From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sat 24 Jan 2004 - 16:04:03 GMT
----- Original Message -----
Keith Henson,
> But I think you are right, war has been part of human behavior for a
*long*
> time. War is killing and to kill there has to be people. Humans have
> about twice the reproductive capacity of chimps because of male
> provisioning of females and young. Thus you would expect that for the
same
> sized tribes there would be twice as many humans killed per unit time as
> chimps.
Keith,
You seem IMO to forget the notion of human- man- psychology in this
matter, though !
That war is part, has been and will be part of human nature, is part of
my conception, but modern warfare has turned this view upside down.
War has been rationalized and has thus been demoralized. The moral
implications of courage diseappered, and so thus the concept of the hero
and thus the model for the manly projection.
This peals for the total defeatism of what is seen as manhood_ history
today shows how unbearable some cultures can cope with the destruc-
tion of these symbols.
Michelet, for one, argues about the dispair of people living in a
bureaucracy, without the imaginable possibility for showing courage,
which in the end serves as the bias for all other moral qualities and
characteristics.
For the man is that part no longer an option. That takes away a
crucial motor for the male development.
What is ' cool ' or what stood for ' dandy ' in the 19 th. century
is the echo of the destruction of the heroic part.
' Cool ' and ' dandy ' are both mourning processes . They attend
to be the confusion of manhood.
That you argue that most wars are biased within an economic
background is your prerogative, but taking Robert Nozick '
Anarchy, State and Utopia at hand and we see a complete
different picture.
That his discription of the US sounds like a ' dominant protective
association ' are his words and that the US is no more and no
less just another ' firm ' that will protect its own interests and
those of its clients, well..do I hear you say, so what !?
It is economy after all !
It is, but all for the other reasons that you in your articles de-
fend ! There is no tribe defending its capital per unit human
being, there is just a selfish gated community, grounded for
its own national security. That ideas like democracy, freedom
and capitalism are part of the pre- emptive strike is good for
the troops and for the moral but it is NOT what you suggest
what is the / a reason for war(s) !!
There is no economic ideology behind this at all, moreover a
lack of it seems more appropiate, only the national security
counts. That earlier all other countries were potential ' clients '
of the firm US ( better would be concurrents) today it seem
that eachother can be an ennemy of what stands for American
values. Frankly, it is damn hard dangerous to count us in as
rogue states.
That the US operates in this matter for its own interests and for
those of its clients, I can understand...capital per unit human
being will drop and wars between clients are a possibility....but
that the US starts wars just as were protection a simply economic
product that can be trade over, is far more beside the points you
talk about in your articles. War is a cynical economic product of a
state misusing its power.
The historical explanation about how wars starts is a dead monkey...
Regards,
Kenneth
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