War and the World

When I was young, maybe ten or twelve (I suspect twelve because that was a huge year of revelations) I started thinking about how awful it is that life eats life. At the time I decided that plants were an ideal, innocent life form and I decided that trees deserved to be some of the longest living life forms on the planet. I wished that it didn't have to be this way.

As in many things, this idea has come around again, but with a forty year old's sensibilities. I've been reading "Achilles in Vietnam" (highly recommended) and my sense of compassion began throwing a temper tantrum (though with a calmer facade than my twelve year old self could pull off. Hey, by 60 years of age, I might even sound wise!) I started (silently) whining about why we all can't just get along. I don't mean the end of war. Although the end of war would be nice, it's pretty unrealistic. I mean that if we must conflict, and it seems we have little choice, can't we respect each other? In the book the author blames the loss of respect for one's enemy in part on the goat herding religions, which tend to cast the enemy as the part of villian/evil/monster/subhuman who God will righteously smite. The trouble being (besides the fact that this is horribly prejudicial thinking not to mention really bad manners) that when the righteous God-fearing people start to lose, bad things happen to them psychologically. They are, after all, losing to someone inferior to them in some (or many, in their minds) ways. How could this happen, except that (gasp): God might not exist, or God doesn't love them anymore, or God is an asshole. What follows is a moral breakdown, an emotional mess, and a human being that becomes a danger to himself and others because he's lost one or several vital things that allow him or her to be a positive force in society. Granted I tend to agree with the author's take on all this, especially the religion part, because I'm a pagan and it serves my points of view. But it also makes terrible sense. How many people have had a crisis of faith because something really, really awful happened? If there's one God and that God is good, then what gives?

The advantage that the pagan has (in the book, he looks at the religion followed by the ancient Greeks--which is not an endorsement for that particular olde tyme religion so don't go flocking to sign up and start sacrificial pyres for that pantheon--it's never that easy) is that there isn't one God, and the many gods aren't necessarily good, at least as far as making life bearable on the planet. Gods don't work like that, any more than corporate chairpeople don't concern themselves with Bob in accounting or Sue in HR unless they happen to take temporary notice and start playing favorites. And when *that* happens, you can bet they all won't be on the same page. In fact because Sr. Exec has the hots for Sue and wants to put her on a fast track up the corporate ladder, Jr. Exec may snarl and start to undermine Sr. Exec's efforts. *Which is exactly what happens among the gods in the Iliad.* So what's this mean? It means that if you aren't a peon, you're not playing the same game the peon is playing. Things that you do to try to help may hurt, and you're helping with a sense (and perhaps not always a good sense) of what the big picture is, which may screw over a bunch of people on the side. Whole departments can dissolve and all it might be is a compromise with another exec--we'll cut this department and boost your favorite, and in return, Sue gets to end up head of HR. This is an unequal trade, so the next time a department gets cut, one of yours gets the axe--my choice of which one. Go corporate politics! It might not even benefit the company in the long run. It's just the way it works.

And so it may well be with the powers (if you believe in such) that are immortal (or near-so) and greater than human beings, but still confined within the tides of Earth. The gods don't have to be dead just because things don't go your way. Right? Maybe it goes the other guy's way because s/he's the favored one, or maybe they weren't even paying attention that day. Even if that's wrong, what really matters is that the other way of thinking, that there's a One True God who Loves Everybody, has done some serious harm to a lot of people.

So my (mature-er) tantrum is this--if it screws people up so bad to disrespect the enemy and believe God is on your side, and people know this, why do so many do it? Why are we still following this system of thought?

Because as a species we're slow to change. Individuals can be fast learners, but cultures are not, and the human race moves forward at a painful crawl. We're still fighting holy wars, for pity's sake, and via that mechanism creating monsters out of decent people. And so my soul wants to bang on the keyboard in frustration. Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

Who would have thought that the concept of respect could matter (and how many nations respect each other--egad)? Who would have thought that monotheism could do emotional harm? In theory, it does. I wonder what else matters that we undervalue. Hmm, several spring to mind without me even having to sweat--work ethic, compassion, thriftiness among them. Most days I have an optimistic outlook on life and living. These past couple of days I've been verging on cynicism, and it's all because of war and the world.

Poopyhead war. Poopyhead world.

I hope that someday it all works out okay.