h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just saw at BBC-2 the program; "ancestors" and this time it was about the Nelson Island near the Nile in Egypt, where admiral Nelson won the battle against the army of Napoleon.

Nelson appears to be - in the eyes of the British - a courageous and smart admiral in the old days against Napoleon.

I feel involved in that history with (warhappy) Napoleon* ,but don't know enough about the real political and cultural dangers of these days.(if there wére)
I dó know, that the British didn't like Napoleons appetite for colonial possessions overseas.

I just read the book; "diary of a soldier in the army of Napoleon"(ISBN 90-254-0382-4 "The diary of a Napoleonic foot soldier".) Some letters, mentioned in that book, were saved by history, because they were cénsored and put in royal archives, these days. Home front was not allowed to know the horrors in which their own "children" lived.

This posting of mine is nót about the British.
It is about war.
Any war, anywhere.

War is súch an outrageous violant act against men, women and children, that I feel great hasitation to easily admire any general, admiral, or whatever smart guy at any front, in ány country.

And I emphasize the word "easily".

I do want to become and remain fully aware of the bloody, killing acts during ány war and not romaticising it, or even see it as a kind of sport with European rivals.
It so easily becomes; "Hey guys, we gót ye!"

In The Netherlands we just as easily are proud of our admirals of the 17th century, but I do have a lót of questions of the real necéssity of their wars.
We call the 17th century our "Golden Age"...
Did the slaves also see it that way?

Only as a self-defense against real agressors, or as a prevention of a real big physical threat, I do see legitimate reasons to go out with the aim of killing, wounding and destroying.
(No, I do not take the words of mr. Bush who is hungry for oil).

But it hás to be by definition, in my view, the very, véry last option.
And nó economic reason legitimates professional killing, wounding and destroying of human beings.

Stopping the geopolitical colonial ambitions of Napoleon does not automatically justify professional killing and wounding of other young men in uniforms. Maybe there were tougher reasons, but I haven't heard them so far.

I feel obliged to say so, because of áll those young men who died in so many useless wars. And because of those who died in useful wars, like the invasion of allied forces in WW-II and in some other wars.
(I was sursprised to hear that also the Americans got involved at the end of WW-I and that their military efforts did make a decisive difference, ánd there success to eliminate by political pressure the central European royal courts as institutions)

In the old days victims were 90% soldiers and 10% civilians.
And now it is the other way around.
But ány life counts (including animals/tens of thousands of horses);
military or civilian.


It is very difficult to put the finger at the trigger of the start of any war;
- Civilians who are dancing around their soldiers who will fight a "liberation war", like we saw at the very beginning of the war in Chechenia in the Caucasus?
- The heavy overkill by the Russian troops as a reaction on that?
- Ceasars and politicians who want to polish their ego's?
- Merchants who ask for "freedom of their trade overseas"?
- Racial madness in the middle of Africa in the ninetees?
- Human need for violence?
- Violence of the rich and mighty against unskilled workers.
- Religious/political aims?
- Starting a war as an escape from national problems?
- So many, many more reasons and combinations of reasons.

Where does war start?
Where and when does it start in mé?



Well, this all came up in me again, after seeing the program.





P.S.
*(because of my own search for my ancestors who appeared to have served in Napoleons army - the "Dutch regiment" = 123 Regiment Infanterie, in Stettin at the Oder.) And I found an historical self- written document from 1820, in which they describe what happened there.




Greatings from Amsterdam

Hi Alfredo,

I didn't see that programme myself, but it sounds interesting.

Where does war start?
Where and when does it start in mé?

I think that agression is innate within nature, as species compete for resources. But I think that people with technology and civilisation are able to go beyond nature, and tend to forget that co-operation and mutual dependence are just as crucial to nature as is competition.

Wars tend to be amongst nations and religions. In world without either of those notions do you think there would be war?

Greetings from London

Jen

War also tends to be between human beings and other human beings. In a world without human beings, do you think there would be war?

The way I see it, when there are two human beings, there's a potential for war.

Getting rid of religions and of nations is tantamount to getting rid of humanity, in my view! Humanity comes with those things... they are the basics that come with the start-up kit. When we only have a single human 'nation' ... that is a single 'country', a world government, we might very well have a world tyranny! And if we have lots of smaller governments, there will be different 'nations'. And if we have a single world government, we will still have different population groups that speak different languages and have different cultures. Imagine trying to eliminate culture, and language, from the world, so there would be no conflicts between different cultures and languages!

Right now we have *more* religions in the world than ever before, and the way I see it, this is going to go in the direction of even more diversity into the future. Religion is a centre for diversification in human *thinking* and that needn't be a bad thing.

Similarly we are diversifying *culturally* to an amazing degree right now. In different countries you'll find different societies, mainstream as well as minorities, and various groupings and subgroupings, subcultures, alternative cultures. This, too, is going to keep on going on. The diversity will increase rather than decrease.

There *are* languages and cultures that are dying out. But this is not a good thing, it's a tragedy! I think we need to safeguard vanishing human cultures and languages in some way.

Differences of *any kind at all* between human beings become sources of potential conflict. Trying to eliminate differences comes down to trying to reduce the whole of humanity to a single human being, in my view. I don't think it would be a good thing to do, even if it worked! In other words, if that is the only way to have peace, I would say, 'No Thanks'!

My own view is not to try and eliminate potential-conflict-generating differences, but rather, to try and engineer a way for these differences to co-exist while minimally threatening each other.

Imagine how threatening it is to be saying to people:

'I don't respect your point of view, your values, your way of life, or your identity. In fact I want to totally eradicate it from the world.'

I think people do have a right to fight for their own existence, and remember that our existence is not just material, it is also psychological, spiritual, conceptual, and involves our cherished beliefs and values.

Like I said I think the 'engineering' to be done has to happen in a way that maximally *accomodates* diversity-of-viewpoints. Reduce conflicts to the absolute minimum necessary. But there *will* be conflicts so long as there are different viewpoints, some of which threatening others in inescapable ways.