War

Humans have declared and fought wars for thousands of years. Most anthropologists say that it is in fact part of human nature.

But is war really inevitable? Are there such things as extraordinary cases which only wars can resolve? Is there anything good that comes out of war? If humans had not fought wars at all, or fought it less often, do you think we would be living in a better place?

I think war is too complex for someone with my limited knowledge to give a reasonable answer to some of those questions. All I can say for sure is that, for those who fight in them, it can quite often push them to the outer bounds of sanity (and often over). I read a really good book back in university as part of a course on the topic of war, "The Thin Red Line" (you have to read the book, the theme of the movie adaptation is very different) and it really drives home just how much war can screw people up.

The struggle to overcome adversity does often make people stronger. But war leaves too many mental scars. It's too much to handle all at once and the consequences are too severe. PTSD leaves people jumping at shadows, for that matter.

I don't think that killing people is ever the solution to anything. Of course wars have had a lot of positive effects and influences as well, but I do not adhere to death of people because of ideology, nationality or any other reason one might have to start a war.

Blu·Ray said:

I don't think that killing people is ever the solution to anything. Of course wars have had a lot of positive effects and influences as well, but I do not adhere to death of people because of ideology, nationality or any other reason one might have to start a war.

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So do you think our world today would be any better off without the concept of war? Remember that we eventually rose from tribal living to civilization through wars. And that involved killing people.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that war was necessary to develop civilization.

Kanzler said:

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that war was necessary to develop civilization.

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How so? The first civilizations rose and maintained peace through war.

Humans wouldn't ever not develop war, in any version of this world - war is a natural extension of our basest impulses. Once we use violence to get our way, the next logical step is for weaker people to get stronger people to protect them. This continues until you have war, for whatever reason - resources or religion or political alliances.

Regardless of if we would be better off without war in some theoretical world, it would never be an option in the real world. We live in a physical world, so physical violence is too instinctual.

The Void said:

How so? The first civilizations rose and maintained peace through war.

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Maintaining peace through war is not really peace - perhaps only for the victors. Just because war is the common factor throughout all of civilization does not mean that civilization is dependent on it. There is no control variable.

Sin is running rampant in our world... in fact, it's getting worse. War is a result of sin. Sin is inevitable, and therefore war is too. War is never neccessary, but it is. Its a paradox. Military leaders, and other countries are just evil (I'm not saying everyone is). It can be inevitable because of their unpredictable nature and sin. :(

Kanzler said:

Maintaining peace through war is not really peace - perhaps only for the victors. Just because war is the common factor throughout all of civilization does not mean that civilization is dependent on it. There is no control variable.

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Then how do you propose civilizations would have risen without war?

BadPokemon said:

Sin is running rampant in our world... in fact, it's getting worse. War is a result of sin. Sin is inevitable, and therefore war is too. War is never neccessary, but it is. Its a paradox. Military leaders, and other countries are just evil (I'm not saying everyone is). It can be inevitable because of their unpredictable nature and sin. :(

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Define evil.

The Void said:

Then how do you propose civilizations would have risen without war?



Define evil.

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Bad, corrupt, sinful (more than the average person), terrible, cruel. One with very bad plans to hurt others. These are just some examples.

I sometimes look at war and conflict in this way:

If you were too "zoom in" on the inner workings of the human body, you would see cells dying and regenerating, microorganisms eating one another, food being broken down and torn apart. It's only when you change your level of magnification that you can see all of these things working in harmony. What is seen as conflict at one perspective is seen as harmony from a higher/deeper/wider perspective.

So in the same way, if we were able to see the evolution of the earth from a higher altitude, we might find that what is experienced as war and conflict from the human perspective is experienced as the harmonious inner workings of Gaia from a supra-human perspective.

Note that this is not the same as saying that one is strengthened by dealing with conflict (true as that may be). Strength through adversity is still coming from an individual perspective.


I also find it helpful to consider how short a time humans have been around, in the grand scheme of things. It could be the case that we are experiencing the "growing pains" of a sentient species in its youth.

Warfare is endemic to the human condition, although obviously the technology involved has changed with the times.

And actually, warfare has driven the growth of human civilization in that the constant ebb and flow of conflict has driven technological and societal advances that in turn advance civilization. You don't have a lot of innovation and technology that we have today unless you have a conflict that necessitates it. So civilization is the way it is due to warfare and the impact that war brings with it. Part of warfare's omnipresence in human history has to do with the need to survive, and sometimes cultures collide with one another in a bloody fight for survival - the Central American empires and the Spanish, Native American tribes and European settlers, the list goes on and on. We may live in a modern world now, for the most part, but there will always be war in some form so long humans act the way they do with regards to differences and when it comes to basic, primal instincts like survival.

Yes war imo is inevitable. To an extent it's in mankind's nature to be violent, (not saying all humans are violent I'm saying based on history we've always resorted to violence) but it's not just mankind, even in the wild theirs violence. Almost all living creatures are violent in the wild and always have been, it's survival of the fittest.

But as far as humans go, greed get's the best of us and that itself causes wars and violence even between countries. If a country wants something another country has they will do everything in their power to get it for their own pleasure even if they gotta kill. Mankind is just evil and hungry. Yeah there's a lot of good people in this world but there's also a lot of evil people that are just selfish and don't value other peoples lives. The evil people are the ones that will resort to violence and sometimes even wars because it's in their nature. It's just something that we have no control over.

any opportunity to plug a song that fits my thoughts on the thread and I take it. (prefer the Frankie Goes To Hollywood one because I'm a dirty scouser)

Every mind has the capability to innovate, and I refuse to believe that war should be the only reason we innovate. If anything, we've taken lives that could well have provided some ground-breaking creations that we'll never see. It's a waste of money and resources to pool it into military might- imagine how many materials we've wasted on it over all these years? The real war is ensuring this Earth remains a pleasant inhabitable environment, but as we're for the most part only concerned with immediate danger, we're going to lose that war. But that's okay because we might get to kill the bad guys and that matters more than optimising our quality of life in terms of not wasting our resources, trashing the environment, scarring people for life and straining relationships between countries.