its soldiers proceed to kidnap and rape women of all ages in a program of systematic breeding to cultivate their ungifted trait. Even when the heroes attempt to train them to fight back, the Bandakarans mostly refuse, saying they have no right to judge the men of the Order as they don't know the circumstances under which they're acting.
- And then the heroes slaughter them.
"Pacifist's War Song," a poem by H.P. Lovecraft. They're cowardly, effeminate, and proud of it.
Piers Anthony's Macroscope is about an interstellar communication network that destroys the mind of anyone except for Perfect Pacifist People. Turns out it was a safety feature - any other race would use the knowledge to wage an interstellar war.
This is what the Capped humans always said the Masters helped humans achieve in the The Tripods series, even though it was really the hive mind type method.
The Tuatha'an, Traveling People, in The Wheel of Time are a race of nomadic Actual Pacifists who call their philosophy the Way of the Leaf, because a leaf does not resist force but is blown as the wind wills. Other than their pacifism, they are closely based on real-life Irish Travellers, in culture and in name- 'Tuatha'an' is derived from Old Irish and both groups are commonly derogated as Tinkers. Like their real-life counterparts, the People are seldom welcome wherever they go, but in this setting it's because their outlook is so idealistic that it tends to attract young people to join them. The People spend most of the books being slaughtered, both by the agents of the Shadow, and by prejudiced human neighbors.

