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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:27
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But the question at hand is very vague:
Is war ever justifiable? yes, just like Genocide. are there alternatives? There are always other choices.
That is a totaly complete answer, no?
but it does not explain much, now does it?
Sava:
quote:
Again... comparing a few native warriors killing each other to the utter civilian loss of life in modern wars is wrong. |
Natives many times took hostages, so forth and so on. Native Americans had organized violence. they ahd rules of engagement, taboos, so forth and so on. Was their method of war different than the western method? Yes, but only because they had very different aims which they wanted to achieve.
The Inca waged war just like europeans, for empire. The aztecs waged war incesently, but a very different kind of war, a ritualistic war meant to gather sacrifices to keep the world working. As I have said, war (roganized political violence) is a tool sued to ahcieve an aim, just like a hammer.
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spiritof1202
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quote:
Originally posted by Big Crunch
I presume you are factoring in the loss of life as a political and economic cost, but I wonder how you can quantify it. |
Well... we can compare the US/UK/Iraq war here. We'd have to go to some great lengths to "catch up" with the kind of genocide that Saddam has been practicing for a generation.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:27
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Doesn't matter that the question was vague, it WAS the question asked.
As to the rest, in the periods of relative peace and calm that we have seen, what has come of it? Are we more apt to talk about Athens as the birthplace of philosophy and democracy, or are we more apt to talk about the war between Athens and Sparta?
And further, did the marvels of Democracy and Philosophy save Athens from Spartan might?
Was it poetry that stopped the Persian army at Thermopalye, or was it men with nerves of steel, hopelessly outnumbered, and yet more than willing to hold the line, *warring* on their enemies to deny them passage?
Do we remember the glory of the Great Library of Alexandria, or its sacking?
Our entire history has been made up of conflict.
We were born in it, and it is in us.
One day, we'll grow out of it....assuming we don't kill ourselves off along the way, but until then, we ARE war. We invented the term, and we perfected its execution.
It is in everything we do, and everything we touch.
Wanna know what the best selling business book of all time is?
It's not "Who moved my cheese" or "The seven habits of highly effective people" or "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
Nope.
None of those.
It is: "Sun Tzu's - The Art of War"
I find that....compelling and revealing in the extreme.
-=Vel=-
(edited to remove my stutter at the end...lol) 
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:27
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And if you read Sun tzu, for him killing in war is secondary, and in fact, usually the result of ones failure to win the "war" any other way.
If "history" is made in conflict, t is because that is what sells papers. Who would listen to a story about 400 years of no war? What action occurs in it? what tension? what suspense. 90% of man's time on earth is not written down, yet the most important achievement of modern man, agriculture, the one thing that made all those things you metionned, including Sun Tzu having the time to write a book, is not written down.
was agriculture the result of war and strife? How could it?
quote:
We were born in it, and it is in us. |
quote:
One day, we'll grow out of it....assuming we don't kill ourselves off along the way, but until then, we ARE war. We invented the term, and we perfected its execution. |
We are born in it? Hardly. as for it being in us: many thigns are within us, love, hate, cowardice, courage. None of those things lone make us human: all of them together do.
Man has the capacity for war, but man also has the capacity for peace. Yes, we hav found incredible new ways to desroy, but we have found equally incredible ways to build. What last is not war, war is destruction. The loss of the Great Library is a stain on hisotry, something notable only for its senselessness. Look at the Pyramids. they are the result of ambition and pride, faith and arrogance, but not war. They have lasted 4500 years and see wars come and go, and they will probaly remain there for 4500 years more.
Man is verything within him, the good and the bad and the good and the evil, the ehtical and unethicl, and the majority of utterly amoral stuff in between. that is man. To pigeon holes us into war is just as deluded and absurd as how you view pacifists.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:27
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Pretty shallow points, except for BC's.
Mostly might makes right.
First off, there are several ethical concerns inherent in war. The first are the justifications, the cause for war, and the second are how to best go about war in order to cause the least amount of damage.
For me, the biggest concern with war is that war kills people, modern war will always result in the deaths of innocent people.
Stemming from this point, we can get two very opposite doctrines, the first, that war is never justified, and the second, that war is justified in certain cases, such as mass genocide resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.
Both of these are positions espoused by Christians, and both have long traditions behind them.
As a Mennonite, I'll argue for the first point, that war is never justified, and let one of the Catholics on the board argue a just war theory, describing the circumstances in which war is justified.
Do note that both theories do not try to balance human life with any other concerns, only human life can ever be balanced with human life.
BC made an excellent point in saying that there is always another option to war. The problem is not that the option does not exist, but the cost of the option, the cost of maintaining the peace. We tend to get wars when the cost of maintaining peace grows to a point perceived by one side or the other as too expensive.
Velociryx is also right that the world is not quite ready to do without war. This is a significant observation, because this indicates that he knows of a higher standard, that the world is not as it should.
What is this higher standard? One of peace. Peace is very costly, look at what Christ said, in the sermon on the mount, that rather than retaliating, we should turn the other cheek. It is not that the standard is wrong, but that the world cannot live up to the standard.
There are two responses to this position, the first, that we must go with the rules of the world, in greek the kosmos, the second that we should try to live according to the standard.
This is the beauty of pacifism, is that once everybody buys into the game, the system should support itself.
The devil though, is in the cost borne by those who start first.
Secondly, what has war ever accomplished, that peace could not?
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04-04-2003 01:49
You just made my piont for me.
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