On The Subject of War

Webster's defines war as a "contest by force between two or more nations or states" or as "The state or fact of exerting violence or force against a state or other Politically organized body..."

Hans Clausewitz, a German military office/writing in the 1800s, said in his classic treatise On War that war "is an act of violence intended to force our opponent to do our will." One of his best known definitions was that war is "...a mere continuation of policy by other means." Clausewitz did not regard war as an end in itself, as some modern political leaders appear to do.

Usually, the political leaders of nations avoid going to war, if they can get what they want peacefully.

The causes of war are many and the justifications often mixed. Disagreements are the basic general cause. And of course disagreements have numerous causes of their own, with conflicting territorial claims near the head, if not at the top, of the list. War over territory is more easily justified to the people who have to fight it and pay for it. To its credit, the United States has fought few wars of that nature.

Other causes of wars are less easily justifiable. They include desire for wealth, power, and greater national security. They also include conquest just for the sake 6f conquest.

Only the first of Webster's definitions is cause-neutral. It encompasses wars of defense as well as aggression. This essay is concerned only with wars of aggression.

Even though the causes of war may be selfish, base, or wicked, the reasons cited for going to war are claimed to be lofty or noble. Such claims are made in order to justify and obtain the cooperation of the population controlled by a political or religious leader.

Wars of aggression have been fought since the beginning of civilization. In ancient times, potentates went to war at the drop of a hat. Most of the time, the war was not approved by the people they ruled, so they often hired foreign mercenaries to do the dirty work.

The Bible is filled with references to war. A valid observation is that organized religions have, with divine sanction, of course, started as many, perhaps more, wars than organized political entities. (Odd, isn't it, that religions, which purport to advocate improvement of human beings, betterment of human relations, the teaching of compassion, use war as a weapon to achieve their ends? One is led to conclude that for religionists as well as communists "the end justifies the means.")

All readers of this essay, if there are any, are able to reel-off a long list of religious wars of aggression. The Crusades is a good example.

The next busiest practitioners of war as a weapon of aggression are politically organized groups, usually at the instigation of such fine, upstanding leaders as Ghengis Khan, Napoleon, or Hitler. (Odd, isn't it, that those same leaders regarded settlement by force and violence of a dispute within their countries as a crime whereas outside of the countries it was regarded as a war and therefor justified.

Why are religionists and politicians so willing to use war as a weapon of aggression? The answer is not easy to determine. Perhaps it is useful to start at the lowest level of understanding. Human beings are animals having some features similar to other animals—four-legged or two-legged.

However, human beings are set apart from all other living creatures by features such as high intelligence, the power of reason, the ability to use language, cultural building capabilities, possession of moral and spiritual qualities, perhaps even possession of a soul.

All animals, except the human ones, have no way to resolve their disputes other than by use of force or violence, (fight or flight). We humans admire animal fierceness, audacity, and courage, and we allow that the force and violence between and among them is normal. That's just the way they are; that's the law of the jungle.

Humans use force and violence despite it being considered in most instances as a crime. There are penalties for use, including in some legal areas the death sentence. Yet, curiously, some humans even admire its use, holding a kind of mystical reverence for the ruthless Mafia leader or any one else clever enough "to get away with it." Witness what is on TV and in the movies.

We even admire going to war (heady hero stuff), as long as the fighting is done by the guys and dolls down the street and in somebody else's yard. We create heros legends, myths, tall stories. And we construct huge graveyards, erect monuments and wailing walls such as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. We even retain and immortalize-destruction. Why?

Why do we lose sight of or ignore the features setting us apart from other animals—higher intelligence, reason, morality, spirituality.? Where do these go when the decisions are made to fight a war? Can it be that the human condition, despite superior human attributes, is dominated by emotions uncontrollable? Are we really that weak? Do we have recourse to force and violence because intellect and reason are too difficult to use?

Why do we inject God into war? Is it because we are convinced we can't control, improve, or save ourselves or because God, according to scripture, used war as a weapon therefor excusing our use of it? Believers in God maintain that He gave human kind superior intelligence, reason, morality and spirituality not just to enable rule of earth's living creatures but also to enable perfection of ourselves in His image. Why, then, do humans emulate other animals by using force and violence—why? Isn't human use of war a cop-out from our responsibilities as human beings?

Questions about use of war as a weapon of aggression are endless. Why do we delude ourselves by saying nations start wars? Nations are run by humans; nations are not un-human entities, therefor easier to blame. It's like saying federal bureaucrats are entitled to waste the money of taxpayers because taxpayers are anonymous, they have no identity, and therefor the bureaucrats are confident of escaping blame for waste. So it is with war, blame a nation then it's nobody's fault.

It is—somebody's fault! It's the fault of the political leader of a nation or the religious leader of a group. At the same time, it is the fault of the people who are subservient to these leaders, who too readily accept the "noble" of "lofty" justifications (nothing but forms of snake-oil) offered by the leaders. Where are superior intelligence, reason, morality, spirituality? How, in such circumstances, can humans claim to be get apart from other animals, if they so easily use the force and violence that are the mark of other animals?

As noted at the beginning of this essay, leaders usually decide to go to war to assure getting whatever is wanted, territory (somebody else's), wealth (earned by someone else), power (a security blanket), prestige or adoration (good for the ego).

