Nuclear Weapons Are Criminal! Every War Is A Crime!
By
John Scales Avery, New Age Islam
24 June
2021
A
Tendency towards Conflict Is an Intrinsic Part of Human Emotional Nature
Main
Points:
1. “Why War?”
is the title of a famous letter written to Sigmund Freud by Albert Einstein.
2. With the
advance of modern science every attempt at its solution has ended in a
lamentable breakdown.
3. Those whose
duty it is to tackle the problem professionally and practically are growing
only too aware of their impotence to deal with it.
4. Rational
behaviour is the only hope for humankind.
----
Albert
Einstein's letter to Sigmund Freud
“Why War?”
the title of this book, was also the title of a famous letter written to
Sigmund Freud by Albert Einstein.
In 1931,
the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation invited Albert
Einstein to enter correspondence with a prominent person of his own choosing on
a subject of importance to society. The Institute planned to publish a
collection of such dialogues. Einstein
accepted at once, and decided to write to Sigmund Freud to ask his opinion
about how humanity could free itself from the curse of war. Here are some
quotations from Einstein’s letter, translated from the original German:
“Dear
Professor Freud,
“It is
common knowledge that, with the advance of modern science, this issue has come
to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it;
nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has
ended in a lamentable breakdown.
“I believe,
moreover, that those whose duty it is to tackle the problem professionally and
practically are growing only too aware of their impotence to deal with it, and
have now a very lively desire to learn the views of men who, absorbed in the
pursuit of science, can see world-problems in the perspective distance lends.
As for me, the normal objective of my thought affords no insight into the dark
places of human will and feeling. Thus, in the enquiry now proposed, I can do
little more than seek to clarify the question at issue and, clearing the ground
of the more obvious solutions, enable you to bring the light of your
far-reaching knowledge of man's instinctive life to bear upon the problem...
“As one
immune from nationalist bias, I personally see a simple way of dealing with the
superficial (i.e. administrative) aspect of the problem: the setting up, by
international consent, of a legislative and judicial body to settle every
conflict arising between nations. Each nation would undertake to abide by the
orders issued by this legislative body, to invoke its decision in every
dispute, to accept its judgments unreservedly and to carry out every measure
the tribunal deems necessary for the execution of its decrees. But here, at the
outset, I come up against a difficulty; a tribunal is a human institution
which, in proportion as the power at its disposal is inadequate to enforce its
verdicts, is all the more prone to suffer these to be deflected by
extrajudicial pressure...”
Freud
replied with a long and thoughtful letter in which he said that a tendency
towards conflict is an intrinsic part of human emotional nature, but that
emotions can be overridden by rationality, and that rational behaviour is the
only hope for humankind.
Tribalism,
And Its Relationship To Nationalism
Can we give
better answers today to the questions raised by the exchange of letters between
Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud?
Charles
Darwin's observations convinced him that in humans, just as in other mammals,
the emotions and their expression are to a very large extent inherited
universal characteristics of the species.
The study
of inherited behavior patterns in animals (and humans) was continued in the
20th century by such researchers as Karl von Frisch (1886-1982), Nikolaas
Tinbergen (1907-1988), and Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), three scientists who shared
a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.
The third
of the 1973 prize-winners, Konrad Lorenz, is the most controversial, but at the
same time very interesting in the context of studies of the causes of war and
discussions of how war may be avoided.
As a young
boy, he was very fond of animals, and his tolerant parents allowed him to build
up a large menagerie in their house in Altenberg, Austria. Even as a child, he
became an expert on waterfowl behaviour, and he discovered the phenomenon of
imprinting.
He was
given a one day old duckling, and found, to his intense joy, that it
transferred its following response to his person. As Lorenz discovered, young
waterfowl have a short period immediately after being hatched, when they identify
as their “mother” whomever they see first. In later life, Lorenz continued his
studies of imprinting, and there exists a touching photograph of him, with his
white beard, standing waist-deep in a pond, surrounded by an adoring group of
goslings who believe him to be their mother. Lorenz also studied bonding behaviour
in waterfowl.
It is,
however, for his controversial book “On Aggression” that Konrad Lorenz is best
known. In this book, Lorenz makes a distinction between intergroup aggression
and intragroup aggression. Among animals, he points out, rank-determining
fights are seldom fatal. Thus, for example, the fights that determine
leadership within a wolf pack end when the loser makes a gesture of submission.
By contrast, fights between groups of animals are often fights to the death,
examples being wars between ant colonies, or of bees against intruders, or the defines
of a rat pack against strange rats.
Many
animals, humans included, seem willing to kill or be killed in defines of the
communities to which they belong. Lorenz calls this behavioural tendency a
“communal defines response”. He points out that the “holy shiver” - the
tingling of the spine that humans experience when performing a heroic act in defines
of their communities - is related to the prehuman reflex for raising the hair
on the back of an animal as it confronts an enemy - a reflex that makes the
animal seem larger than it really is.
In an essay
entitled “The Urge to Self-Destruction” (in “The Place of Value in a World of
Facts”, A. Tiselius and S. Nielsson editors, Wiley, New York, 1970), Arthur
Koestler writes:
“Even a
cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes, committed
for selfish motives, play a quite insignificant role in the human tragedy
compared with the numbers massacred in unselfish love of one's tribe, nation,
dynasty, church or ideology... Wars are not fought for personal gain, but out
of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause...
