Found this article yesterday and wondered if it was any good. Or not. What do any of you think about this? You know, in the grand scheme of things, that is, and not the macro close-to-home contemporary moment in time view. I thought it was pretty good except the part on Freud, who, so far as I'm concerned, got almost everything wrong. Except maybe that "Moses was really an Egyptian" theory.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Seems to tie in with Natural Selection/Survival of the Fittest.  Those who haven't been good at war...have perished over time.  The gene pool focused on those who are not only inclined towards war, but also more successful at it.

We like to pump ourselves up as more intelligent, educated and reasonable now...and yet...wars still continue.

Does this mean that people simply want to fight for the sake of it?   I doubt it.

Or is it more the case that we're not yet living by universal principles that allow conflict to be resolved through peaceful means?  eg. trying to negotiate peacefully with countries like Iraq was pointless under Saddam's rule.

Or does it come back to more basic human issues?  Greed? Envy?  Resentment that others have more, and the only foreseeable way to get to where they are is war.

Or is it merely a survival instinct?  Seeing the world with limited resources, and feeling a need to secure the future by competing for what's available?

Most wars are probably a combination of the above, however they may be dressed up.

IMO civilisation has come a long way from the 'nasty, brutish & short' existence that Hobbes famously discussed. We have a moral duty to ensure that war is not inevitable. That starting point is idiotic. Self-interest is one thing, using war as means to achieve it is another. It is not always necessary to resort to war with more civilised means at our disposal.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

The more I think about it, the more it actually may be nearly inevitable.  But in the end, if you don't live in hope, why bother living, right?

Susan, there was this amazingly well-adjusted guy on The Daily Show a few months back who had been a child soldier in one of these African countries, I don't recall which one.  Anyway, he was promoting his book, which I decided to buy when I saw the interview and promptly forgot about until now.  I'll see if I can somehow dredge it from Google without remembering the author's name or the name of the book.

Anyway, I bet it would be a book right up your street.  I'm not saying you'd like it necessarily, 'cause it sounded like an amazingly harsh tale, but I bet you'd be interested.

I'm off to Google like I've never Googled before.

That didn't take long.  Apparently they sell this at Starbuck's it says.  I didn't realise it was such a successful book, perhaps you were already aware of it.  Twelve bucks - might be worth a shot.

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374105235/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7054591-2815048?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177958290&sr=8-1

Susan I don't get your rationale. That picture above demonstrates the precise reason why we should strive to make the world a better place. You may scoff at that but if it didn't hold certain truths we wouldn't be living in our protected little bubble to be honest. Can you honestly be content living in a savage darwinian world and say 'shit happens so what?' 

Are you familiar with the treaty of Westphalia 1648? why then and not now?   

No, James, I hadn't heard of Westphalia 1648. I'll look into it. Another aberration?

Susan

Okay, I've located a nice Wikipedia entry on the Peace of Westphalia and will read more. Who can disagree with this?

The main tenets of the Peace of Westphalia were:

• All parties would now recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio). ^{[2] [3]}
• Christians living in principalities where their denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will ^[2]

History works itself out in prolonged phases and the repercussions are often felt centuries later. I shift opinions on what could be, James. I have never suggested let's do nothing to better the world. I do suggest a sense of realism about the possiblities. Something I think is guilelessly missing in the Brad Pitt American Idol Gives Back rubber wrist band Hands Around the World Bangladesh Concert mentality. But I'm flexible. Do what you can. Sure. But I just feel the efforts are more fruitful when they come from within a community and ripple outward.

Okay. Was that all vague enough?

How did this thread get soooooo W I D E ??? 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Treaty of Westphalia is widely recognised as the beginning of modernity.

Susan answer me this, when you go to the shop for groceries do you shoot the shopkeeper and take what you want or do you exchange monies in return for those goods?

Not being flippant btw, just want to explore a line of thought...

Well, then, I'll answer it seriously.  Yes.  I shoot.  Now this gets difficult because I have to keep finding new venues for shopping.  But I've got wheels so I make do, inconvenient as it sometimes is to have to travel further for goods I could more easily steal at my local market. 

