History Forum / General / General Topics / May 2004

re: war, idealism, pop neurosis

10. sparta, tennesseee, is the ancient, classical pacifist model for worrying
about what the junque-yard bulldog warriors of athens, georgia, are gonna do on
their exams

9. most persons live lives of loud happiness, according to henry j. trudeau's
zonker, the gold winner of the olympic suntan compertition  in the antartic
winter games, as courageously reported by the prestigious, respected MIDNIGHT
GLOBE

8. the satisfactions of hunger, thirst, and sex tend to preclude unusual human
accomplishments, because, as we note in standard art history, michaelangelo's
satiated libidio & mediocre works don't impact the masterful undepraved art of
alexander calder and the baroque elegance of dadaism

7. the communizations of russia, china, cambodia etal had generally been of the
civil, evolutionary, legalistic processes kinds, because, as marie antionette &
madame defarege say, let 'em eat sunny-side-up yolks with biscuits & strawberry
jam

6. u.s. grant is doubtlessly buried in groucho's tomb

5. the "s" in harry s. truman is an opinion, while the simpson/seymour
disputation is a simple matter of historical fact needing no further scholarly
elucidation

4. the xyz affair involves a randy president at the holiday inn signboard
taking undue liberties with a slim english alpha-betic, as per the very
shocking gore vidal best seller with the tv version pre-empting the practice
next sunday night starring randy quaid as the security officer who removes the
masking tape from the doorlock, and political history is changed forever

3. idiots who compose obtuse nonsensical allusions & contusions & confusions on
the pentagon-initially funded/derived internet oughtabe imprisoned, tortured
with great books, and ignored, except for the enjoyment of eternal idiocracy
their posteriors

2. some historians, philosophers, and persnickety semanticists recently
convened at a poultry farm in north georgia, and the usual cliches were
confirmed about chickens running around with heads cut-off along with the
inherent problems of scratchings, space, manure and feedings-waterings

1. history belongs to those who thrive in brilliantly disguising plagarism

I missed your comments on "The Last Samurai" but having recently watched it
I found it fascinating. It really is about the reaction of a highly
sophisticated group in Japan who were losing power to the newer forces of
industrial society, and who were fighting back in defense of a way of life
they considered very important.It is also about the rather unique
characteristics of Japanese political society as it made some of those very
painful changes into a modern industrial society. It is a fascination movie
in many ways, and well worth the time.

I think that the Tom Cruise character is an idealistic warrior who was
extremely troubled by the misuse of his troops, and that his discovery of
and acceptance into the warrior culture of the Samurai was what gave him the
peace he had been looking for.

I believe that you misread my comment on putting outsiders' heads on pikes.
My point is that if you have no on-going relations with outsiders, all
outsiders are dangerous and should be avoided. Strangers are inherently
dangerous people, so you need to protect yourself from them first, before
trying to make them into something other than strangers. I live in a city a
mile or so up the railroad tracks from the homeless shelters, and the trains
travel slowly through this part of town. If you trust every stranger in my
neighborhood you ~will~ get physically hurt and/or robbed rather soon. They
won't stay long enough to get to know them, either. They can't be brought
inside. Pure trust is not a viable option. Trust works when conditions are
right, and is extremely important then.

A Pentagon analyst named Thomas P. M. Barnett recently wrote a book called
"The Pentagon's New Map" in which he divides the world into what he calls
the "Core" and the "Gap." The Core is the set of nations that have a large
number of on-going transactions with each other, in terms of finance, trade,
communications and culture, and travel. The old Core was Europe, the US and
Japan. They don't have wars because they have a large number of agreed-upon
"Rule-Sets" between them. Since the collapse of the USSR, the new Core
nations include Russia, China, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
Essentially this is the "Globalized" world.

The "Gap" consists of those nations that are not integrated by networks of
"Rule Sets" into the Globalized world. Most of Africa, the Balkans, the
Middle East up to Russia, the Caribbean, and northern and northwestern South
America make up the Gap. It is largely those nations with per capital income
less than about $3,000. He identified that area by determining where the US
has sent military reaction forces in the last 15 years. It is the area where
wars are fought today. He states that wars occur when there are no
integrating rule sets between nations, or when the rule sets that do exist
break down. The gap is also the non-globalized part of the world, which
explains the lack of integrating rule sets..

The important point is that he attributes the warlike nature of the Gap to
the lack of integrating Rule Sets between those nations and others.

That seems to me to be saying almost exactly the same thing you are saying.
He says that we prevent wars by involving those nations in a web of
agreed-upon rule sets. You use the term "bring them inside."

A difference is that Barnett and I are talking about nations and groups of
people, while you are talking about individuals. I think that the same laws
of interactions apply, however.

Rule sets don't have to integrate nations or people, however. There can be
rule sets that call for isolation from others as well as rule sets that
integrate them. In that case it may become necessary to disrupt the old rule
sets before new, integrating rule sets can be established. Barnett states
that the invasion of Iraq is an attempt at such a disruption of the older
rule set, hopefully to be replaced with a newer one that integrates Iraq
with the rest of the Globalized world. That the invasion has disrupted the
old rule sets goes almost without saying. Whether it will work, or should
have even been attempted is another issue, one I will not address here.

I was the one who suggested that you look at the movie "Dust." I hope you
enjoyed it. It is one of the very few movies I have seen that left me
thinking as I left it. The born-again ex-Harley biker who runs my local
Blockbuster said much the same thing about it.

Ah, but can we use the interconnectiveness of the internet to agree to a set
of integrating rule sets that minimizes violence between us? That is the
question.

On a personal level, it seems to me that when married couples have problems
they are sent to counseling to attempt to learn to "communicate." What is
the purpose of such communication other than to break down dysfunctional
rule sets in each individual and try to build new, agreed upon rule sets
between them that allow them to trust each other? Communication may be the
method, but the goal is a set of integrating rule sets between people.