“We have
seen on the screen the radiant love of the Fuhrer on the faces of the Hitler
Youth... They are transfixed with love, like monks in ecstasy on religious
paintings. The sound of the nation's anthem, the sight of its proud flag, makes
you feel part of a wonderfully loving community. The fanatic is prepared to lay
down his life for the object of his worship, as the lover is prepared to die
for his idol. He is, alas, also prepared to kill anybody who represents a
supposed threat to the idol.”
The emotion
described here by Koestler is the same as the communal defense mechanism
(“militant enthusiasm”) described in biological terms by Lorenz.
Population
Genetics
Human
emotions evolved during the long period when our ancestors lived in small,
genetically homogeneous tribes, competing for territory on the grasslands of
Africa.
To explain
from an evolutionary point of view the communal defines mechanism discussed by
Lorenz - the willingness of humans to kill and be killed in defines of their
communities - we have only to imagine that our ancestors lived in small tribes
and that marriage was likely to take place within a tribe rather than across
tribal boundaries. Under these circumstances, each tribe would tend to consist
of genetically similar individuals. The tribe itself, rather than the
individual, would be the unit on which the evolutionary forces of natural
selection would act. The idea of group selection in evolution was first
proposed by J.B.S. Haldane and R.A. Fischer, and more recently it has been
discussed by W.D. Hamilton and E.O. Wilson.
Military-Industrial
Complexes
In his
farewell address, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his nation against
the excessive power that had been acquired during World War II by the
military-industrial complex: “We have been compelled to create an armaments
industry of vast proportions,” Eisenhower said, “...Now this conjunction of an
immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in American
experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt
in every city, every state house, every office in the federal government. ...
We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and
livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. ... We
must stand guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let
the weight of this combination endanger our democratic processes. We should
take nothing for granted.”
Because the
world spends roughly two trillion dollars each year on armaments, it follows
that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is
correct to speak of war as a social, political and economic institution, and
also one of the main reasons why war persists, although everyone realizes that
it is the cause of much of the suffering of humanity.
We know
that war is madness, but it persists. We know that it threatens the survival of
our species, but it persists, entrenched in the attitudes of historians,
newspaper editors and television producers, entrenched in the methods by which
politicians finance their campaigns, and entrenched in the financial power of
arms manufacturers - entrenched also in the ponderous and costly hardware of
war, the fleets of warships, bombers, tanks, nuclear missiles and so on.
Colonialism
The
Industrial Revolution opened up an enormous gap in military strength between
the industrialized nations and the rest of the world. Taking advantage of their
superior weaponry, Europe, the United States and Japan rapidly carved up the
remainder of the world into colonies, which acted as sources of raw materials
and food, and as markets for manufactured goods. Between 1800 and 1914, the
percentage of the earth under the domination of colonial powers increased to 85
percent, if former colonies are included.
The English
economist and Fabian, John Atkinson Hobson (1858-1940), offered a famous
explanation of the colonial era in his book “Imperialism: A Study” (1902).
According to Hobson, the basic problem that led to colonial expansion was an
excessively unequal distribution of incomes in the industrialized countries.
The result of this unequal distribution was that neither the rich nor the poor
could buy back the total output of their society. The incomes of the poor were
insufficient, and rich were too few in number. The rich had finite needs, and
tended to reinvest their money. As Hobson pointed out, reinvestment in new
factories only made the situation worse by increasing output.
Hobson had
been sent as a reporter by the Manchester Guardian to cover the Second Boer
War. His experiences had convinced him that colonial wars have an economic
motive. Such wars are fought, he believed, to facilitate investment of the
excess money of the rich in African or Asian plantations and mines, and to make
possible the overseas sale of excess manufactured goods. Hobson believed imperialism to be immoral.
The cure that he recommended was a more equal distribution of incomes in the
manufacturing countries.
Nuclear War
Do our “Defence
Departments” really defend us? Absolutely not! Their very title is a lie. The
military-industrial complex sells itself by claiming to defend civilians. It
justifies vast and crippling budgets by this claim; but it is a fraud. For the
military-industrial complex, the only goal is money and power. Civilians like
ourselves are just hostages. We are expendable. We are pawns in the power game,
the money game.
Nations
possessing nuclear weapons threaten each other with “Mutually Assured
Destruction”, which has the very appropriate acronym MAD.
What does
this mean? Does it mean that civilians are being protected? Not at all. Instead
they are threatened with complete destruction. Civilians here play the role of
hostages in the power games of their leaders.
A
thermonuclear war today would be not only genocidal but also omnicidal. It
would kill people of all ages, babies, children, young people, mothers, fathers
and grandparents, without any regard whatever for guilt or innocence. Such a
war would be the ultimate ecological catastrophe, destroying not only human
civilization but also much of the biosphere.
Nuclear Weapons
Are Criminal! Every War Is A Crime!
War was
always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering,
economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty,
hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge.
It has
always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for
murderers in civil society to kill people. No flag has ever been wide enough to
cover up atrocities. But today, the development of all-destroying thermonuclear
weapons has put war completely beyond the bounds of sanity and elementary
humanity.
Can we not
rid the world of these insane and antihuman weapons before everything of value
in our beautiful world is reduced to radioactive ashes? Can we not rid the
world of the institution of war?
A New
Freely Downloadable Book
I would
like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the reasons why the
institution of war continues to threaten human civilization and the biosphere,
and the steps that might be taken to rid the world of war. The book may be
downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link:
https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Why-War-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf
Other books
and articles about global problems are on these links
http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/
https://wsimag.com/authors/716-john-scales-avery
I hope that
you will circulate the links in this article to friends and contacts who might
be interested.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/nuclear-weapon/d/125011
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