Why We Fight

"...acceptance of the (perceived) need to oppose evil with violence is nothing other than the justification people give to their habitual and favorite vices: vengeance, avarice, envy, ambition, pride, cowardice, and spite." - Leo Tolstoy

I've been reading a lot of Tolstoy lately, one of the things i admire about his writing, among many, is his refusal to seek rationalization for acts of violence. Without getting into all of the philosophizing he does around the issue the basic premise, at least from my perspective, is that acting violently in order to halt evil or to counter violence that threatens or opposes your wishes is actually only perpetuating the existing evil and only creating more violence not only at the present but in the future as well. This seems like a basic principle if you contemplate it for more than a second or two. To make it even clearer, say you get punched in the face, their might be no reason behind this act of violence, maybe you had done something in the past to provoke it, maybe not. In response to this act of violence you punch back, chances are the aggressor is going to hit you again and this will continue until one of you decides your going to kill each other if it keeps up and one of you walks away.

If you take this principle and apply it to the broader world it seems to work out. Any act of war is a perpetuation of violence. If you want to triumph over violence, you don't use violence. Fighting evil with evil is such a complete contradiction that it seems even the power crazed minds who are ordering wars to be fought in the name of justice and liberty and so on would be able to grasp the violence + violence = .... surprise.. more violence concept quite easily. History demonstrates this concept better than anyone could ever explain it. The question is, How do you combat evil if you are confined to non-violent means?

History can answer that question as well. You counter violence with peace, you counter evil with good, it makes reasonable sense but when this principle is applied to the real world and to the minds of humanity it looses its luster. I think the quote above explains why, we would rather fulfill our most primitive satisfactions, spite, greed, etc. than seek a true solution to a problem. It still doesn't quite work out though, when you consider that after 9/11 in the United States the majority of people thought good of seeking vengeance on the perpetrators of the attacks, even if their identities or motives weren't fully knows and even if the majority of people had been brainwashed and manipulated by media propaganda into thinking violent action was needed if their own lust for vengeance wasn't enough.

With regards to 9/11, people will ask: are we just supposed to sit back and do nothing? Of course we take action, USA USA USA USA USA!!!! If somebody is willing to commit an extreme act of violence against you, chances are you aren't completely innocent to begin with, this was certainly the case with the U.S prior to 9/11 and even more so after it. If the tyranny that the Western world has evoked on the rest of the world were to be applied to the West, we would all either be dead, starving, living in destitute poverty, or pretending we really love that great big beastly behemoth that slaughtered all our ancestors, some of our friends and some of our neighbors.

So the correct course of action in any volatile situation would be the more difficult, albeit more rational one. To reflect on yourself, on your own action. Does your enemy have reason to hate you? Perhaps they don't, perhaps you're the victim of a completely unprovoked act of violence, then what do you do? This is most difficult to accept as it seems to go against human nature, and it does, but it doesn't go against true human nature, it only goes against the human nature we have been taught resides within us when in fact there is something much more liberating that is within our reach. This true human condition spurs us to love our enemy, not to strike back with vengeance but to offer a glimpse of reason and a glimpse of true humility so that we do not provoke further violence.

Unfortunately, very few people reach a human condition that has rid itself of the selfish desires our world teaches is so valuable. But those who do, if they are not persecuted and tormented to no end, if they live to act out their will. Those people have a gripping effect on the entire human race, they teach lessons, they live by example, they suffer but ultimately succeed. If it were not for a doctrine of love and peace and humility, values our colossal stupidity is often moved to shun, and for those few people who actually live and have lived by those convictions this world would be an unlivable place.