Does war perpetuate because we die?

[Iamme]

I kinda think it does.

When we are young, we learn new things. We are always learning throughout our life. People have joked by saying that "no sooner do you get to know everything, and then you die". Sad, but on the track of being true. (Maybe not EVERYTHING..but you know what i mean.) We sure know a heck of a lot more than what we did, from a skill angle and from the angle of becoming "wise".

When we are younger, we are also stronger and more fit.

Put together the lack of experiences and strength and you have 2 necessary ingredients for war. Young people don't know, I don't think, how very serious war can be. They are more easily shaped by their elders and their leaders, as to what is expected of them. Then they go into battle with the exubberance of youth, ready to conquer, so everybody thinks.

Now...if a person say lived for 200 years or so...don't you suppose that all parties involved...those warring factions...would say, "Ya know...this just ain't working. This is futile. It's senseless. We have been trying to kill each other for hundreds of years. What's wrong with this picture? There is no end in sight. Let's do something about this."

Now let's carry this one step further and bring religion into the mix. In the Bible, it says that someday there will be no more suffering, no more pain...wars will be no more. At the same time...science tells us that it may be possible we could live longer than what we live today; a LOT longer. Now, if THAT were to happen...then I could easily see how there could be fulfillment of the point I raised about no more war.

Also, a little off topic....if we lived longer, people wouldn't be wasting 1/4 of their life in relearning everything their parents...the people that came before them... learned. This means that those additional 20 years could be applied to higher education in learning more...creating more...solving more...and this then could lead to the prophesied utopian state.

What do you think?

 

[Dancing David]

Interesting idea, but in modern times the young men go die for the older men, so I am not sure about the life extension thing.

Marx would say that there will be war as long as there is economic benefit to war.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

War is in our genes. We have to evolve out of it. I'm not holding my breath.

~~ Paul

 

[Hellbound]

Have to agree with other posters.

War is often started by old men, even though fought by the young.

And, quite frankly, even old men get into fistfights (the personal equivalent of war).

War (and, by extension, violence) will exist as long as there are people with conflicting wants or needs who will not or cannot compromise. Basically, as long as any resource is limited, there will be conflict. Agression and competition are built into our species, as they are in all predators.

An more interesting tangent on this, if anyone wishes to pursue it, is could humanity function if this aggressive/competitive drive were removed? If we could change our physiology and psychology enough to prevent war and conflicts, would we still be able to function and grow as a society? Personally, I think it's a necessary evil...the same drives that push us to war and to violence also push us into exploration, discovery, and basically to the limits of most of our endeavors.

 

[Soapy Sam]

No. It perpetuates (is that a reflexive verb?) because we don't die fast enough.

 

[epepke]

I recently saw the Star Trek TOS season episode where some alien entity, represented by some primitive special effects, gets some Klingons on the Enterprise and gives everyone swords so they can hack each other to bits and provide, by some unspecified McGuffin associated with their emotions, sustenance to the alien. One major plot point was that the alien caused the Klingons and Humans to regenerate quickly, thus ensuring more carnage. It produced the amusing piece of doggerel: "In the heart, in the head, I won't stay dead."

 

[Iamme]

But is it because man just does not live long enough? Wouldn't man realize the futility of war...given enough time? If the aging process is extended, it most likely would not be where adulthood is reached between the mid teens and early twenties, and woman produce only to age 50, and geriatric care is common at age 80. No. the time lines would all get pushed back.

That means that in time of war, you could have men, who are now too old to go into the service, getting called up for service for not just one major war...but for two or three or four, let's say. Don't you think then that the futility of it all would start to register?

Picture the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Can you imagine having this Hatfield-McCoy thing going on in your life for 3oo? years, and not bending an inch?

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Geez, we' ve all been around long enough to see the stupidity of war. Look at the people having wars. What causes war? Mindsets. The older you get, the more you get set in your ways. The youngest societies are the ones that stopped warring. It's the age old types that cling to thousands of years of hatred that continue to fight. It's tit for tat forever. It's the old folks that perpetuate the eternal warring, by teaching the younger ones to kill everybody they hate for killing their ancestors.

What else causes war? Greed, the hunger for power...the old ways got you power by killing the other guy in power.

Having one guy making up all the rules causes a lot of unhappy people. You had to kill him to make things change. But you had to get past all his fat and happy supporters first with your own army.

Then the unhappy warmongers look at their happy and peaceful neighbors and want what they have. So warrior leaders point to the happy people and tell all the unhappy people to hate the happy people instead of you-the happy people must be doing something to keep you down. Scapegoats can keep you in power.