Live Action TV

Several species in Star Trek feature races and societies with this trope to varying degrees:
- Vulcans embrace logic and pacifism to the point of following strict vegetarian diets. They're willing to incapacitate intruders with non-violent means, however.
  - Whille the Vulcans are usually characterised this way (complete with Cultural Posturing), they still seem happy enough to serve Starfleet in a military capacity when required, and even maintain a small fleet of their own warships.
  - Though the Romulans (or at least Sela) seemed to think that 4 warbirds would be enough to conquer Vulcan, so they can't be that militaristic (or the Romulans wildly underestimate them, which is also possible).
- The Halkans are a society with a history of complete peace; they are so devoutly pacifist that they refused to allow the Federation to mine dilithium from their planet for fear that it would eventually used for violent acts.
  - Even the evil Mirror Universe Halkans were so peaceful that they were prepared to sacrifice their entire race before allowing the evil version of the Federation to have the dilithium.
- The Grazerite are a bovine-humanoid species who advocate community and pacifism.
- The Aenar have a strictly pacifist ideology and deplore violence.
- The Mizarians, a race that embraces total and absolute pacifism. They've also been conquered by other species six times over the course of three centuries. Apparently they survived by offering absolutely no resistance until, one assumes, their conquerors simply got bored and went elsewhere, or their conquerors got conquered by someone else.
- The Organians. Pacifism is easy when you're a race of immortal Energy Beings several magnitudes more powerful than any would be invaders.
- Subverted in "A Taste of Armageddon": The people of Eminiar (and the neighboring planet) have fought their war so long that they stopped using weapons lest the war destroy both civilizations; instead, computers simulate attacks and the designated casualties report to convenient booths for routine disintegration. Their aversion to weapons does not keep them from using deadly force against the Enterprise, but does frighten them into opening communications and peace talks when their war computers are destroyed.
- The natives of the planet Neural in "A Private Little War" were pacifists, until the Klingons start arming some of them, and Kirk decides to arm the others to even things up.
- A race of telepaths encountered by the Voyager has outlawed violent thought in order to protect society from unintentional violence. Unfortunately, they forget to tell this to their visitors, resulting in B'Elanna (a fiery half-Klingon) "infecting" a passerby with a violent thought (it's later discovered that he is from an underground community who sell violent thoughts and specifically provoked B'Elanna. A few minutes later, a local murders another local over a tiny disagreement due to the influence of B'Elanna's thoughts. She is arrested by the local police and sentenced to have her mind purged of violent thoughts. Realizing that there's very little to B'Elanna besides violent thoughts, the crew fights to prevent this.
Like the example of the Mizarians above, the Doctor Who episode "The God Complex" featured one tourist from a planet that had been conquered so many times, their entire culture had developed around surrendering without a fight. Their national anthem is "Glory to Insert Your Name Here," and at the time he was kidnapped he was working on a project to line the road leading into their capital with trees so that invading armies could march in the shade.
- In earlier Doctor Who, this trope was often denounced in contradiction to the show's common reputation as pacifistic. In particular, "The Daleks" has the Thals as helpless against the Daleks until Ian teaches them anger, and "The Dominators" is an Author Tract about how pacifists are irresponsible cowards who will get deservedly slaughtered by the first non-pacifist culture to meet them.
Stargate SG-1 has the Nox, a highly advanced species disguised as simple naturalists. They refuse to participate in anything that may harm others, and won't even fight to defend themselves. Then again, they can cloak themselves and revive the dead. They also tend to get very snotty toward people who have every reason to be extremely wary and who literally have no other option other than to fight to survive. Oddly enough, the humans act as if the Nox are right to virtually condemn them.
- In fact, the first Nox that SG-1 meets would have been killed if the humans had not fought to protect them. The Nox don't really acknowledge this, and still believe that fighting is unnecessary. But not all of them are quite completely pacifistic: one of them helps fight off a Goauld attack by cloaking a gun (she didn't fire the gun, so it didn't count as fighting), and of course the race is/was allies with some other advanced races who were definitely not pacifists.
- The Furlings are implied to have met their end by becoming this sort of culture; they hid away in a secret location, intending to make it a peaceful utopia, and then they accidentally ate a hallucinogenic plant (possibly brought by one of the evil races) that made them all kill each other.
The Leviathans in Farscape were built as an enforced version of this trope: because they don't have any weapons and can't be modified to that end, most of them take the most diplomatic route possible- hence the reason why they're so easily enslaved. Plus, when Moya gave birth to an gunship, she narrowly avoided being decomissioned by the Builders, who refused to see their creations modified to violent ends.
An episode of Legend of the Seeker has the heroes happen upon a village of these, who are being raided by a local warlord. However, when Richard attempts to train a few volunteers how to fight, they go into a coma-like state. Zedd discovers that any attempt to cause violence is blocked by a spell case long ago by a powerful wizard. When Richard convinces him to lift the spell (despite Zedd's objections), they very quickly realize why the spell was there. The trained villagers develop a magically-fueled bloodlust resulting in a slaughter of a garrison of soldiers of the warlord, with Richard (who has succumbed to the same bloodlust), leading the assault. After the situation is resolved peacefully, Zedd explains that, long ago, an evil sorcerer bound a group of people to his will, giving them a bloodlust like no other. For their own good, a wizard put a spell on the people and their descendants that required them to abstain from violence. Oh, and that evil sorcerer is Richard's ancestor (a Rahl), which is why the berserk villagers were following him.
Wonder Woman TV Series: In this incarnation, Paradise Island’s amazons are this because they are Proud Scholar Race Guy. In contrast with the Proud Warrior Race Guy from the comics, the amazons were overpowered by the Nazis in “The Feminum Mystique”. However, the Amazons easily overpower the Nazis once Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl came back to liberate the Isle.
On The A-Team, the team was once hired by a group of pacifists to protect them, but when the team tried to use violence, the pacifists fired them. Hannibal said that at least they weren't hypocrites.

Tabletop Games

Several alien races fit this mold in the background of Warhammer 40,000. Then the Imperium of Man encountered them, and those races no longer exist.
In the Mystara setting's Hollow World, a Hidden Elf Village is home to the Gentle Folk, elves so pacifistic that they were wiped out on the surface. Not a utopian example, as their extreme passivity and reluctance to impose their will on others makes them rather depressing company.

