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The Unapproached Face of War  | | Carlos Latuff/ MWC NEWS |
Every time I open the Internet or read an article or inadvertently catch the TV news--I dislike TV programming immensely, so I only come across the news looking for sports--or even hunt through the shelves in stores for movies, all I see is war. War is everywhere, breaking out in or continuing to ravage countries around the world like a vicious pandemic.
Everyone's got the fever. Kill! Kill! Kill! And so there are articles and reports about the horrors of war, the atrocities; the civilians--men, women, children--slaughtered in the name of one righteous cause or another, one blood-thirsty god or another. I see or hear very little call for an end to war any more. Peace just isn't exciting news. It's not catching. War, war, war has numbed us, a kind of distal neuropathy where our extremities don't feel any more. This may be because of the nature of war, the draw. It is a completely overlooked facet of war. Perhaps, for some, a forbidden or not-to-be-considered characteristic. Selective blindness, like ignorance, is a favorite rationalization. More commonly, it's known as denial. A psychiatric aberration; one might even say delusion. What is the unmentionable? People like war. Both the fighters and the by-standers. War is exciting. Many soldiers return from war traumatized or upset by its atrocities, yet war was an intense, best-time-of-my-life experience--and it's missed, for all the hell. It is the only time they felt alive, despite the horror. A sudden stop to the high can bring on depression. Depression can be debilitating. Like a strung out addict, we need another shot. Nevertheless, people are always up for a fight. Even if it's just a hearty argument. We are a contentious species, ever ready to take sides. We enjoy a good fight. War's the biggest, baddest of 'em all. But it's not just the fighting, it's the build-up to war. The excitement generated spreads rapidly. Enthusiasm grows in leaps and bounds. It is infectious. We reach fever pitch, at which point it spills over to the actual happening. We enjoy war so much that any excuse at all is a good one. "Flimsy" is not part of the equation. Peaceniks are the anti-war warriors serving only to stoke the fire, an unintended consequence to be sure but undeniably true. That war has been around since time immemorial, war bespeaks our humanity. When did we become humans and stop being animals? No animal seeks out a battle, an argument. No animal specifically looks for war. If we humans can't find it, we will create it. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just as police out looking for trouble always find it. Our board games and computer games--even before the military became involved in designing them--are war games, fighting games, games of contention and death. Our sports are violent and, if they're not discordant enough, we'll create hostility around them. There is nothing so exhilarating as defeating an opponent (enemy)--and not just defeating him: breaking his back (leg, arm, neck, head), smashing him to bits, blowing him away, beating him to a pulp, knocking him out, killing him. Fighting, war, is all about survival. That's why it's so heady, so much fun! Even religions get into the game--with great fervor. When god is on your side, anything goes. Mass migrations are always fraught with strife. We have clashes of culture. We have racism and xenophobia. We have speech contests and beauty contests. We have rallies, protests and riots. We have stand-offs and police brutality. Doctors, scientists, fight diseases. Antibiotics kill. We all enjoy fighting the good fight. It's part of every hero tale. Even lovers have to fight and some people are always jealous. A war of jealousy ever kills love--but what a great battle it is! The worst situation to be in is a no-win situation. How frustrating! What a bottler-up of tension. There just has to be a winner! Y'know? However can we satisfy this drive without destroying ourselves entirely? That is, now that we have faced up to this knowledge, what are we going to do with it? Sit on it and ruminate over it like a cow chewing its cud or an ivory tower academic just happy as a lark over possessing knowledge, hovering over it like a miser? We have a great deal of knowledge about us, about human behavior, but the only people to use it are governments, propagandists, the advertising industry and war mongers. If you stop here, if you simply have the knowledge and stare at it like a marble statue under glass, this looks like a pretty bleak view of life, this liking and seeking out of war/fighting. And you will hate me, intensely, and want to beat me because I disagree with the community idea. As Doris Lessing notes, such a person is "a no-goodnik, a criminal, an evil-doer" (Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, p. 18). But there is always a minority that goes against the grain and it is, in the end, this minority that creates our future, that changes our thinking, our attitudes. We are neurotic, for in the face of reality, we will continue our delusion, we will fight for it, to the bitter end, even if it kills us. Which it will. How do we use this thinking? By looking at history and group dynamics. But young people do not read history. They love the cliché, "learn from history," but they don't learn. . .because they deny it. We are at a turning point. The denouement of humanity, if you will. The cusp of change. The knife-edge of the possible. I give you information that has been studied unto death. It's now time to do something with this knowledge. But you'll probably fight it. War with it. My sentiments are mirrored in Doris Lessing: [I] hope that your period of immersion in group lunacy, group self-righteousness, will not coincide with some period of your country's history when you can put your murderous and stupid ideas into practice. If you are lucky, you will emerge much enlarged by your experience of what you are capable of in the way of bigotry and intolerance. You will understand absolutely how sane people, in periods of public insanity, can murder, destroy, lie, swear black is white (Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, p. 30).
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 Jim is a retired professor, a writer-playwright living out on the edge of the Gobi Desert where the skies are clear, the air fresh and the water possibly the only non-polluted water in the country: mountain run-off from the year-round snow-capped Qilian Range, which he can see from his front patio. He can be reached at: znzfqlxskj@gmail.com any time night or day.
Other articles by this author: http://mwcnews.net/Jimsecor
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