So who is surviving? The best killers. They breed their genes to the next generation. For thousands of years we operated this way.

Finally some nations are surviving on wits instead of brawn. Making better weapons this way, and swatting down the warriors who have more brawn than brains.

So using our brains will stop war, not living longer. People who pull up their roots and forget the old history and move on with their lives. When you suddenly have better things to do than hold a grudge and spend all your time and energy plotting deaths.

When you can stop caring what others believe or think. When you can think that idiots will be taken care of by their own stupidity without affecting your survival. By using your brain to get enough behind you to say "just try it" when idiots do want to affect your survival negatively.

This is how I see most of the warring nations. You have people holding grudges. Then you have few leaders that are doing okay, and don't want to share with the masses, and pointing to innocent bystanders as who to hate instead of their own greedy butts (I have all the money, but if I share it with everybody, then I can't have as much fun...so distract them with a scapegoat-build a bunch of churches/mosques, and call everybody else evil-preach lies and false history-have the hungry people hate their neighbors instead of their greedy leader).

Just think of a parent who wants nice clothes and eat out at restaurants-at their chidren's expense. The parent then tells the kids that the neighbor is stealing all your money, so hate the neighbor, not thier poor hardworking parent. Send the kids to bed hungry while you pull your expensive chocolates out from under your own bed. You do spend some money teaching your kids to become ninjas as a distraction and promise they can get the neighbor someday and get their money back. You have this oblivious neighbor that gets whacked when the kids get old enough to do some real harm. Now the neighbor's kids get mad because their parent is dead. They vow revenge. Vicious cycle starts.

Then some day there is a flood and everybody scatters. Too distracted fighting for their lives, they forget about their enemies. Their kids grow up. They don't remember their enemies...so they can go on happily until some scenario starts up fights again.

Nowadays we can look at the world around us, and hopefully see past a bad parent's lies and knock them off for a better parent/leader instead of fighting with our neighbors. We can have systems in place where you can hire a new leader without having to kill the old one. This is democracy.

Religion is problem because it teaches you to hate others that don't have the same beliefs. You have populations of people thinking each other is evil and a polluter of thoughts. When you have the flood scenario (mentioned earlier), you have isolated populations making up their own religions. Then they grow in size and run into each other. Add in scapegoatism and a few other lies, feuds, etc. War starts up.

With a democracy religion doesn't matter. Think what you want, who cares. Just let's run things and get on with our lives. We can learn to settle disagreements in other ways, instead of fighting. You can learn to get along instead of hating each other for what the other believes. You can hold votes instead of having civil wars. Change the whole mindset. Even then you get pockets of people preaching hate, but they are a minority. People clinging to old ideas and old grudges. A lesson on how close we all are still to our past ways, but at least getting smarter and fighting less.

It's not so much the age of individuals that matters when it comes to matters of war.

 

[Iamme]

Eos--- Very well thought out post.


(Eos) Geez, we' ve all been around long enough to see the stupidity of war.

(Iamme) But perhaps more thought would come to ones mind if they had to actually SERVE in a few wars? A minority of people serve in moswt conflicts or hostile uprisings. It's easy for the masses to chant, "Kill emmmm! Kill em!!!!"...for every war that comes along.

It's also too convenient for political leaders to get other people to fight their wars. They too might reconsider if they themselves had to lead the charge along the front lines.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Eos--- Very well thought out post.


(Eos) Geez, we' ve all been around long enough to see the stupidity of war.

(Iamme) But perhaps more thought would come to ones mind if they had to actually SERVE in a few wars? A minority of people serve in moswt conflicts or hostile uprisings. It's easy for the masses to chant, "Kill emmmm! Kill em!!!!"...for every war that comes along.

It's also too convenient for political leaders to get other people to fight their wars. They too might reconsider if they themselves had to lead the charge along the front lines.

Hey thanks, I can be long winded sometimes, but at least it isn't coming off as just rambling

I used to think about the "what if the leaders were fighting on the front line"

Well, in many cases they are. Saddam ended up in a hole. There are other leaders with targets on their heads leading attacks in Iraq right now. They might not be in the front line, but they do have targets on their heads.

Now Bush and Blair are another matter, but I do understand and encourage their fighting back at the craziness that has been coming out of extremists lately.

I have asked if anybody would stop Hitler if they had a chance, and I've heard tons of people say "of course". If you only knew how many people Saddam killed outright-he is guilty of genocide. I'll try to find the link. He is great at digging up scapegoats and disposing of them. I just wish somebody had stopped Pol Pot.

