Life & Wisdom Quote by Fredrik Bajer

Bajer is quietly throwing shade at the most sanctified ritual of public life: the “resolution” as a substitute for thought. In an era when international congresses, peace conferences, and civic assemblies were multiplying across Europe, their glossy outputs often mattered less than the performance of agreement. A resolution can be drafted to flatter every faction, vague enough to offend no one, firm enough to be cited later as “progress.” Bajer, a working peace advocate as well as a writer, is calling that bluff.

The line works because it re-centers politics on a less controllable commodity: live disagreement. “Discussion” is messy, slow, and exposed; it forces people to reveal premises, not just preferences. Resolutions, by contrast, are the tidied-up afterimage of debate, and sometimes an alibi for avoiding it. Bajer’s preference signals a democratic instinct that feels modern: legitimacy doesn’t come from unanimous paper, it comes from the friction of competing views aired in public.

There’s also a strategic subtext. For reform movements like pacifism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, getting everyone to sign a maximalist statement was rarely the point; building a cross-border network, normalizing the language of arbitration, and persuading skeptics in the room was. Bajer is arguing that the real “product” of a congress is persuasion, not proclamation.

In today’s terms, he’s warning against governance as branding: the press release over the hard conversation. He’s betting that a culture that can tolerate dissent will outlast one that only knows how to vote.