Decisions to wage aggressive war rather than exercise intelligence and reason are cop-outs from human responsibility. They are cowardly decisions, made by leaders unable to stay the course without using violence, leaders impatient for instant gratification. They are cowardly, too, because the leader calls upon hundreds of thousands of innocent people to sacrifice themselves on the alter of ambition, greed, or incompetence.

Are we to believe that so long as nationalism and the nation-state system, religious rivalries, ethnic antagonisms, discrimination exist, the human animal is unable to rise above the base emotions of force and violence to manage human affairs.

Rise above humans must, if they have any hope of adding to their ability to assure continuing improvement, to progress to the edge of the universe and the threshold of perfection.

If they fail that mission, they might just as well return to the jungle and mingle intimately with earth's other animals.

...Robert Sturgill...

Ecological Families

The nuclear family is a synecological unit made up of parents and children, the parents joined in marriage, the children biological offspring of the union. The nuclear family may include adopted children, or it may include other than married couples, but the main component is parents and children. The nuclear family is child bearing adults and their children. The nuclear family is two generations. The nuclear family is a subset of the extended family. The extended family consists of the nuclear family in the context of grand parents making up three generations and collateral family members at each generation. Extended families may have some governance associated with them and they may coalesce into tribes and clans that own, control, and govern a set territory. This is the case in parts of the Middle East and in Africa today and among American Indian tribes.

Modern American families are organized almost entirely on the nuclear family basis, due largely to the factors of geography. Children leave home to go to school and the requirements of finding a job take them to other places. Laws against nepotism favor dispersed family individuals. The highly mobile American society scatters families as economic opportunities appear at widely different places in the nation. Modern living favors independent living, parents and children in their homes, and grandparents in theirs. We have nuclear families because we can afford to have them. Because of the lack of redundancy nuclear families are liable to a great deal of dysfunction.

Divorce is the greatest producer of dysfunction in the American family. Some forty percent of all couples that marry get divorced. Ninety-five per cent remarry so that it is not marriage that suffers it is family. Death, economic hardship, illness, and finally old age contribute to familial dysfunction.

Marriage legalizes heterosex and provides for establishing a legal framework for the association and legal parenthood of the children. It gives the children certain rights which are now just being elaborated in the courts of law. It may also define a partition of goods upon separation and divorce, and other legal attributes such as access to health care of the spouse, retirement or social security benefits, and heirship.

A number of variants of the nuclear family have arisen in recent years, driven by economics in part, but also driven by the desire for alternative life styles. We have all heard of famous 'palimony' cases where, usually, wealthy men have been ordered to pay support for ex live-in girl friends. We are now encountering gay groups who are insisting that they be allowed to 'marry.' And a newly formed group of bisexuals are clamoring for recognition. There are numerous instances of elderly brothers and sisters living together or with other family members or with friends. In an economic climate where both spouses must work to make ends meet, it is not surprising that similarly organized but unmarried households are experiencing the same problem. It is becoming increasing important for both spouses to work and to be able to share health insurance, and welfare and social security payments, and it is just as important for this to occur in non-married households.

What is needed to bring some ecological order to these disparate relationships is a legal recognition for householders to be able to share benefits of each other, in the same way married couples can share. The need to share and support is just as great, what is absent is the legal basis. I would propose that this problem could be solved by society adopting a legal procedure to create legal companions.

Since sex was and is strictly a matter of privacy, marriage bonds should not be the determining factor, but privacy and age should be. The marriage contract is most useful for defining the family and giving the members certain rights. The marriage contract is no way at all to control sex—homosex or heterosex or to sanctify it. Sex is an animal biological function. It operates in all the biological world without fail. ("Whales do it, snails do it...") The great factor we get from our animal behavior, one that surely qualifies as humane, is altruism. Altruism should be sanctified as an indication that there was God before there was Homo sapiens L.

Many people, voluntarily, live together for myriad reasons. They form a stable, economically viable social unit. They meet their daily requirements to survive and thrive. The group may include children as well as adults and indeed may comprise two or three generations. These social units, regardless, of sexual preferences if any, need to be recognized as legal units for the basis of benefiting from the social and economic laws of the nation.

Marriage is voluntary and companionship should be voluntary. Entering into a legal relationship is also voluntary. When the companions enter this relationship they agree altruistically to look after each others needs, share the wealth et al and raise children properly, sending them to school, looking after their health etc. Entering into companionship should entail a simple ceremony of declaration of intent and should be duly noted in the records of the jurisdiction administering the oaths and accepting the affirmations. A record should be duly made and recorded for this and all time. The current divorce laws should cover the question of companions separating as well as they do separations in marriage.

The fragmentation of the extended family, and the increasing isolation of the nuclear family has severely stressed the socioecological integrity of the biological family causing significant dysfunction. As traditional forms of the family come under social stress and trauma, variant forms of intimate social interaction are replacing the values of the nuclear family. Societal acceptance of variant sex preferences are also giving rise to alternative family arrangements. If we are willing to accept the concept of biodiversity we must realize the consequences of freedom to choose life styles will result in alternatives to the nuclear and extended family. To the extent that social living reduces stress, promotes healthy interactions, provides, economic as well as ecological security, and promotes altruism, we should encourage stable household relationships. Legal companions is an ecological answer to otherwise social dysfunction.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1993
Institute for domestic Tranquility