War

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again.

© BBC

THERE ARE PEOPLE IN BOTH ISRAEL and the U.S. today who are celebrating the fact that the U.S. has bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran, in effect entering the war between Israel and Iran.

I’m not one of them.

It’s not that I don’t care about Israel or want it to be “safe” (whatever that means at any given moment). But this is not a path to long-term safety.

Because when you wade through all the deep geopolitical arguments and strategies and risk assessments behind such a decision, the decision to go to war boils down to one thing: The balance of power. One country is perceived to have too much power and must be chopped down to size. Another country feels it has too little power and wants to grab some. A third country wants to shift that balance to benefit itself.

At the end of the day, this cycle perpetuates itself ad infinitum. Temporary lulls may ensue but inevitably the same power buildup and grab will happen again and again unless we come at the basic issue in a different way.

That basic issue is social identity, the us vs. them that determines so much of human interaction. As long as we hold fast to this dichotomy we are doomed to repeat the same terrible events over and over again.

The 1959 novel A Canticle for Liebowitz illustrates this process perfectly. It charts the imagined rise and fall of society after society, from primitive development through nuclear capabilities. The details are different but the results are the same: each time, society self-destructs because it never gets beyond the us-against-them mentality.

This perspective is often portrayed as a kind of naivete, an imagined scenario where the baddies drop their weapons and sing Kumbaya with everyone else. (Of course each group thinks the “baddies” are the other side.)

But this characterization is precisely what keeps us mired in the same horrifying cycle of violence and war.

In this case, I could point out that two of the leaders involved are little men who need to look big on the world stage, either to keep themselves out of prison or to add to their global swagger. To bolster their egos.

But you know what? It’s always the same story, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of rationalizing violence and destruction. I’m sick of the justifications for inflicting terrible suffering on other human beings. This cycle will not change as long as there are men (and yes, they’re almost always men) who need to make themselves feel big by squashing other people.

Is there power in the collective wisdom of the rest of us? Maybe this time we’ll find out. Until then I’m saying kaddish for all those who are suffering—both “our” side and “theirs.”