Donnerstag, 20. September 2012

Uncivilization and civilization in warfare - a survival post

This is something that I have been moving in my brain ever since I realized that we actually DO have a global conflict. Most do not want to accept it, but World War III is here. It is quite a different war to most any before, for it is a global guerrilla war. Ever since someone established the "Dschihad", the so - called "Holy War", that is so.

Then, since when is it so?

Since Hasan ibn-Sabah founded the Assassins, if you ask me. Or even earlier, who knows... maybe this war has its roots in the Alexandrine Reign period. All that, however, does not quite matter at all.

Crucial to our survival is to accept that this conflict is not locally bordered. It is a war that is fought by each and everyone against each and everyone. Noone is to be trusted, every human being is a potential enemy. The core of the conflict has at least five fronts. From a military strategic point of view, fighting this war with regular troops is frankly absurd. And believe me, it is not done. Since it cannot be estimated who is a terrorist and who not, institutions of warfare, secret services and the like fight just about everyone or regard each and every individual with distrust. To that end rules of conduct are modified until it is unintelligible where justice might be misconceived as legal crime. The mimickry of democracy is kept up, because systems of democracy are slow to react in a conflict, but on the other hand, peoples used to a democratic system would get ever so slightly nervous if their human rights are constricted and thusly be rendered indomitable. So, for instance, it might be supposed, that, hypothetically, acts of terrorism might be staged with press involvement.

Why that, one may ask?

Our civilization, and many civilizations before, always has centered around economics. And there are countries in the world whose economics are only stable in situations of warfare. Warfare is an economic factor, and the almighty money rules everywhere in the world. Weapons are bought and sold, and the same manufacturer might provide weapons for one party and the other. People in fear tend to buy more, consume more, be it just to keep storage supplies of food.

So big term economics are involved in this war, and even the so-called spiritual leaders of the "Dschihad" party are not so naive as not to obey Mammon. It is always the money.

Then, what is money?

Money is a symbolic substitute for the traded goods. Goods are estimated by their value, and originally, money served the purpose of symbolizing both the ideal value as well as the concrete value. This symbolizing process found its culprit in the establishment of deities of economy, such as the often quoted "Mammon" (Pluto), but also Slavonic, Celtic and Ancient German deities. What has to suffice, however, is that money is personified, indicating a psychological context. We still worship this god, we just do not call it worship.

If that is so, it is not at all about Yahweh, Allah, God, or whatever, but about money. If money is a substitute for the traded goods, this conflict is a conflict to gain dominion over the fellow humans for one´s own prosperity. It is a fight for habitat, for evolutionary predominance, and not different to the mating and breeding fights of raptors.

If that is so, it is permitted that our warfare be regarded as such: A mating and breeding ritual, and please take note I am not talking racial context here, for it is bullshit.

If, in turn, that is so, the cerebral region involved to execute the measures of warfare might be located in the cerebellum. Ratio has nothing to do with this impulse to kill, as we are led to believe. It is a mating / breeding reflex.

Now I have uttered the demand of a "civilized warfare" in a recent post. By that, I mean quite the contrary, and this oxymoron leads me to the question of uncivilization and civilization. Civilization in its literal translation means an organization "in civitate", which has different connotations, meaning "citizenship" and the location in a city at the same time. Organization needs rules, this is a fact. To establish rules in a sustainable manner needs a rational act. Rules established in a state of fanatism are not only prone to errors, but simply not sustainable. A state of mind that is obligatory in a mating reflex / territorial conflict is not capable of establishing sustainable rules.

This is one aspect that renders civilization in this case impossible. What is more grave, however, is a speciality of human disposition. Humans are the only raptor species in the mammal animal world lacking a biting constraint in case the opponent signals defeat. Even dogs have this constraint, naturally, that is. Humans will carry on until the opponent is utterly destroyed, with no regard to their own future prosperity, or even survival.

In psycho - analysis it is crucial that all parts of the psyche are at least taken as existent. Modern society, and not only western society in that, dismisses the mere possibility of a war undertaken out of irrational motives as impossible and rids itself of any possibility of working out the motive. This is undertaken out of the disregard of irrational values per se. Rules and codes of conduct do not allow us to accept the irrational as even given, and thusly civilization hinders our capability of coping with the irrational. Since this war is undertaken out of the most extremely irrational reasons and motives, but veiled by a thousand rationalistic claims, it is not possible to cope with the motives of this war at all. We tell ourselves more myths about rationality than we ever have about myth and fairy tale.

It is crucial for survival, then, to recognize this fact:

Civilization is dangerous. It renders us defenceless against the forces that motivate this war. To survive, we must look more clearly towards the motives, and to do that, we must, at least theoretically set aside the rules established, and the codes of conduct that we were told to cherish. That does not mean setting aside all of them. Uncivilization is not a lack of civilization, but literally a resetting of our perspectives. To me, it is necessary to question the current rules, and then, in a truly rational act, establish new ones more suited to the task. Some of them might be bitter to swallow, but we got no choice.

It´s about the survival of our species, not the individual.

 

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