Will Durant says that, “In the eyes of a Darwinian world success would sanction every means.” He means by this, we think, that most individuals and nations will do whatever it takes to survive. In P-B, a worldview of scarcity, with the other always threatening on the horizon, perpetual violence is assured in the global village. Notice how World War II in the Pacific theater was inevitable given the way the Japanese saw “reality.”
“Out of such conditions [P-B worldview] imperialism is born—that is, the effort of an economic system [people seeking security, sensation and power] to exercise control, through its agent the government, over foreign regions upon which it is believed to depend for fuels, markets, materials or dividends. Where could Japan find those opportunities and those materials? She could not look to Indo-China, or India, or Australia, or the Philippines; for these had been preempted by Western powers, and their tariff walls favored their white masters against Japan.
“Clearly China had been placed at Nippon’s door as a providentially designed market for Japanese goods; and Manchuria—rich in coal and iron, rich in the wheat that the islands could not profitably grow, rich in human resources for industry, taxation and war—Manchuria belonged by manifest destiny [‘every means’ and every rationalization] to Japan. By what right? By the same right whereby England had taken India and Australia, France Indo-China, Germany Shantung, Russia Port Arthur, and America the Philippines—the right of the need of the strong. In the long run no excuses would be necessary; all that was needed was power and an opportunity.”
Individuals and nations do not have either rights or power; these are all illusion. All that exists in the march of evolution of the human narrative is fear driving the lust for property, pleasure and power. Illusion, illusion, all is illusion in P-B. And until we change our narrative, suffering, endless suffering.
_______________________________________________________
References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in the Simple Reality books:
Where Am I? Story – The First Great Question
Who Am I? Identity – The Second Great Question
Why Am I Here? Behavior – The Third Great Question
Science & Philosophy: The Failure of Reason in the Human Community
