war vs peace... which one?

As I got this thought while reading Foucault, this thread properly
belongs in the “in reading Foucault” thread but because of its importance,
I have decided to break it out…

War vs Peace… simple enough, which one is easier and which one is harder
and which one has much more value for us?

now recall, I once posted the numbers for America and the number of years
in her history that America has been engaged in war…I believe that as of
2017 and you can add a couple of years here, that our of her 239 year history,
America has been at war for 222 of those years…or 94% of American history
has America been at war, with somebody…be it the British, or the Germans
or the American Indians, or the Japanese, somebody…

but let us think about this… why not peace instead of war?
because of the nature of peace and the nature of war…

let us look at war first…war really isn’t that hard and is easily within
our biology, our instincts… to make war all one has to do is hit the other
guy over the head with a stick… that is it… nothing too complicated
about war… all it takes is to hit the other guy with a stick…
that’s it…

but what does peace take? the reason we prefer war to peace is that
peace takes time, effort, energy… you have to work at peace whereas
at war, you just have to hit the other guy with a stick… simple…

but peace, ahhh, but peace you must work at, you need to compromise
and negotiate and be patient with… war is an activity, whereas peace is
a lifestyle and very time consuming…in slightly different language,
to engage in peace requires us to treat the other, as human beings, with
feeling and rights and possibilities…peace is nuance and war is blunt like…

anybody can engage in war… all it takes is a stick… but to engage in peace,
that means one has to become aware and alert to the possibilities that exists…
in peace…

peace is an engagement with our higher self and war is an engagement with
our lower self… to engage in peace requires us to hold to the higher possibilities
of existence, to love and hope and peace and honor and loyalty… it
takes dedication and time…

to engage in war is to engage in our lower selves, anger, hate, greet, violence,
the primal instincts of evolution… the ones that animals have…

that the peaceful ones will inherit the earth is important to note
because in war, there are no winners, in creating violence,
we are left only with violence and hate and anger…
you want to see what I mean, look at the results of World War One…
that the failure of wars and violence… all that happens is more violence…
that is the only result of wars and violence…

but peace, peace is something different…
how as the world progressed in the last 50 years?

has it progress because of War? or has it progress because of
the relative peace over the last 50 years?

so the question is raised, how are we to make it a better world for us
and for our children and grandchildren? is it to engage in peace or is it
to engage in war and violence?

if we had engaged in peace as hard as we engage in war, this world would
be in a far, far better place…think of all the resources that is lost
to war what could be used on people to help in building better lives…
for that is the result of peace, we can build better lives whereas in war,
we just hit the other guy over the head with a stick…and how does that
better our lives?

those who are in love with war and violence, are in love with the lower
animal instincts of hate and violence and anger and greed and lust…
and it is easy to do those things because they, the instincts are breed
into us, part of evolution… but to seek peace means we must overcome
our instincts, we must become more then just animals, or be more
then animal/human… we must become human, rising above our instincts
and evolution to seek peace rather then to seek war/violence…

and one might ask, how do we seek peace? by seeking the
eternal goal of philosophy, one… to know thyself
and two, the unexamined life isn’t worth living…

to examine why one cares for war and violence over peace and love?
and then to overcome the instincts of war and violence?

once again, we become human by our seeking to overcome
what our instincts have decided for us… to make free choices
that we engage with peace and love … instead of war and violence…

Kropotkin

think of war vs peace, as how we treat others…

in peace, we treat others differently then in war…

in war, we marginalize people, we invalidate them,
we dehumanized them…recall the propaganda of the two World wars
and the propaganda of the cold war…we hear this all the time in
the negative hate and violent rhetoric of the conservative members
on ILP…it is easy for them to hate and call for violence because they
have engaged with the lower levels of the human nature…when one
devalues someone by calling others, commies and Marxists, that is
an engagement with nihilism…the denial of human beings and their
values…which is why it is easy for them to deride liberals
and their values…because it no different then hitting one over
the head with a stick… it is the easy and instinctual path
that leads one to hate others, to call for nihilism against
people by “owning the liberals” that is hitting the liberals over the head
with a verbal stick…and a type of lower instincts that animals have…

to work for peace requires one to engage in the higher level actions
of love and peace and charity and tolerance…and that takes effort,
work and time…to put this into other words…to seek peace and love
is an adult action, to seek war and violence is an child action…
for it is instinctual and is on display in every child ever seen…

so the conservative seeks the child’s path of war and violence
because it is easier to hit someone over the head with a stick
then to work on being peaceful with someone…

will this change any minds on the right? no, of course not…
because to be able to change one’s mind means you have to
engage in some sort of examination of who you are and what
are you values? it requires some courage to reevaluate one’s values…

it is far easier to hate and advocate for violence then to seek
peace and self knowledge… because hate and violence
don’t need awareness or understanding… it just needs a stick
and there are plenty of sticks to hit people with…

