War and peace. Two very simple statements. We are very good at war, maybe not so good at peace. Earlier today, I shared a comment and a YouTube video that my children posted on social media. Jeffrey Sachs was lecturing about world peace. My comment when I shared the post stated: “I agree with Sachs, but this message has been around forever. Jesus preached peace, and look what that got him. In the Finlands of the world, how do you deal with the Musk, Bezos, and Trumps of the world?” I'll put a link to that video at the bottom of this blog post.
Are we, as a world community, moving toward less war? Eh! Perhaps. Next is a chart I found that shows a history of wars in the world from 1400 to some point just beyond the year 2000. The chart is by Max Roser, a German researcher, writer, and professor. I added the green line to illustrate a normalized trend. There's nothing scientific about the green line—it's simply a visual aid intended to show a trend, if one exists. Take a moment to look at the chart.
It appears that there has been little change in our warrior behavior over the last 600 years or so. There appears to be a dramatic decline in major wars, which began sometime in the 1990s. A couple of observations and comments before moving on. I suspect the events unfolding in Ukraine, Gaza, and now the developing situation in Iran may pull the line up a little for the early part of the 21st century.
A couple of impressions I have from looking at this data are that it will be very difficult to discourage humans from using war to resolve their differences and desires, with 'desires' being a key term. Technologically, we have left our simian cousins, like the chimpanzees, far behind. But, in terms of socialization and tribalism, not so much.
Another element that enters into the perception that the world is going to hell in a handbasket is that it seems we are more warlike and violent than ever before. That may be because we're so much more aware of what's going on in the world, thanks to the information revolution.
Back then, in 1400, news didn't travel nearly as far or as fast as it does today. Chances are that if you lived in Europe, you had little or no knowledge of what was going on in China. It might take a month for a story about an event that happened a hundred miles away to reach you. The bearer of that news had to be intending to visit your part of the world; they didn't make a living delivering news, and it would take them days to reach you.
Here in the U.S., in the early days—between 1650 and 1800—as we spread across the country, it took days and months for news happening on the East Coast to reach people in the wilds of Oregon and California.
Today, the news is instant. Trump recently ordered the bombing of Iran. We knew within moments what had happened. Within an hour or two, we had satellite images of the destruction. The news media blasted the story continuously for the next several hours into the early morning of the next day.
We are bombarded 24/7 with news, often leading with stories of violence, in part because that is what we want to hear—ratings prove as much—a shooting in Ohio. A small plane crashed in Nevada. A kidnapping in Nebraska. A tornado in Louisiana. A murder-suicide in California. It goes on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
I'm not convinced there is more violence, just the constant reminder that we live in a violent world. Our awareness of what is happening in the world is exponentially greater than it has been at any point in human history.
I'm not suggesting that we give up and give in to violence, or that we accept that it is inevitable. We must continue to try to move away from violence in every form so that we can evolve socially as far as we have evolved technologically, if not as fast.
Psychology Today points out that, “Perhaps since the dawn of civilization, the nearly unanimous consensus has been that nonviolence is a wonderful ideal, but that if one wants to achieve results, violence is the means to choose. Nonviolence, it is said, is the weapon of the weak, to be employed only when violent options seem totally out of reach.”
They also pointed out that "The only purpose for which nonviolent campaigns were not more successful than violent ones was political secession" (notably, the secession analysis included only four nonviolent campaigns)." That suggests to me that the choice between violence and non-violence may lie in the stakes and the stakeholders, as well as their personal aspirations.
If the stakes are high enough, and that could mean money, power, or both, then the participants see violence as an acceptable means to an end. If the stakes are lower, let's say a minor property line dispute between homeowners, they are more likely to accept a settlement through the judicial process.
The conclusion one might draw from this analysis is that we need to deemphasize the importance of power and money in our societies and work toward increasing the values of friendship, teamwork, and common goals over greed and avarice. God-worship and fawning over celebrities may be part of the problem.
And part of this new philosophy has to be patience. A quick and violent action, while typically bringing a faster conclusion, but not always, as we've seen in Ukraine, can also bring a great deal of pain and perhaps death. The cooperation and common societal goal model will take more time, but ultimately, everyone lives and presumably achieves a better and longer-lasting result.
https://www.youtube.com/live/ZcxoMekOEcE
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