At risk of losing what I am posting, I will post and search out the links.

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/KO News/16-12-03-opinion-hawramany-we-got-him.html

http://mountaingirl.blogs.com/journeytoiraq/2003/12/genocide_of_the.html

Point being, whatever starts the war, it has to be resolved and not carry on like in the middle east.

""For Saddam's scientists, the Kurds were a test population," she said. "They were the human guinea pigs. It was a way of identifying the most effective chemical agents for use on civilian populations, and the most effective means of delivery."

The charge is supported by others. An Iraqi defector, Khidhir Hamza, who is the former director of Saddam's nuclear-weapons program, told me earlier this year that before the attack on Halabja military doctors had mapped the city, and that afterward they entered it wearing protective clothing, in order to study the dispersal of the dead. "These were field tests, an experiment on a town," Hamza told me. He said that he had direct knowledge of the Army's procedures that day in Halabja. "The doctors were given sheets with grids on them, and they had to answer questions such as 'How far are the dead from the cannisters?'...

Most of the Kurds who were murdered in the Anfal were not killed by poison gas; rather, the genocide was carried out, in large part, in the traditional manner, with roundups at night, mass executions, and anonymous burials. The bodies of most of the victims of the Anfal—mainly men and boys—have never been found.
"
"We arrived at midnight," Baban told me. "They put us in a very big room, with more than two thousand people, women and children, and they closed the door. Then the starvation started."

The prisoners were given almost nothing to eat, and a single standpipe spat out brackish water for drinking. People began to die from hunger and illness. When someone died, the Iraqi guards would demand that the body be passed through a window in the main door. "The bodies couldn't stay in the hall," Baban told me. In the first days at Nugra Salman, "thirty people died, maybe more." Her six-year-old son, Rebwar, fell ill. "He had diarrhea," she said. "He was very sick. He knew he was dying. There was no medicine or doctor. He started to cry so much." Baban's son died on her lap. "I was screaming and crying," she said. "My daughters were crying. We gave them the body. It was passed outside, and the soldiers took it."

Soon after Baban's son died, she pulled herself up and went to the window, to see if the soldiers had taken her son to be buried. "There were twenty dogs outside the prison. A big black dog was the leader," she said. The soldiers had dumped the bodies of the dead outside the prison, in a field. "I looked outside and saw the legs and hands of my son in the mouths of the dogs. The dogs were eating my son." She stopped talking for a moment. "Then I lost my mind."

The Kurds have grown sanguine about the world's lack of interest. "I've learned not to be surprised by the indifference of the civilized world," Barham Salih told me one evening in Sulaimaniya. Salih is the Prime Minister of the area of Kurdistan administered by the Patriotic Union, and he spoke in such a way as to suggest that it would be best if I, too, stopped acting surprised. "Given the scale of the tragedy—we're talking about large numbers of victims—I suppose I'm surprised that the international community has not come in to help the survivors," he continued. "It's politically indecent not to help. But, as a Kurd, I live with the terrible hand history and geography have dealt my people."

. I asked Salih why the money designated by the U.N. for the Kurds wasn't being used for advanced medical treatment. The oil-for-food program has one enormous flaw, he replied. When the program was introduced, the Kurds were promised thirteen per cent of the country's oil revenue, but because of the terms of the agreement between Baghdad and the U.N.—a "defect," Salih said—the government controls the flow of food, medicine, and medical equipment to the very people it slaughtered. Food does arrive, he conceded, and basic medicines as well, but at Saddam's pace.

When I went to Kurdistan in January to report on the 1988 genocide of the Kurds, I did not expect to be sidetracked by a debate over U.N. sanctions. And I certainly didn't expect to be sidetracked by crimes that Saddam is committing against the Kurds now—in particular "nationality correction," the law that Saddam's security services are using to implement a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

in 1999 Iraqi troops in white biohazard suits suddenly surrounded the Shiite holy city of Karbala, in southern Iraq, which has been the scene of frequent uprisings against Saddam.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020325fa_FACT1

 

[Outcast]

Here is interesting theory about the cause of war based on evolutionary biology

"What triggers most wars is not ideology or honor, says a new theory based on evolutionary biology, but a society bottom-heavy with young, unmarried and violence-prone males. When their numbers become too great, this explanation holds, they form 'coalitions' bent on seizing territory, goods or other resources they need to marry and have offspring....

