War is Peace
War is Peace
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Orwell's 1984, a negative utopia where it is necessary to maintain a constant state of war in order to drain the available resources away from improving the daily life of the "common man." By using technology to design things like cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, and botulism toxins you are using time, man power, and laboratory resources that could have been used to build hospitals, elementary schools, and curing cancer. By maintaining the status quo of economic inequality you create a society which by draining the resources through fighting wars that are unable to be won(ie: The Cold war was militarily impossible to win, the best that could be accomplished was Mutually Assured Destruction, or the war on Drugs) you keep the poor too occupied with building tanks and designing missiles that they do not work to improve their class status, which would threaten the position of the ruling elites. This redundancy, this planned obsolescence of technology is essential to maintaining the current power structure. .The war then is not just actually fighting but rather the consuming of resources to maintain the status quo, meaning that if those resources are consumed either by actual war or through peaceful use of these technology and resources it does not matter, because the poor are still poor and the ruling class is still in control. Continual war or continual peace must drain the manufacturing and technological resources away from improving everyday life for working people in order for society to function.
While this is not exactly what I believe, I believe that Orwell brings up substantive issues regaurding a continual peace. While hiring scientists to build bombs does not necessarily equal less scientists available to find a vaccine for Aids, there are many instances where instead of working towards a better standard of living, we find ourselves working towards a more convenient, one-time-use, trow away kind of fast paced standard of living where it is okay to buy and use plastic eating utensils that you use only once and then throw into a landfill, or to spend many billions of dollars of money to arm to the teeth with high power nuclear weaponry that in all probability will never be used in an all out nuclear war situation, a billion dollars a piece for nuclear missile submarines which become obsolete every decade or two, which then become worthless and are scraped. While things don't work exactly as predicted in 1984[I], there are similarities between what really is and what was written by Orwell.
So if the hypotheses of Orwell [I]are correct that means that if our goal is continual peace, there will still be mindless wastes of time that maintain the status quo despite lack of conflict (ie: video games, American children ages 8-18 on average view almost 3 hours of television daily).
But if the goal is to provide a continual peace in hopes of moving beyond things like suffering and struggle it will be necessary to evaluate the motives of the leaders of men and determine whether or not their interests are in ending conflict for all time, or are they simply taking actions that maintain the current trend of the poor getting even poorer and the rich getting richer. If our goal is to reach a lasting peace while improving our personal standards of living and improving our status as an economic class in terms of political power and economic strength, reducing inequality between all people, I think that as people searching for peace you should examine the basic idea that inequality breads conflict. If worker number 1 works hard and put real effort into his work, and he ends up with barely enough to make ends meet there will always be some kind of barrier between him and the CEO number 1 who also works hard, but lives in a larger house, drives a better car, gets better health care, attends better schools, and lives a better, more comfortable lifestyle. That is why CEO number 1's car gets stolen by worker number 1, and Worker number 1's kid gets his brand new tennis shoes stolen by Worker number 2's kid. I don't know if you guys are understanding me here but I think that I am making sense here. In order to achieve a lasting world peace you first need to solve the problem of inequality. In order to achieve economic equality there needs to be a world-wide examination of political and economic leadership. While a world wide revolution and upheaval of the existing power structure is unlikely, it is important to view actions by governing bodies and call them out when they do wrong. We live in an age of corporate irresponsibility and our rights as citizens of a country mean less to politicians than the campaign contribution checks that are handed out by the industry and business. In order to achieve peace we need to achieve equality as humans, and in order to live in a society where all men are equal and have equal rights, we need to change the way we live and the way in which we organize society and government.
I promise that i will never write a response this long again.
Ever.
Yours Truely,
Turbo-Cajun
War exists to keep weapons manufacturers in business. Where do you think these conflicts get arms from?
3 million people have died in the war in the Congo* since 1998. 3 million dead in the last 6 years - and where did all the ammo come from? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't Iraq.
The only thing thats going to produce world peace is time. Gradually the worlds population is getting smarter and better informed. Sooner or later we will have bred out the strain of morons who pick up arms and kill for money in the employ of the government. Finally if we make it that far we will elect governments that know if they want to stay in "power" they will avoid armed conflict.