Video Games

The Liir from Sword of the Stars, empaths who feel the pain of others. They depend on a caste of voluntary Ax Crazy Liir for defense.
- Subverted somewhat in that they have no concept of military restraint - they see no essential difference between firing a warning shot and wiping out every creature on every world of an entire empire with horrific bio-weapons.
- Not to mention that the Suul'Ka, the Big Bads of the games, are Liir Elders gone crazy due to Immortality Immorality
The Serenes people, a bird laguz tribe in the Tellius-Saga of Fire Emblem, not only tend to be extremly peaceful and pacifist, but also are practically incapable of physical violence and break their knuckles with even a simple punch. They also are very fragile and easily get sick. It is therefore no surprise that they were almost completely annihilated in the Serenes Massacre when they were falsely blamed for a murder. Subverted a bit since the last remaining herons show to have become a lot tougher in spirit and less pacifistic, although they still cannot fight on their own.
Your faction can eventually get to this point in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, once you develop Eudaimonia civic. As Encyclopedia Exposita explains, Eudaimonic society is tolerant and just, and even when it has to go to war, it prefers to subdue rather than kill. In game mechanics, it means lowered morale of military units.
The world government in Hostile Waters has used Nanomachines to remove poverty and need, effectively removing all reasons to go to war. This brought along with it a paradigm shift in the way people viewed the world, creating a peaceful world. The player controls the last warship on Earth, beating down a piece of The Remnant that has re-surfaced and is planning to bring it all down again.

In the year 2012, the Earth was hit by the last thing it was expecting: Sanity.
2012 was the End of Days in the old Mayan calendar, a time of great change, the conclusion of history, and it seemed to coincide with a great sea change in the way people saw the world.
No-one dared suggest that it brought the change with it, of course. But suddenly, we all looked at each other, and saw not where we all came from, but where we were all going. And we decided to all go there together.
This is what we are fighting for. This is what the old rulers don't want us to have. A world gone sane.

- To be fair, they left 2 warships at the bottom of the ocean in case things went bad. One of them just didn't react to the activation message.
The bird-like Chozo race from Metroid are Precursors who have evolved to a point in which they live in harmony with nature, shunning violence and destructive technology. Of course, they were warriors once, and were able to create the advanced Powered Armor that Samus uses.

Web Comics

The Dimension of Lame from Sluggy Freelance, who find food fighting to be immoral and voluntarily heal the Demonic Invaders who are enslaving them and eating their souls. Their greatest weapon is a warhead that dumps millions of "Please don't kill us!" notes on a city.
- They subvert the Training the Peaceful Villagers trope as even with weeks of training, they still cannot comprehend violence enough to deliver a single hit to a demon without bursting into tears. The only reason they survived to the end of the arc is due to their sheer numbers tiring the demons out.

Web Original

Clearwater Commune of DC Nation, a group so zealously dedicated to pacifism that they shun all violence, even in self-defense. They also became an Untrusting Community because of several attempts to shut it down, even to the point where they were almost willing to be annihilated by a right-wing militia that had taken up residence nearby and was slowly bleeding them dry instead of violating their oaths by fighting back. Needless to say, it didn't go over well with a visiting superhero team. Word of God states that the Titans' visit may end up dividing and eventually undermining the community.

Western Animation

The Air Nomads from Avatar: The Last Airbender were a great example of this, having no army and preaching peace and harmony. That is, until the Fire Nation killed them all save one boy. Not that they went down without a fight. The skeleton of the hero's mentor, Monk Gyatso, was found surrounded by a dozen dead soldiers. Keep in mind, Gyatso killed those soldiers when they had each been empowered by a passing comet with the strength of one hundred firebenders. And Avatar Aang himself, although he had a strict No Killing policy, never showed an aversion to fighting or harming people.
The Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Defenders of Peace" had the Lurmen, a group of rural villagers who refuse (by will of their elder/leader) to align with either the Jedi or the Separatists, even when threatened with a Separatist bioweapon. A few of the younger Lurmen side with the Jedi when the village is under attack.

Real Life

The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands were pretty close to this, an utterly pacifist society of hunter/ gatherers. When a Māori invasion came in 1835 they didn't even understand the concept of armed conflict and were almost entirely wiped out as they tried to negotiate. The invading Māori killed, enslaved and cannibalised the Moriori, although Moriori culture has since received a Renaissance in recent years.
Quakers. Being a Quaker is one of only a few ways you can get out of the draft.
- William Penn founded Pennsylvania on the basis of Quaker-style pacifism. Before the U.S.A.'s independence Pennsylvania had no militia and only a tiny police force. Though religious freedom in the colony meant that not everybody was a Quaker and subsequently it didn't go entirely to plan.

Subversions

Anime and Manga

One Gundam Wing sidestory has a subversion with the so-called Perfect Peace People. Despite all their constant rhetoric about how pacifist they are they are little more than terroists who brainwash people and use violence to enforce their peace.