"While saying their work is not yet sufficiently developed to make firm predictions, Mesquida said one country where conditions may be brewing trouble is China, in part because a preference for male children is creating a growing imbalance. Soon after the turn of the century there is expected to be a million more young men than young women."
Clips from article by Richard Saltus, Boston Globe, 9/21/98, p. C1.

'Let him who desires peace, prepare for war.' - Vegetius Epitoma Rei Militaris, 4th century, A.D.

Peace through strength is the doctrine that military strength is a primary or necessary component of peace.

After WWII two superpowers, the Soviet Union and America faced off. Today America is the only superpower. During the past 60 years there have been no major wars. There have been other times in history when there has been peace imposed by a major power. Europe under the control of the Romans, Asia under the control of the Mongolians and the 1800's under the control the British Empire. If we had the will to use our military power, we could impose peace throughout the world.

"And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like brass; and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins." (Leviticus 26:18-21 RSV)

As for as youth go, the most fanatical fighters in Europe were Hitler’s Youth. Even the regular German solider was scared of them They would fight to the death in the most hopeless situation and shoot anyone that tried to surrender to the Allies.

At the Pichelsdorf bridges, 5,000 boys, wearing man-sized uniforms several sizes too big and helmets that flopped around on their heads, stood by with rifles and Panzerfausts, ready to oppose the Soviet Army. Within five days of battle, 4,500 had been killed or wounded. In other parts of Berlin, HJ boys met similar fates. Many committed suicide rather than be taken alive by the Red Army.

Considering the Soviet’s hatred for the German and their willingness to sacrifice troops in battle, think what it would take to hold up the Red Army for five days. Hitler's Boy Soldiers: 1939 - 1945

 

[Iamme]

(Outcast)


As for as youth go, the most fanatical fighters in Europe were Hitler’s Youth. Even the regular German solider was scared of them They would fight to the death in the most hopeless situation and shoot anyone that tried to surrender to the Allies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This reminds me of the scene in the Sound of Music, when young Rolfe would not even listen to the pleas of his girlfriend Liezel, and blew his whistle for al his cohorts to converge on the cowering Von Tapp family at the Abbey.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Yes, the kids follow their leaders-not having much else to do or not being taught to think about anything else.

Goes along with what I said about generations teaching hate.

 

[Darat]

I kinda think it does.

When we are young, we learn new things. We are always learning throughout our life. People have joked by saying that "no sooner do you get to know everything, and then you die". Sad, but on the track of being true. (Maybe not EVERYTHING..but you know what i mean.) We sure know a heck of a lot more than what we did, from a skill angle and from the angle of becoming "wise".

When we are younger, we are also stronger and more fit.

Put together the lack of experiences and strength and you have 2 necessary ingredients for war. Young people don't know, I don't think, how very serious war can be. They are more easily shaped by their elders and their leaders, as to what is expected of them. Then they go into battle with the exubberance of youth, ready to conquer, so everybody thinks.

Now...if a person say lived for 200 years or so...don't you suppose that all parties involved...those warring factions...would say, "Ya know...this just ain't working. This is futile. It's senseless. We have been trying to kill each other for hundreds of years. What's wrong with this picture? There is no end in sight. Let's do something about this."

Now let's carry this one step further and bring religion into the mix. In the Bible, it says that s...wars will be no more. At the same time...science tells us that it may be possible we could live longer than what we live today; a LOT longer. Now, if THAT were to happen...then I could easily see how there could be fulfillment of the point I raised about no more war.

Also, a little off topic....if we lived longer, people wouldn't be wasting 1/4 of their life in relearning everything their parents...the people that came before them... learned. This means that those additional 20 years could be applied to higher education in learning more...creating more...solving more...and this then could lead to the prophesied utopian state.

What do you think?

Your conclusions do not logically follow your premises and some of your facts are wrong.

Please explain how longevity of life necessarily means that the nature and behaviour of humans would change.

The Bible does not say “someday there will be no more suffering, no more pain”, the Bible says that for the majority of the world’s population (as it is at the moment) this is not true. The Bible only says that a minority of humans will no longer “suffer”.

 

[BillyTK]

There was a belief back in the eighties that nuclear war was inevitable, because the proliferation of nuclear weapons was the manifestation of Ronald Reagan's death wish, because he was old, and faced witht he prospect of his death was preparing to die. I don't buy it for a couple of reasons; the first is because I've had the privilege of knowing a number of people who had come to terms with their imminent death (either through terminal illness or old age), and displayed a tremendous peace and serenity and would be the least likely of all people to initiate harm and suffering to others. The second and main objection is something called the fundamental attribution error, in which we over-emphasise internal factors as the explanation for behaviour at the expense of situational factors.

