The Promised Land Project: In the Realm of the Prophets: Discerning the Cause of War

Turning Vision into Action....at least hypothetically

Strike up the music of the band
We're blazing a trail for the promised land
Heaven on earth is within you.

Through the writing of stories, poetry, essays, and a novel, I’ve creatively contended with the consumer culture and the problem of the ideal in the modern era. This preoccupation in time would lead to a vision of cultural transformation and where I believe our democratic society needs to go to truly progress beyond the modern era. Conceding my limited credibility, this blog provides a synthesis of recognized visionaries, poets, and writers with the objective of making a credible argument. Ultimately, it is a certain feeling the project strives to inspire and sustain on a certain level, making more vital use of poetry and the arts; consequently whether one agrees or not is less important than whether one senses it and feels it over time.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

In the Realm of the Prophets: Discerning the Cause of War

The often heard refrain that history repeats itself isn't true; yet certain patterns can be discerned, particularly as it relates to human nature. Because the French forces under Napoleon were largely defeated because of its disastrous invasion of Russia, it's tempting to say that history repeated itself when the German forces under Hitler were also largely defeated because of its siliarly disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union (as the state of Russia was referred to at that time in World War II). While it's tempting to say Hitler failed his history lesson, the circumstances, in fact, were unique; the German Army, for example, was far more mechanized and capable of a decisive blow before the onset of winter.

But as we turn again to Thucydides, let us ultimately not fail our history lesson as we attempt to discern the truth about our human nature. This, I believe, can be summarized eloquently by Edith Hamiliton, excerpted from her book, The Greek Way:

It was something far beneath the surface, deep down in human nature, and the cause of all the wars ever fought. The motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession which no power and no possession satisfy. Power, Thucydides wrote, or its equivalent wealth, created the desire for more power, more wealth.

Why we find ourselves in the realm of the prophets at the end of this so called, "Age of Reason", to draw on science, is because neuroscientists have demonstrated that the ability to reason is inseparable from emotion. Thus we must contend with the passions that underlie our reason, including our rationales for war. Napoleon saw himself as spreading the enlightenment. Hitler saw himself as fulfilling a German destiny of becoming the master race. Here in America, we must guard against rationales for war that invoke the spreading of freedom and democracy when in truth, partial or otherwise, the motives go deeper.

With the onset of the enlightenment, it was thought that through education and reason, humans would progress. Since the onset of the First World War, that view has dimmed. We're in the realm of the prophets to discover that which can contain our destructive passions.