Does the Pacifist embrace a contradiction?

The pacificist rationale is that the evil of violence and tyranny are best resisted by the abdonment of reactionary force. This premise relies on the recognition of self-immolation as a contradiction, and follows that the tyrant or whatever social institutions which allow him to remain in power will crumble out of their empathy for the self-immolator. Does it seem a perverse contradiction that anyone would seek in another man's pity the motive to cease his self destruction? When a man surrenders his reason as the source of his life and replaces as its source the pity of tyrants and thugs he has committed moral treason. The pacifist contradiction is that he committs this moral treason while insisting he practices the highest moral virtue.