It's nothing to do with policing peace or one world government - the vast majority of people on this mudball hate war. Its only a matter of time before the thought that we peace loving clean-living non-profit making no-agenda gender neutral beatniks OWN this ****ing planet sinks in.
If we all live that long. If not, no great loss.
Unfortunately i doubt we will ever breed out the "strain of morons who pick up arms and kill for money in the employ of the government" neither do i think we will ever be able to get rid of power crazy leaders because you have to be power crazy to want to be leader in the first place... As long as we have power crazy leaders who want to expand their empires etc. we will have war. If we dont have international war we will have civil war. I agree that time is our biggest chance of world peace. Maybe if there is a massive war that seriously damages several nations in this world it will bring an end to war, but it would have to be a massive catastrophie.
Originally posted by naybean
we will never be able to get rid of power crazy leaders because you have to be power crazy to want to be leader in the first place...
I could not DISAGREE more. Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Pierre Elliot Trudeau? The best leader Canada (maybe even the world) has ever seen.
Click here to learn more about P.E.T. 😆 PET... n'yuk.
I guarantee there are people who would love to be in polotics that are not necessarily corrupt and "power hungry." There are pure souls, but they are probably scared or just have no self confidence to attempt to gain power. If there isnt, then God have mercy.
Back to the cost of peace issue. I understand what you are saying, Lil's... and I havent be articulating my point well enough, and probably cannot, so I am moving on to another reason I stated previously of why World Peace is a "pipe dream."
We are too uptight about "being different" and having this "identity." [funny kind of Regan voice]Oh, he's American, She's Chinese, they're Jewish, and they're Irish[/funny kind of Regan voice] Everyone is stuck in this daze of what they are, rather then seeing that at the root we are all flesh and bone. We cannot see through the nationality/religion/race NONSENSE in order to move forward.
Milla... EVERYONE has the deep down desire of World Peace and global unity... but until we look beyond our nations borders and look at the bigger picture, IT WONT HAPPEN!
And you find one goverment figurehead that is willing to do that, and I will eat my hat.
When and where and how soon its gonna happen, i dont know, i cant say, but i refuse to believe that it is impossible to happen. Sure its possible...just like many other things are possible, but we cannot see them.
I in minority who sees this the way i do, and until the majority does, we wont have the world peace.
Originally posted by dean7879
its impossible to have perfect loving human beings
there can never be world peace
think about it
You keep putting "think about it" at the end of your posts as if you have said anything that remotely requires thinking about. Next time you say virtually nothing and are tempted to type that, think about it.
Originally posted by Mr Zero
I dont mean to get OT, but conceivable is far far simpler than possible, so dont know quite what your point is.
Im going to have to go ahead and disagree with you. That is simply because my statement was incomplete when I posted it. For that, I am truly sorry. (Damn I am so apologetic)
Conceivable at the present moment in time is what was intended.
Originally posted by Samurai Guy
We are too uptight about "being different" and having this "identity." [funny kind of Regan voice]Oh, he's American, She's Chinese, they're Jewish, and they're Irish[/funny kind of Regan voice] Everyone is stuck in this daze of what they are, rather then seeing that at the root we are all flesh and bone. We cannot see through the nationality/religion/race [b]NONSENSE in order to move forward.[/B]
How can you ask someone of Indigenous or American or a Saudi or African world view to not identify with who they are culturally? would you be prepared to give up your culture willingly or would you perfer to retain your cultural and ethnic identity? I believe that it is possible, albeit not probable that one day people can be different than one another and truely accept that. Respect is what it boils down to. If you respect other peoples beliefs and you respect to other cultures and you do not try to spread your beliefs or force them down peoples throats or try preach your religion to people who don't want to hear it, if you can get beyond the fact that we are all different than one another and that we do think differently about things and that we do no always have things in common, but being wise enough to be able to live with one another instead of attempting reach some global culture where people do no express anything that resembles ethnic or cultural identity.