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| Thread: War; a historian's view | |
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frostwolf
Famous Hero
livin' in a bottle of vodka
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posted November 29, 2004 12:45 AM |
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War; a historian's view
There is a huge amount of posts on politics on forums these days. For some years now. I honestly hate politics, and want nothing to do with it, although many people such as social and political sciences teachers told me I have a good grasp of it. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I just want to express my oppinion on war.
My hobby is history. I have studied tons on the subject, and I still do. But of course, it is such a vast domain, I can never know it all. But there's one thing I was interested in more than anything:war. I have studied it for many years, in all it's forms, all it's methods, everything from generals, startegy, technology, motives and so on.
Everybody is anti war these days. Everybody condamnes it. The argument is simple, and yet very strong. The taking of human lives. But, if you give me a minute and have patience to read my post, I'll try to prove otherwise.
War of course, is radicaly different today than it was 1000 years ago. But although sword and shield were traded for guns and bullets, and we no longer fight for grain and teritory but fuel, the essence of war remains the same.
War is the engine of destruction. True. At first glancer at least; in truth, war creates more than it destroys. Although fields filled with bodyes and burning cities might not prove so, let me explain. The reasons for war are extremly varied. It can be a personal war, where thousands die for the interest of few, war for resources, war for terittory, war of defence, religious war, and so on. No matter the age, the reason or the technology, war is still present. War is an entity which appears created by humans, and no matter how hard we try to avoid it it still appears. It grows, evolves and changes in it's own pace. For this, it constantly makes use of human ingenuity, thus beeing a great factor for technical evolution. But that's just a small thing.
They say nature is in perfect balance. There is an exact food chain, and each animal makes sure that other species don't grow to much, by a predator-prey relation. The same is with society. Ever since the apperance of society, of goverment, of citizenship, different groups had different oppinions. Concidering war didn't exist, it's easy to imagine that this peaceful world would of grown quite fast. But some civilisations, benefiting from better conditions than others, would soon of outclassed the rest (greeks would of easily out-classed gauls, for example). This would of led to a disbalance of civilisation. It would of favoured only a part of the world. More than that, the world's population would have grown too fast, technology would of evolvedf faster and in the end natural resources would of been consumed quicker. It's easy to see that humankind's evolution would of been fast, unequal and in the end disastruous.
But with war, there was balance. What became to strong to fast, quickly was reduced again. Great nations, extending over their needs, were in the end overrun by barbarians and lesser cultures. The strong, smart, technicaly advanced nations made empires just as much as the primitive barbarians did. The everchanging borders, constant migration of people, clashes for different motives, all kept balance. Of course, this cannot be seen in the moment, you can only see it by looking back at a certain historical era.
War kept a balance of power. War favoured the evolution of certain technological domains. War kept the population of the earth at a constant rate. War spread religion. War give power to weaker nations and made giants collapse. War favoured trade, navigation, infrastructure, a better definition of social classes
(where the concept was available), social sistems and so on. War made newer and better forms of goverment necesarry. War made great men do great deeds for thair people. Of cpurse, it also made mad men do horrible crimes.
But try to imagine a world without war, from the beggining of mankind. Try to think that human nature was peaceful, and there was no war. You can probably see that regions such as Italy, Greece, Southern Europe, South America and so on would have great civilisations, while North America, Parts of Asia , Central and Northen Europe and so on would be inhabited by primitive nations. Why? It's quite simple: geographycal position, contact with other cultures and resources make the primary conditions for the start of a strong nation. They ensure, wealth, which ensures growth, which results in cultural and technologycal evolution. But some people don't live in regions with the 3 above mentioned necesitties. War is what brought the world to a somewhat
equal 'level'. It's easy to see that a world without war could not exist. We would grow like rabits, evolve realy fast, consum,e everything and in the end implode. War brought balance.
But of course, more than anything, war kills. War destroys, war burns down, war takes man's greatest gifts:
freedom, uniqness and more than that, life. Yes, nothing kills more than war. And to those who lose someone in war, I agree, there is no greater pain. And words cannot express enough condoleances.
I'm not saying war shouldn't stop. I'm not saying war is good. What I'm saying is that before we start screaming for world peace and cursing war and especialy those who make it, we should try to understand it. Like it or not, war is absolutely necesarry, and that's a fact. If we can understand it, it will be easier to take.
I'm afraid I didn't say the hundreth part of what I wanted to say about war. But I will post further.
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What can you expect from a world where everybody lives because they're too afraid to commit suicide?
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted November 30, 2004 01:48 AM |
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Some tempting philosophy there. Unfortunately I cant entirely agree.
Rebalance (even disbalance) in society is, I would say, achieved through war, rather than war keeping a balance. What kind of “natural” balance in society we’re talking about? Society today is anything but balanced. The world population growing disproportionally fast, or is it the unequal distribution of goods? And all this is reflected in the constant tension reaching a critical point in the world. No; Balance cannot stand for such enormous fluctuations on a social level.
What war does inspire, is the cannibalistic lust of various groups with interest, that manipulate massive groups into going in war with one another. The inevitableness of war, identified as a natural law, is one of the means those larger groups use in order to exert control on the masses. It isnt natural for all species to compete within their own population to bitter end. Why should it then be natural for conscious beings such as humans, to kill each other for obtaining goods beyond the natural limit of necessity?
History has shown many times, just as it has demonstrated the greedy aspirations of individuals pushing nations into war, that peaceful co-existence and a fair exploitation of environment is not only possible, but also more productive than bloodshed.
Maybe there hasn’t been a good historical record on peaceful redistribution of military power, but economical and cultural power are also just as strong indications of overall power, and unlike war, individuals vest their interests here. Although at times, it may seem that war is a faster (the only) way to get to those, it can only be brutally inhuman and often regressive in the long run. I honestly believe common people wouldn’t support any war, if they knew the obscure predatory reasons behind it.
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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