The Nature of the Universe
Kind Lady Venus, cause the savage work of war
to rest in calm surcease throughout the sea and land.
For you, and you alone, can bless mankind with quiet
peace; all the savage work of war is ruled by Mars
the warrior, who often sinks upon your breast
a helpless victim of the quenchless wound of love;
with supple neck supine, he gazes up to you,
feasting his greedy eyes and drinking in your beauty,
a captive hanging helpless on your breathing lips.
Embrace him with your sacred body, Lady Venus,
and while he lies enraptured, speak sweet pleading words
beseeching him to grant the Romans rest and peace.
Lucretius
The Roman poet Lucretius seems to believe that reason and logic can solve all of humankind’s problems including our propensity to seek solutions through the activity of warfare. Mystics understand that a deeper realization will be necessary for peace on earth.
One human behavior common between and within nations today is the waging of war. History tells us it has always been thus. Our tolerance for mass violence seems to be inexhaustible and it’s been said that every day of every year there is a war being fought somewhere in the global village. “If the last 500 years have shown us anything, it is that radical change happens, repeatedly. Yet in their [the authors of The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State] cheery tour of the last few centuries, they never grapple with a still troubling truth: The evolution of the “ever-improving” Western system of governance is inextricably bound up with mass carnage.”
In a quick review of western civilization, although the facts are well known to students of history, they bear repeating. “The modern nation-state emerged out of the religious wars that decimated Central Europe in the 17th century, while the 18th and 19th century reforms praised by the authors [again, of the Fourth Revolution] were bound up with the American and French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian War and the wars of Italian unification, among others. Adjusting for population size, the death rates in these conflicts were staggering—and this is to say nothing of the wars of colonial domination that helped fuel the West’s economic expansion. The emergence of the modern welfare state is similarly bound up with the 20th century’s two catastrophic wars.” And we have entered the 21st century not knowing what the future will bring—except for those of us who are familiar with the false self—we know that war will be our constant companion.
In other words the “progress” of Western civilization includes war without end. Why? Perhaps when we tire of war we will begin to seriously question why we would support such egregiously disastrous behavior. Perhaps you dear reader would like to form a group interested in taking action against the madness of collective violence—yes, an anti-war movement. But surely, you realize that such movements in the past have been abject failures so clearly you will have to do something different. You will need to have a more profound understanding of this particularly pernicious human behavior. To that end we offer this analytical essay.
Before we begin to analyze the problem of war we will offer a solution on how to avoid war in the future. Perhaps we want to start with a note of hope before we sound the ominous chord of civilization’s demise. Any and all behaviors to avoid widespread violence among nations, tribes, sects, religious or political factions, must begin with the insight that the existence of the other is an illusion.
If Oneness is not the guiding principle upon which the quest for peace is founded, which would negate any belief in otherness, then perpetual war on the planet is unavoidable. The following example makes clear that without acceptance and compassion we cannot live side-by-side with our neighbors without minor differences escalating into mass slaughter. The illusion of P-B grows stronger day by day in the Middle East and in particular in Israel where Israelis and Palestinians can’t seem to find the room wherein a successful peace can be negotiated. The doorway to that room is blocked by a growing belief in the existence of the other. “The change has taken place over the past 10 to 15 years because it was widely felt that mixing caused trouble and the two peoples needed to be separated if they were ever to live side-by-side.” This is in fact a rationalization for accepting P-B rather than P-A as the only worldview that is acceptable.
“When the Oslo peace process fell apart in 2000 and a Palestinian uprising erupted, the common wisdom that quickly developed was that the two nations needed not greater intimacy but complete separation. Israel built a barrier, barred most Palestinians from entering (replacing them with Asians on temporary visas) and made it illegal for Israeli citizens to enter Palestinian cities.” True wisdom would call for just the opposite behavior.
One strategy being used to promote peace which acknowledges the need for both compassion and Oneness is called interpersonal contact theory. It is based on the principle that all human beings are fundamentally alike regardless of superficial differences (illusions) such as skin color, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc. This well-intentioned effort has faith in the natural compassion that is created when even just one person from each side of a conflict get to know one another.
The Seeds of Peace program brings together several hundred teenagers from conflict regions such as Israel and the Palestinian territories for a three-week summer camp in Maine. “The teenagers sleep, eat and play games together, and engage in daily sessions to talk about the conflict between their groups and their own experiences with it.” Unfortunately, as we would expect, this brief break from the poisonous context of their conflict-torn farms or villages is not enough to prevent a regression to the old worldview.
The vision that should guide all of us is that if we would allow ourselves to get to know each other we would find reasons for serious conflicts irrational. We are all neighbors after all living in a global village that would feel like paradise if we would only choose that belief rather than the fear-driven, Darwinian belief in the survival of the fittest. Let’s endeavor to understand that old poisonous context now and maybe we will be motivated to choose differently the next time we feel threatened by the non-existent other.
We will now shift our focus primarily to Americans who seem to be particularly fond of war although they would, of course, deny that. Skip this essay if you take umbrage at being labeled among the bellicose American homo saps. Those of us that value the truth will push on without you even though we may find the facts painful as we encounter them; not, however, as painful as the endless wars we are currently experiencing in the global village.
