Apparently it is International Peace Day today. Hmm I wonder what the child soldiers in the Congo make of it all.
Now, I hate to sound like a disenchanted and cynical misanthropist, even though that’s precisely what I am, but to me peace is as alien a concept to humans as vegetarianism is to lions.
The human race strikes me as a grotesque experiment which went wrong virtually from the word go. If God hadn’t been so preoccupied with enforcing the correct rules of etiquette around apple trees, I dare say He would have spotted the fatal flaw in His ‘perfect’ creation the moment Cain murdered his own brother. Any child with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics could have instantly pointed out to Him that a world whose entire population consists of four people and a quarter of them turns out to be a murderer would be unlikely to ever amount to much at all. I suspect even the most enthusiastic supporter of this new creation would have to concede that such alarming statistic did not auger well for the future.
And yet here we still all are happily murdering each other thousands of years later. Sure, we’ve come a long way from the dusty Fred Flintstone days of sticks and stones and crude trebuchets. We may now enjoy space age cyber sex and playground bullying via text messages, but ultimately the fact remains that the great technological advances which we could offer as scant mitigation for thousands of years of mutual slaughter have come from those whose intelligence have been devoted to ensuring we continue to blow each other to smithereens in ever more spectacular ways. From the internet to satellite communication; from nuclear energy to precision engineering, the great driving force behind it all has always been military development. For, and let’s not get our celebrity-obsessed brains in a muddle about it, mankind’s business is war; to murder, to conquer and to enslave, and then to erect borders to ensure that only a few benefit from the loot.
Take for instance our self-regarding sense of awe and wonderment at our intellectual achievements. Our ability to think, we are told, is what distinguishes us from the animals. But as soon as someone takes the parking spot for which we had been patiently waiting, or implies that our mothers enjoy sex with a variety of strangers for cash, we are ready to sink the blade into their bellies. The point that I am labouring here, I suppose, is that we are just as enslaved to our primordial animalistic impulses as any grizzly bear in the woods. If our intellects were truly in control, all the great problems that afflict humanity today would be solved quicker than you can say ‘unilateral agreement’.
I can see you reading this now and pursing your lips, maybe even shaking your head with an indulgent smile. Or you may simply dismiss me as a terrible pessimist. I can tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. I am at heart an incurable optimist. And my optimism stems from the poetic notion that one day a huge meteorite will, as it must, strike this planet of ours and wipe out this particular race of war-mongering dinosaurs forever. You know, start afresh. Maybe the next lot will do a better job of things. We have failed miserably.
(For a more encouraging view, take a look at Lucy’s lovely picture here.).
it’s all this dude’s fault:
Choe Mu-seon
oh, I added a wiki link to Choe Mu-seon there, but it fell off
fixed
* Shaking my head and smiling indulgently.*
Aren’t cynics adorable?
(Do you want to kill me now?)
Happy Peace Day nevertheless, Mr. Moonke.
bohemienne: I could never imagine wanting to kill you. unless, you know, we had an affair, and after things turned sour you decided to boil my daughter’s bunny and all that – then you’d leave me with no choice…
Crap! The other day it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and today is Peace Day! I can’t keep up!
It is all so disheartening but I am sure the next lot will be just as bad if not worse as this lot.
Make the most of it, Marcos, this is no rehearsal. As long as YOU know YOU are good…
la cubana gringa: stay tuned for International Talk Like a Tosser Day.
cream: you know, I was going to say the same thing, but I was trying to sound optimistic at the time.
it’s international talk like a tosser day every day at enidd’s place. peace, sir ed.
And yet amid all this slaughter and cruelty and intolerance there are sublime moments of self-disregard where humans perform deeds of great kindness: Germans sheltering Jews during the Nazi regime, doctors and nurses working in war zones etc etc.
But as I wrote that I realised that these acts of heroism only happen because of the initial barbarity of other humans.
So, I give up. I try to be optimistic but when I look around me I see we’re walking on very thin ice every day.
I’m with you, dumdad.
Peace day was a lovely idea but ultimately it depressed me as it forced me to realise there’s just not enough of it about.
I’ve since renamed it ‘kick yourself in the psyche and admit that the whole world is run by arseholes day’
ah enidd, just because you’re living in america now doesn’t mean you should become self-conscious about your oxbridge accent.
dumdad: yes, my own cynicism is often dealt a blow whenever witnessing great acts of altruism and compassion. but isn’t it odd how those guys never seem to be the ones who call the shots?
angelalala: hello there. ‘kicking oneself in the psyche’ sounds like a rather dangerous act of contortionism for people of my age.
I entirely and utterly agree with every word you say, even though I said similar ones myself some years ago. That’s why I love the wilderness so much.
peter: hiya. what can I say… deranged minds think alike, no? I think the whole business of hermetic living is quite underrated.
I managed to completely miss International Peace Day, but by a lucky coincidence I didn’t kill anyone last Friday.
darling, as usual you are a hundred percent right, of course. But no need for a meteorite – at this rate, it will be all over very soon. Let’s enjoy our last days:-)
PS Have you read the Sam Harris book? You must!
zinnia: that was lucky. to avoid that sort of faux pas, I generally find that checking the international calendar before leaving the house can save a lot of embarrassment.
maryam: I haven’t read it. I’ve googled him and it sounds as though he’d only be preaching to the converted here. like richard dawkins’ the god delusion, the religious zombies are those who would probably most benefit from it.
Thinking and intellect is a tool. Not the only one we possess. This is what happens when you elect the hammer in your wood shop to the position of god, I suppose.
lj: as we’re all mixing our metaphors, here’s another: if the only tool you possess is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
You are a realist. And reality smarts.
ariel: absolutely. that’s me. and as a realist, I am rather pessimistic about humanity’s chances of ever coming good…
And yet everyday we continue to bring life into this world. . .
I guess the goodness comes in thinking each generation will be better.
DQ: I wouldn’t put money on it.
Hey, despite the awfulness of humanity in general, we’re all still here, aren’t we? Make the best of what you’ve got and be as good to each other as you can. That’s the only way to change things.
love how you wrote this. your way of thinking is much healthier than the people who can’t stop preaching all the happy-campy BS (the secret comes to mind once again)…the ones with blinders full-up 24/7. realism with a healthy dose of imagination is the best possible combination.
sophie: and I suspect we’ll be here for a while still. however long our existence on this planet lasts, I doubt we’ll ever see sense and drop our weapons; I simply don’t believe we’re capable of it. for as long as there are people unnecessarily dying, be it from the firing of a bullet or the swinging of an axe, or by starvation, my low opinion of humanity will remain.
vesper: thank you. of course, I would be the first person to do the ‘happy-campy’ thing, if only we’d done anything to merit it…
Oh, its not quite that bad. The problem I think is not that we’re all violent, but that violence is a form of power. The peaceful are at the mercy of the violent, the selfish at the mercy of the unselfish, the trusting at the mercy of the untrustworthy. But ‘we may enjoy playground bullying’ – who’s ‘we’? – I certainly don’t and I’m sure you don’t either. The innocent may not to be powerful, but neither are they guilty.
drodbar: hello and welcome. In my humble opinion, people who live in countries which have become rich through their military conquests are a little suspect to decide whether or not it’s ‘quite that bad’. as for the bullying, sadly we didn’t have mobile phones in my day, just good old-fashioned punching on the stomach in an alleyway.
This is a testosterone filled post! It’s harsh but it has its truths too. Man, I’m gonna go grab a poetry book now. Paz e amor, dudes!
