Olly's Files
War What is it good for?
‘If we don't end war, war will end us.’ – H.G Wells ‘The father of science fiction’.
People have differing opinions about war. Some people believe you can begin and end one without any unnecessary bloodshed, however there is not enough evidence to suggest this and I would go as far to say that the inverse is true. In the 10,000 years settled humans have been on the planet, war has always occurred. We cannot officially know when it started and no one will know when it will end. I believe it won’t, at least in the near future. It is in human nature to express emotion and antagonism with action. It’s the one primitive ingredient of life no one can extirpate, human or not. War is necessary some say, but I would argue that war is a necessary evil that no one can take responsibility for or end. You can only look at the world of war retrospectively and question its meaning.
If you were to argue for the positive effects of wars there wouldn’t be much to talk about. The snail of war leaves a slimy mess behind it. Mass poverty, vast amounts of debt not to mention the thousands, and in some cases millions, of deaths on that country’s hands and in their history books. Countries have completely lost their reputations as effective forces against evil in the world, e.g. terrorism, racism, sexual inequality, because they don’t project a good image of themselves onto the rest of the world. Countries like America have become widely renowned for their inefficient and unreliable government who are incapable of handling situations, like the Iraqi conflict, successfully and have thus caused more conflict. ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed’- Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th president of the United States).
However this is to say that waging a war and defending yourself from another one are two completely separate
‘If we don't end war, war will end us.’ – H.G Wells ‘The father of science fiction’.
People have differing opinions about war. Some people believe you can begin and end one without any unnecessary bloodshed, however there is not enough evidence to suggest this and I would go as far to say that the inverse is true. In the 10,000 years settled humans have been on the planet, war has always occurred. We cannot officially know when it started and no one will know when it will end. I believe it won’t, at least in the near future. It is in human nature to express emotion and antagonism with action. It’s the one primitive ingredient of life no one can extirpate, human or not. War is necessary some say, but I would argue that war is a necessary evil that no one can take responsibility for or end. You can only look at the world of war retrospectively and question its meaning.
If you were to argue for the positive effects of wars there wouldn’t be much to talk about. The snail of war leaves a slimy mess behind it. Mass poverty, vast amounts of debt not to mention the thousands, and in some cases millions, of deaths on that country’s hands and in their history books. Countries have completely lost their reputations as effective forces against evil in the world, e.g. terrorism, racism, sexual inequality, because they don’t project a good image of themselves onto the rest of the world. Countries like America have become widely renowned for their inefficient and unreliable government who are incapable of handling situations, like the Iraqi conflict, successfully and have thus caused more conflict. ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed’- Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th president of the United States).
However this is to say that waging a war and defending yourself from another one are two completely separate