Let’s play war

“Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.”

Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra. War and Warriors.
(Not my translation, of course, I found it in “the free library")

When I was a drone I reigned a lot of times over the Japanese people in Seven Kingdoms. I generously invested on investigation and only in the beginning I imposed taxes. In order to keep giving my people such a prosperous life, I had to explote every new source of resources and stablish village there or annex those ones which were already formed. Force was always my last choice. However, the interests of my kingdom used to get in conflict with other kingdoms’s. Sometimes the thing got fixed by trying to buy the other’s kingdom or... well, by exerting some harmless influence. The thing is, both my culture and my contenders’s had to prevail otherwise being annihilated because of lack of space or resources. So at the end the result was always the same: WAR. And well, certainly sending my powerful army, with their brave generals at command of my dogs of war and their advanced weapons... all the same was exciting. With this little memory I have wanted to start to present the topic of War.

There’s no doubt humans have, or have to have, the capacity of resolving their big conflicts by no violent measures like war; the problem is that most of times war has not to do with that, since I’m afraid it’s all about something apart, a thing with a purpose in itself and whose motivations are so surprisingly and sadly... valid? that you can get to the conclusion war is not just a human impulse. Let’s see:

War is lucrative

Investigation, development, experimentation of prototypes, production, instruction, commercialization and use of weapons and stuff related to military activity. Recruitment, training, lodging and feeding of troops. Taxes. Traffic of weapons. Profit from resources and post-war personnel... Got tired of listing. In other words, not even porn is a better business.

War is funny and have its own aesthetic

We cannot blame the toys industry: toy guns are not which seems real, the real ones do look like toys. Airplanes, cars, tanks, all those machines are designed like pieces of art; you see them and it does not seem their function were to annihilate or assist human annihilation. Movies, novels, TV shows and every form of entertainment whose main theme is the life of war, in certain way they seduce us, be that either Guy de Maupassant’s “Boule de Suif” or Starship Troopers. The camouflage fashion... the sexy camouflaged bikinis...

War promotes cohesion and creates alliances

We support war when we think that through it we can get rid of dangerous enemies or because we state that only by a war an oppressed people can reach its self-determination. Countries with apparently irreconcilable differences join themselves in the case of confronting other/s. Desmond Morris would be right and/or all those who said something similar when they state that humankind only will be united in peace when they may have to face an external threat (extraterrestrial).

War has its own overwhelming common sense

What can be more infallible to subject a human group to their will than exterminate a big part of it and then leave the rest threatened under the offensive power of weapons? Diplomacy may probably not be a genuine method to resolve international disputes but rather a way to save their nation the costs of a war or getting time while they prepare a better arsenal.

War is convenient for politicians and their beneficiaries

Maybe you all who really know more about politics than me know why.  For me is obvious that is easer to manipulate a democratic nation by appealing to their fear of insecurity, the fear of seen themselves threatened by armed enemies. “I will protect you but I need your money to do that”:  Is not that what gangsters say?

Culture does not allow consensus

OK, freedom of cult, expression, customs... but just try yourself  to form a “mega-nation” called Earth, protecting those differences. The way to treat a woman, the animals that  must not be eaten, the religious laws that must be followed, etc. Yes, things that are to respect, I guess, but in the long run they create differences so big they become radicalism, and “radical” now connotes “violence”

Humans are greedy animals

It’s never content with one, it wants two, even if that “two” means other’s one. Maybe it’s OK to be like that, at least while we find another planet to expand ourselves or build space stations to dwell in. That because if we all would had our basic needs satisfied then we would be consuming more and we may demand more self-determination; which will imply less resources, less space and less people willing to do undesired work. Perhaps, if science or robotics, or even better, if humankind may really progress... but  that would be an utopian fiction.

And well, I wanted to talk about hopes or possible solutions but I’m dying to play the demo of “Halo:Combat Evolved”. So bye bye.

2006, June 25th. El Jardín Lúgubre.