Throughout recorded history, humans have been warring with each other. Only 268 of the past 3400 years have been peaceful. In the twentieth century, kill totals spiked as wars claimed 108 million lives. The world’s military forces are 97 percent male.
There is within us the depthless silence of love. There is also the howl of ego whose clamorous denunciations never cease and whose underlying message is always the same: “Get ready for war.”
Men tend to struggle with, even to feel strangled by, “I love you.” More easily and powerfully expressed: “I hate you.” Nationalist leaders know this about men. Stadiums are filled with their chants.
The word ‘victory’ is wasting away; it will not be revived. There are no victories, not ever and especially not now. Our techno-barbarism, our military parades, stand exposed and ridiculous. Today’s heroes flutter quietly, anonymously, through the halls of the sick and the dying.
“After they had killed the Edomites, they killed each other.”
The inevitability of violence is that sooner or later it turns on itself.