So for instance, no, I wouldn't travel back in time and kill Hitler as a child. This would have had no effect on the economic and social conditions that Germany was to experience, and the nature of these things is such that even without Hitler, these conditions would have fetched up someone as equally reprehensible as Hitler. The only solution would be to examine the factors which led to Hitler's rise, and kill everyone who was associated with those factors as well as everyone who could have potentially been involved in them.

The key issue for me is our willingness to compromise our moral sovereignty in the face of authority. Although a key feature of, for instance, Hitler's rule or Saddam Hussein's rise to power, it's not a unique feature; as Stanley Milgram's electric shock experiment or Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment showed that even the most ordinary, normal and well adjusted people, given the right conditions, are capable of the most atrocious acts. and it's exactly the same factors which lead people to support and fight wars, and why they will continue to support and fight wars.

 

[Beerina]

I recently saw the Star Trek TOS season episode where some alien entity, represented by some primitive special effects, gets some Klingons on the Enterprise and gives everyone swords so they can hack each other to bits and provide, by some unspecified McGuffin associated with their emotions, sustenance to the alien. One major plot point was that the alien caused the Klingons and Humans to regenerate quickly, thus ensuring more carnage. It produced the amusing piece of doggerel: "In the heart, in the head, I won't stay dead."

About 8 years ago, I was playing the new Quake online, in the Capture the Flag game (2 teams, rather than shoot-everyone-free-for-all).

This exact episode popped up in my mind. Here we were, two teams in a tiny little world, running around grabbing a flag, killing each other over and over, regenerating, go back and kill some more, you bastards! You bastards! Gimme that flag back! I then mentioned it in-game, no one cared. Too deep for 'em, I guess.

Then my buddy named himself "Hey, Sue!"*, and started running around preaching that it was all pointless. Stop the fighting! Stop the madness!



* = If you figure out what this means, you may have access to the Puzzles forum.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

So for instance, no, I wouldn't travel back in time and kill Hitler as a child. This would have had no effect on the economic and social conditions that Germany was to experience, and the nature of these things is such that even without Hitler, these conditions would have fetched up someone as equally reprehensible as Hitler. The only solution would be to examine the factors which led to Hitler's rise, and kill everyone who was associated with those factors as well as everyone who could have potentially been involved in them.

The key issue for me is our willingness to compromise our moral sovereignty in the face of authority. Although a key feature of, for instance, Hitler's rule or Saddam Hussein's rise to power, it's not a unique feature; as Stanley Milgram's electric shock experiment or Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment showed that even the most ordinary, normal and well adjusted people, given the right conditions, are capable of the most atrocious acts. and it's exactly the same factors which lead people to support and fight wars, and why they will continue to support and fight wars.

Very insightful, and got me thinking even more. I did read a biography of Hitler, and it seems he was a key player in a lot of areas of the things leading up to his reign of terror.

More importantly though you've brought up that there are other factors that did and always will happen in spite of the leader that it results in placing in rule.

I'm struggling on those points. I know one is poverty, but that is a result of others' actions as well. Then in Hitler's case he used jews as scapegoats to blame that on.

I'm hoping there are more specific points that can be raised on this issue of human cycles and behaviours that lead to war.

And it is scary to think, as in the examples, that ordinary people like you and I may be capable of similar behaviour. I like to deny that as much as possible, but must face it in order to prevent it. Awareness is key to prevention.

 

[Batman Jr.]

A recurring theme I see in all of these musings is the concept of the "herd mentality," something which I agree is deleterious to any prospect of peace in the world. I offer to take this observation a step further by questioning the very ontology of government—particularly that government which designates itself as “free.” We clearly see the problems that arise when one person exerts his/her malicious influence on another and that other person accepts it, so why is it that we seldom realize the consistencies between the quandaries created by this situation and those of its macrocosmic analogue, governance/nationalism? It seems some of us invoke the concept of democracy in government as some kind of panacea to these ills, but I suffice it to say that this only shows how we've been so well brainwashed by that self-proclaimed "greatest nation in the world" in which some of us reside (I'm talking about the USA).

Think about it. If a skilled demagogue is capable of bending the public to his desires, what efficacy would a vote from those manipulated masses/congressmen have in thwarting his soon to be committed atrocities (in fact, one may argue that Bush was able to effect Gulf War II by playing off of everyone’s fear of 9/11, despite there being no sufficient link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda)?