I have no idea how any of my comments have led you to assume otherwise but okay.  We've non-flippantly exploring.  Your move.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

lol

 right ok, consciously or not, you have obeyed the law of contract (or whatever the US equivalent is). Every aspect of our lives is regulated by civil law, criminal law, contract law etc. It gives us the framework with which we live relatively free and happy lives. Why then should this not extend to international law, and bring us back to a hobbesian existence where life was 'nasty, brutish and short' ?

 IMO, calling peace an aberration is being extremely neglectful of reality & history.

I am a law abiding citizen. To a fault in fact. I'm the one who called the Beverly Hills Police Department after receiving a photo ticket, asking how I could pay the thing when no money amount was printed on the ticket. I have marveled at living in a society where people follow the rules. I have often watched with pride how no one cheats (or rarely) when getting on a rush hour freeway. There's a "diamond lane" which is for car-pooling only. People who are alone in their vehicles have to wait for a green light. One car at a time. And people do it without any monitoring. People line up at banks, and movies and pharmacies without pushing ahead or cutting in. Civilized.

Why do they do it? Not just because it's the law. But because of a certainty that the rules will be followed by most and that we don't suffer as a result of having complied. We will not be shut out of the freeway if we don't sneak through. We will not lose out on the last loaf of bread if we don't wait our turn at the bakery. Mostly, after many generations of others who mostly follow the laws and rules, we know it works out best for the entirety of our society. So we do it. After so many generations, it is in our DNA.

But when the percentages are inverted and more people are breaking the laws and ignoring the rules, fewer still will bother to adhere. There's a natural tipping point. Social order is delicate. Too many falling outside the standards and doing their own thing leads to chaos. Anarchy. Is that fixed by writing laws? Not as a rule. Maybe not ever. It's usually halted by the heavy handed and the totalitarian.

Okay, now it's your turn to tell me about that era of worldwide peace. When and where that was. That would help me understand the ingredients to such a Golden Age.

Myself, I'm never so sure what it is -- peace -- and where there has been a sustained period of of same. I know what it means NOT to have tanks rolling down the streets of your town and to NOT have armed militia on every corner. I know that kind of local peace.

Sure, there may have been brief shining moments where neighboring tribes co-existed without all out war. Neighboring states. But war seems to me to have been the greater constant.

Sometimes I think about this.

Every aspect of OUR lives (OUR being the operative word and not necessarily universal) that is ruled by laws is a wonder of civilization. Tee hee. Suddenly I find myself a little surprised for it seems like we have argued one another's opinion over Iraq in the past. I believing that there is a universal need and wish for civilized order and human rights. You (if I'm not mistaken) taking the position that democracy cannot be imposed on others. You see, James, I sometimes despair of humanity. I watch a film like City of God and I think what's the use. I read the book Herofix recommended on boy soldiers and I think once you have destroyed the soul of young children by using them as brutal killing machines, how do they carry on? How do they teach their children? How do they rise above the lord of the flies mentality having drunk of it so deeply?

Sigh.

Sometimes I think I was way wrong about the ability of demonstrating the positives of economic development, democracy, equal rights for women, relgious freedom and all that I believed possible in Iraq because I believed in the higher angels of humanity. But I look around at so many corners of the globe where there is nothing but the short, brutish and nasty and think of our own lives as having been golden shining moments. The rare times. Points in Greek history, Roman history, Persian, British, Dutch and American history where a greater numbers have lived comfortable lives than those living squalid lives. What's the peak? When and where was it? I'm going with the 200+ year history of the United States.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I just know I'm feeling an unfamiliar pessimism.  Which doesn't automatically translate to my doing anything different than I personally would have done at any other point in my life.  

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Reading the thread title reminded me of a very impactful (for me) section of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five.  And it goes like this:

_____________________________________________________ 

Over the years people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.  I said that to Harrison Starr, the moviemaker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and enquired, "Is it an anti-war book?".

"Yes", I said, "I guess".

"You know what I say to people when I hear their writing anti-war books?"

"No, what do you say Harrison Star?"

"I say, why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?"

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.  I believe that, too.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Kurt!

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin