How much of human history is NOT a story of groups in conflict?
The expressed motives and available contexts and modes of battle change a lot, but the "deep structure" of group conflict seems to be constant.
Calls to unity and peace and love need to be taken with a huge mine of salt...since most groups which espouse those values get themselves --often very enthusiastically-- into conflict with groups who don't buy what they're selling.
One of the lies of liberalism is that group conflict can be overcome by benevolent attitudes or talking. Especially when the conflict is with a Victim Group, the very idea that there is a win/lose conflict going on makes liberals have panic attacks.
As Dean Inge said:
Expecting group conflict among humans to cease is not much different from expecting lion prides or wolf packs to coalesce into big leonine/lupine love-fests.
The expressed motives and available contexts and modes of battle change a lot, but the "deep structure" of group conflict seems to be constant.
Calls to unity and peace and love need to be taken with a huge mine of salt...since most groups which espouse those values get themselves --often very enthusiastically-- into conflict with groups who don't buy what they're selling.
One of the lies of liberalism is that group conflict can be overcome by benevolent attitudes or talking. Especially when the conflict is with a Victim Group, the very idea that there is a win/lose conflict going on makes liberals have panic attacks.
As Dean Inge said:
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
Expecting group conflict among humans to cease is not much different from expecting lion prides or wolf packs to coalesce into big leonine/lupine love-fests.
3 comments:
"One of the lies of liberalism is that [all or most] group conflict can be overcome by benevolent attitudes or talking."
Some groups can be talked out of giving up huge empires. One wonders, however, what measure of Gandhi might have had were it Japan, or Sauri Arabia, or Russia - someone other than the British - who used to rule India.
One wonders these things anonymously.
"One of the lies of liberalism is that [all or most] group conflict can be overcome by benevolent attitudes or talking."
Some groups can be talked out of giving up huge empires. One wonders, however, what measure of [success] Gandhi might have had were it Japan, or Sauri Arabia, or Russia - someone other than the British - who used to rule India.
One wonders these things anonymously.
Your anonymous point is well taken, that if Ghandi's movement had confronted another imperial power, the blood would have flowed in oceans.
But he didn't succeed by "benevolent attitudes or talking": the mass actions of many Indians were indispensable in the success of that independence drive.
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