Editor’s note: This commentary is by Joe Randazzo, of South Burlington, who is a writer and a former case resolution specialist for ICE.
[T]he Russians are buzzing American destroyers with their fighter jets. American ships are in the South China Sea patrolling dangerously near Chinese military forces. Brinksmanship could have disastrous consequences.
These actions have ancient historical precedents. As soon as humans achieved a collective consciousness we banded together for protection from animals, the elements, and … from other humans. As hunter-gatherers transitioned to agrarian societies, violence became more ritualized. Humans eventually created cities and governed states. Larger armies became standard. Their uses were not purely defensive.
It is natural for members of the human species to have no inhibitions against killing. According to Konrad Lorenz, the Nobel Prize-winning ethologist, the only animals that use war as a general policy in dealing with their own kind are rats and man. Aggression is part of human nature.
Family coats of arms, mostly originating in the Middle Ages, had in addition to the artwork for their shields, a family battle cry written in Latin. It was a heraldic requirement. That’s what was done. You grabbed a sword and a round shield, shouted your battle cry, and hacked off the body parts of your rival. It was your birthright and your duty.
Early engagements consisted of lines of troops smashing and stabbing each other until one or the other side got depleted or exhausted. There were no drones, no distant artillery shelling or saturation bombing. No, it was eyeball to eyeball.
The methods have changed but the causes are still the same. There is an aggressive drive, mostly in the human male, that hasn’t found an outlet other than bringing death and destruction to members of our own species. It is now once or twice removed. People who release the drones, missiles, or bombs seldom see the faces of those they destroy. It makes it much easier to kill. Instead of swords and axes, it’s now done by specialists using computer screens. Defense is a catch word that masks the true causes of the violence.
The human condition is deteriorating. As global warming increases, the world’s ecosystems are strained to the breaking point. Food and water will be scarce commodities in the future. Another part of this nightmare is our ever increasing population. We are soon past the point of sustainability.
Shouldn’t every person in the Third World have the same goods and opportunities as do Americans? Well, if every family in Africa, South America and Asia had a large flat-screen TV, an air conditioner, oil or natural gas heat, a refrigerator and other appliances, and an SUV, the world would cease to exist. We will have polluted ourselves out of existence. There is no large-scale human awareness of our breaking point on the planet. Material progress and overconsumption are lauded, not condemned.
So, it’s only natural for armies to be given high priority to seize remaining resources and kill other humans who are in competition. Water will be the new oil.
When Trump and Putin move their chess pieces into position all over the world stage, they are reenacting a tradition that has gone on for several millennia. They are doing what our ancestors have always done. It will make no difference who is elected president of either country.
We are acting like lemmings marching off a cliff. We are ruining the earth, adding unsupportable numbers of people to the planet, and we are making preparations to wage deadly war. Is Iran the next staging ground for our insanity?
When you have one or two of something, or even only a dozen, those items could be considered precious. However, when you have over seven billion people, we are much less so. We cannot continue to breed and pollute without consequences. The only way out of this dilemma is to reverse our overpopulation, end the abuse of resources, and renounce violence as a solution.
The American philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