What’s the evidence for what to some of you may seem to be tenuous claims regarding war and the U.S.? First, we are fond of war, at least many American males are. Secondly, our wars have become serial wars that, in modern times at least, never end; only a pause is necessary before we rationalize starting the next one. And finally, for a nation enamored of war, we are not very good at fighting them. The military-industrial complex, especially in Russia and the U.S. is, however, very good at manufacturing and marketing the weapons necessary to keep up the momentum of war, war, endless war.
General Incompetence
Let’s take the last point in the previous paragraph first, i.e., that the U.S. is not very good at fighting wars, especially in the last 50 or 60 years. Dexter Filkins in a review of John Nagles Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice ends his essay with this assessment: “No matter how much time and effort and blood the United States expends, it has proved itself to be not very good at fighting guerillas in faraway countries, and in setting up governments that endure. Counter-insurgency is an interesting theory, but the practice of it—at least the American practice of it—has been mostly a failure.”
What the U.S. is good at, albeit unconsciously, is creating terrorists. Recent American foreign policy and strategies of the Department of Defense in seeking to protect Americans from foreign and domestic terrorists have ended up aiding and abetting those we have targeted. In fact our erstwhile enemies characterize us as the terrorists; terrorists with lots of weapons and money. How do American policies create terrorists and insurgencies? Sarah Chayes in her insightful book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security confirms what many of us have also observed. “Development resources passed through a corrupt system [in Afghanistan] not only reinforced that system by helping to fund it but also inflamed the feelings of injustice that were driving people toward the insurgency.”
The U.S. government and its people were playing patsy to criminals posing as legitimate public servants. The U.S. is good at this; we have had lots of practice. What we are not good at is sensing the long-term consequences of poorly thought-out survival strategies. “One key reason the United States and its allies have struggled to establish sustainable democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the governments of those countries are mired in graft, caught in a mafia-like system in which money flows upward. The same goes for parts of Africa and Asia and most of the former Soviet Union.”
Now let’s make the connection between the naïve U.S. foreign policy, corrupt foreign government officials and the creation of terrorists and insurgencies. What Chayes calls a “basic fact” is one that we all need to become mindful of. With Chayes’s extensive background as a journalist writing about U.S. foreign policy and its consequences, we need to heed her conclusion that “where there is poor governance—specifically, no appeal to the rule of law and no protected right of property—people begin a search for spiritual purity that puts them on a path to radicalization.” A suicide bomber is certainly a “radicalized” Islamist.
Macho Warriors
For many American males (and probably some females) their identity is confused with delusional images of achieving self-worth through acts of violence. “One could argue that wars are largely fueled by misshapen notions of honor and manhood.” Only recently have we begun to understand that war and human beings are absolutely incompatible and that courage and machismo are part of the illusion of the false self. “During World War I, traumatized soldiers were viewed as cowards, and 306 hysterical soldiers were shot; hundreds more were subjected to electric [electro-shock?] treatment. During the Vietnam War, such individuals were considered schizophrenics. In the 1970’s one V.A. psychiatrist called the idea of PTSD an ‘insult to brave men.’”
War, War Forever More
One reason we accept the violence of war going back to the horrors faced by Homer’s Achilles over 4,000 years ago is that we cope with war the same way we handle all our suffering, we engage in denial and distractions. We keep ourselves busy choosing the activities associated with the pursuit of plenty, pleasure and power. “No other people are as disconnected from the brutality of war as the United States is today.”
David Morris, a journalist and former Marine infantry officer writes in his book about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, about his frustration in getting Americans to acknowledge what his experience of war had been. “‘The War had hurt me,’ he writes, ‘I wanted the country to feel some of that hurt.’ Yet at home, he could barely begin to describe what he had seen because no one in America was listening. ‘I realized that the problem wasn’t just that they didn’t want to understand it. What I had to say was not only inconvenient to their peace of mind but a tangible threat to it.’”
The good thing about war is that it is the gift that keeps on giving; giving, that is, if the creation of suffering is the goal. The trauma suffered by the soldiers continues as many return to civilian life and begin to project their suffering on their families and communities. The damage of this trauma can be passed on for generations, raging through the lives of thousands in the community like a slow-motion tsunami sucking thousands out into the sea of despair, as they flail about confused and powerless. Such are the wages of war.
“By 2012, more American soldiers were killing themselves than were dying in combat. But the problem goes deeper beyond those in uniform. Suicide rates among American adults between 35 and 64 are at record rates as well, notes Dreazen [author of The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War], the managing editor of Foreign Policy and a former military affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal. He offers a sophisticated examination of an act of ultimate despair that irreversibly wounds the living and remains hidden, stigmatized and largely misunderstood.” Our inability to understand war and its consequences betrays a deeper dilemma; the inability to distinguish between illusion and reality.
The dilemma faced by Morris in the U.S. as he described it above parallels a much deeper challenge in the human community as a whole. The book you are reading is the fifth book in the Simple Reality Project itself a lamentation on the reluctance of the average person to acknowledge what is really happening as opposed to what they wished were happening. The failure of the Simple Reality blog and books to connect with many people so far may indicate that the content is “inconvenient to their peace of mind” or “a tangible threat to it.” We may continue to engage in denial and distraction, tell ourselves and others lies and pretend that we are keeping secret the quiet whispers of our True self but we know better.
Just as humanity is avoiding the truth about war we are also choosing to deny the truth about reality itself. We are choosing instead the illusion of P-B and that is proving to be a fatal choice for the inhabitants of the communities of the global village. (See the article on “War” found in Chapter 4 in Why Am I Here?, the third book in the Simple Reality Trilogy.)
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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
