sherlockholmes

I can understand how people view war as bad.

But it is also important to understand that every successful civilization, every society, every group out of which came progress, the entire foundation for anything you can think of that humanity uses today, was war. Everything we have had thus far has been the product of an empire asserting its power through force. But why? What reason does humanity have to revert to this?

For one, it is by far the easiest way to gain power and establish anything. Simply take everything by force and destroy what doesn't agree with you.

For two, it is the glue which holds a society together. Having a common enemy to fight against essentially unites a people in a common cause. People feel they have a stake in their society, or that their society is better, or they feel threatened, so force is deemed necessary.

It is somewhat the same thing that drives people to religion. Nietzche called it a "will to stupidity", a desire to lose onesself in something greater than onesself, a self-sacrifice for a greater cause, an eternal comfort which opiates the soul with essentially stupid ideas.

War requires the same sort of self-sacrificial drive that most popular religion does. It requires you to tell yourself, "I am not important, this is important, therefore, I give myself to it." As long as there exists people in this world who are willing to accept ANYTHING without questioning it, there will exist war.

However, despite this peculiar history of humanity, we have still created things which transcend it. Without this past, without these developments, without these things we deem idiotic and stupid and hateful and cruel and destructive, we would not have the knowledge and wisdom we do have.

There is no logical reason to get rid of war. There MUST be limits on population growth, why not allow people to be killed in wars? Humanity cannot continue expanding physically forever, things must come to a halt eventually. Any argument I have seen thus far to create world peace has been at heart based in morals, or ethics, or utopian optimism, and all of these things have no logical basis.

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ellis. d