Kropotkin

but one might state, but hate and violence are part of us that
we were born with… it is inherited and brought about by
evolution…

and yes, that is all true and the entire point… we must be able to
overcome our instincts… to override those animal instincts…
otherwise we are nothing more then animals… to become human,
we must overcome the animal instincts within all of us…
to seek peace and love and charity before war and violence
because seeking peace and love takes more energy and time
and effort… because it is not part of the easy, lower instincts
it takes no time or effort or even thought to hit someone
over the head with a stick… but it does take time, effort
and energy to take the harder path of non-violence and peace…

to overcome that which is instinctual… that is what it means to be
human… to overcome the easy, lower instincts of hate, violence,
and anger…of war…

if you want to remain in the grips of being an animal, remain engaged
in your instincts of hate, violence and anger… you want to become
human, fully human… rise above the mere animal instincts of war, violence
and hate…

that is what it means to become human, to rise above the animal instincts
and come to terms with the higher, much harder work of being human
and overcoming those animal instincts of hate, violence and anger…

so, what values are you going to choose? for that is the question of
being free… if one is in the grip of instincts, that means you are not
free… for freedom means rising above our instincts… for we cannot control
our instincts… that is the point of instincts… you cannot rise above them…
animal prove that… they are animals because they cannot free themselves
of the inherited instincts…they are not free and thus animals…

we have a choice… we can follow our instincts, that is to say, follow
our animal instincts that prevent us from being free or, or we can
overcome our instincts and find freedom… for that is true freedom…
overcoming our animal instincts so the first action we take does not
come from instincts, but from thought and effort… it is hard work
to overcome our inherited instincts… and that is why conservatives
hang onto their animal instincts of hate, violence and anger…
it is far easier to hold onto instincts then to overcome them…
it is easier to remain an animal then to overcome and become
human…so, are you lazy and will remain a victim of your instincts
or will you work to become human… to overcome takes time, effort,
work… how much effort are you willing to put into becoming human?

Kropotkin

so Kropotkin, what does this have to do with philosophy?

Why, everything!!!

the basic question of philosophy is simple, what does it mean to be human?

and what of animals? they are unable to overcome their instincts, they cannot
rise above their instincts to be anything other they what they are… a dog
cannot overcome its instincts to become something else… a cat can’t
overcome its instincts to become a cow or a dog or a human being…

and if we are like conservatives and are unable to overcome our instincts,
our our instinct reaction of violence and hate and war… then how are
we any different then a dog or a cat? we aren’t… hence, conservatives
who cannot overcome their instincts are no better then dogs or cats…
they are animals…and the search for us is to become human, fully human…
as in us being able to overcome our instincts and become free…
to become, in part, autonomous individuals… for that is, in part,
what is means to be autonomous… the ability to overcome instinct
and become free… for in overcoming our instincts, we become free
fully functional human beings… and that is the name of the game…
to become human, fully human… one that is free to make their choices
based not on instincts but on making choices free of instincts…

you want to experience freedom, true freedom… rise above your instincts
and make your choices free of instincts… to seek peace and freedom and love
before war and violence and hatred…that is what it means to be human…

to seek the high aspirations of being human, not the low instinctual side
of the animals… the one’s who have no choice but to do what the instincts
tell them what to do… they aren’t free because they are trapped by
instincts into acting one way and one way only… but are we animals,
trapped into acting one way and one way only, or or are we human beings
who have overcome our instincts and thus we can act as we see fit…
which surprisingly enough does allow for violence… if we choose violence
as an act that is needed at that time… we must freely choose
to be violent because it is the best course of action at that time…
for example if I am attacked on the street, I can, as a course of action,
choose to react violently or I can choose to run away…
but the choice isn’t dictated by my instincts…
I can freely choose my actions, which is to say, I can overcome my immediate
instincts and take other actions, if need be…

thus I am free… unlike those on the right, who cannot do anything other
then what their instincts tell them what to do… they are not free,
autonomous human beings… they are animals… just doing
what their instincts are telling them what to do…so, bottom line,
conservatives or anyone else who simply follows instincts are animals,
nothing more… if you rise to be free of instincts, then you are a human being…

and that is what being human means… rising above our instincts…

Kropotkin