that you can allow yourself to be told what to do by one man? That 100,000 men will go to war to kill and to die on the orders of one leader? It is a very odd occurrence that demands discussion of how our animal selves i9nvade and take over reason. Overrides the survival instinct…
Tag: war
The Fight For Peace
It is a strange aspect of our existence that we do one thing because we hope for the exact opposite. In fact we do the thing for that reason; so we go to war, so that we can have peace. At least that is what we do these days. But in other times that was…
Empowerment of the Individual
So much of the history of political and social development has been around the empowerment of the individual we sometimes fail to recognize that leaders are individuals too. We have argued so long trying to understand why a 100,000 men would follow one man into a war we have not looked long enough at one…
All The Odds Are War
I don’t have to wonder why people go to war, and I don’t actually need much explanation as to the reasons why they start them after agreeing with a general who once observed that the study of war aptly shows they are started for the worst and most nonsensical of reasons. But I have to…
The Philosophy of Antangonism
It is well known that huge advances in technology and sometimes in science occur during wars. Inventiveness takes off because a war brings about a whole different feeling in society. Instead of people vying for personal space they are all pulling in the same direction, and governments eager to remain viable give money to every…
The Horror Of Spectating
I wrote somewhere here about how I thought being a spectator at sports events was ridiculous because the whole idea of sports was to exercise and participate in the game though I left most criticism to sitting in front of the TV. I return to the topic because for most of the events on this…
How Many Days
I am looking at a book on the Six Day war and remembering from history lessons how we title wars, the 30 years war, the Hundred Years war, the war of this or the war of that. Do we really think these wars are all started for different reasons? Do we really suppose that fighting…
Lovers’ Wars
It seems to me we choose our wars quite carefully but there are a series of ways in which they remind me of experiencing love-making: The heat of battle attracts the young. They are full of the thinking that takes offence easily, stands beneath a flag, fights for a cause. They have the energy wars…
Peace Through War
It is a common commentary on Europe that we now have peace because war became too violent even for us as the victims involved increased exponentially in the Twentieth Century. The reasons for war never changed in all the centuries: tribes moving to new places to live as their populations expanded, greed, to gain advantage…
How Exciting Death Can Be
I remember when the Falklands War started a soldier who had gone AWOL from the British Army because it was boring came back to his unit because at last there was a war to go to, and so corrupt is the army they did not arrest him but sent him out to kill Argentinians. I…