Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Why Do We Fight? Part One

There are 6,909 languages, about 194 nations, and more than 5,000 ethnic groups in the world. Yet, we as humans have had less than ONE MONTH of peace in our recorded history. There is just one thing that I can’t understand. Why?






Invasions, conflicts, and empires with the need to “spread their love of country” have become nothing more than an inferiority complex gone awry. How can one spread love with the use of violence, oppression, and mass killings? Never has any man converted to another man’s way of thinking by making him subjugate. But many perilously venture into a tradeoff that offers little or no value to either side.






While many live with a love of what they have pride for, does it make sense for one man’s pride to become a doctrination for others? Where do pride end and a pathological sense of exceptionalism take over? Is there a better than? Is there a superior? In a species that is capable of both love and hate can we have a superior subset? Is it possible with the variables of exception and anomalies, to possess such a subset? Has any group ever garnered power or an empire and that empire been absolute?






Can man homogenize a group of people and still retain his humanity? If not, what does that say about those that witness it and do nothing? Is ethnic cleansing a process that exists without leaving us all with blood on our hands?






In the last 100 years there have been over 200 million deaths from wars, slavery, occupations, and just simple murders. I know there isn’t anything simple about murder, but I'm just speaking on individuals and their lust for blood. They range from petty theft to killing for an insurance policy. Whether it is psychotic, sociopathic, patriotic, or just simple greed; we are prolific in our needless extermination of one another.






As we have become more advanced in our technology, we have become more surgical in our killing. With the military industrial complex, the “war for profit” relationship between defense contractors and governments, killing is a business. That business is good. The question is for whom? Does man benefit from killing or dying?






Is it for the little kid in Vietnam that wants to grow up to be a doctor but was killed in 67 by troops? What about Iraqi woman that wanted to make fabric, but had her life extinguished by an IED? Or the kid from Iowa that wanted to teach, but lost his life in Afghanistan while serving in the reserves?






Are we just pawns fighting for an imaginary cause? Is there a better way? Do we have the ability to seek the path of benevolence? Can one group prove its greatness by destroying the greatness of another? Or are we doomed to continue the exceptionalist pathology? How much blood does it take to prove dominance?

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