KS&L 279: Why There is War Part 1

There are almost seven billion people on this planet. People have been living and dying on this planet in ever increasing numbers for millennia. We all know that we have lived before, that we just keep reincarnating here, over and over to acquire the lessons we are supposed to learn. Untold millions of us have died through war, disease, privation and conflict aftermath.
We know how to make peace. We psychologically, economically and sociologically understand what creates the seeds of war. We know. We know as a human species how to regulate situations so that war does not have to occur.

Yet, we still have war.

We, as a planet have lived through two supposedly World Wars, the War to end all War--- and yet we still have people going off to fight other people. People who, in any other scenario, could be hosting those same folks, as tourists are now fighting them. The troops get to see country, but not the way they would like.

Now, the wars are fewer, smaller, ‘Low Intensity Conflicts’ as the Pentagon refers to them, but they are wars nonetheless. Actually, there are fewer wars, with fewer deaths than at any other time on this planet, so perhaps we, as a species are getting a little better.

Why is there war? Perhaps a better question, is why is anyone still killing anyone else anywhere? People don’t just die in war, they die in far greater numbers, typically, statistically, and at the hands of people they know.

There is still war, because there are still people out there who want to oppress other people. While that certainly isn’t new, because we see it in families all the time, it is the primary reason that governments use to ‘liberate’ those oppressed people or fight an over zealous aggressor. Is this good or bad? It is neither. It just is. Actually, it goes back to basic human nature, and the polarity of life and death and the requirement for all human beings to have a life of experiences. In virtually every generation, there is some opportunity to go off to war, to have that experience. Well, if you need a war experience, then someone has to be a bad guy or the good guy and offer the oppressors, aggressor, and transgressor scenario. This is the concept of polarity. For polarity to be operative, you have to have a contrast, a polarity of good versus evil.

When you go to war, you have to feel good about the possibility that you could die there and it needs to be for a worthy cause: everyone wants to be the good guys.

Do human beings need the experiences that war offers? That is a very powerful question. Why do people join the military? Is it because every military volunteer in every country of the world wants to kill someone? Of course not, Military people want to keep the peace. War, international conflict is the macrocosm. Look at the microcosm: why are there police officers? Why is there a National Guard, a Drug Enforcement Agency, a Federal Bureau of Investigation or a Scotland Yard? Do all of these people want to kill someone else? Is that the experience they are seeking?

Of course not, people who join all of these local and national agencies, do so to keep the peace, to provide for the common welfare and safety of their fellow citizens. That is why they join. They want to serve their fellow men and women. These are the people who want to keep murderers, rapists, swindlers, robbers, home burglars and nut cases, off the streets so that not just their neighbors are safe, but that their own families are safe. War exists, even in the smallest places.

Consider in the tiniest, most basic microcosm this scenario: that for a police officer, the ‘war’ between a man and a woman, husband and a wife in a spousal abuse case is considered one of the most dangerous, if not ‘the’ most dangerous call to which any officer can respond. Normally sane parents will brutally murder each other in front of their children. Some of them will even murder their own children to punish their spouse. If you have the ability to stop this scenario and protect those children from having that happen in their lives, wouldn’t you do that?

So the premise is, if you can stop a crime, is it worth the effort? How big a crime is the effort to stop it worth? What determines when it is okay to ‘get involved’ and stop one person from killing another? The larger question is: Is war really all around us and we cannot see it? Part two will address this question in more detail.