Quite some hours last week, were dedicated to watching American civil war movies; Gettysburg, Glory and Gone with the wind. And seeing all those people fighting in such ridiculous way, with so many guaranteed casualties, can be quite mind bothering. How can you convince such masses to march over a long battlefield with such discipline, meanwhile sieged by canons, than under enemy’s gunfire and lastly, facing the enemies with bayonets. You need some kind of a minor miracle to motivate people for such a thing, or needn’t you?
Along the history, we people raged war for numerous reasons. The primary is the survival one, then there are different economic reasons and others depending on the historical era, the battle took place. As for the first two, I believe they’re constant, while the others I believe, are the products of the development of our consciousness. While in prehistoric, the battle was triggered if someones survival had been endangered, in antique there were mostly ambitions of conquest, looting and gathering wealth, in the middle ages some kind of primitive “higher causes” emerged, like crusades for example (at least that is what the masses believed, of course it was also backed up with ambitions for extending Church’s power, of conquest, and gathering wealth), and then this higher causes grow to a degree, where in American civil war practically all believed (soldiers of the Union) they were fighting for “human rights” of every fellow American and the abolishment of slavery (not to forget the economical loss, the rebellious Confederation would suffer with this act..). Purely ideological cause believed by many, defending the idea considered today as something most natural, that motivated the soldiers to risk their lives for, and march in practically assured massacres. Then the first world war also appeared pretty ideological on the outside (brainwashing about inequality of nations and taking aggressive stance against them), while there were most likely purely economical reasons (distribution of colonies), and than the second one, I believe was ideological on huge majority of aspects, even though there are theories that German economy had been developed to a degree that was too suppressed from the winners of the first world war, and had to be “extended”. It was followed by the clash of two ideologies; communism and capitalism (cold war) and their ambitions for economical prevailment over the globe, resulted in dominance of capitalism, continuing to occupy the rest of the planet, under pseudonyms like terrorism etc.
So where is the difference? As we can see, the causes were developed paralleled with the development of the awareness of our “needs”. If we take Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a reference (Picture 2), physiological reasons were enough at first to start a war. But when they were met, people laid back, become lazy, and some other motivator was needed if “rulers” of some system wanted to expand their geopolitical reach and fill up “system’s treasury”. So safety reasons came in place.. Still quite materialistic in many ways, but if a man feels endangered or in lack of resources, prosperity, employment, you needn’t convince him too long to have him engage in a fight. And when this aspect is met, you continue climbing up the hierarchy with the development of causes for convincing the masses for your deed. So today, when most of us in somewhere in the self-actualization part, with more or less all the lower needs taken care of, it seems pretty illogical when you look back, what were our forefathers fighting about. Because the abundance we live in, makes all of it look natural to us, and we feel we’re entitled to it in the first place. But if someone endangered or “removed” one of the “founding bricks” to our current state in this hierarchy, I believe most of us would be ready to defend it in an instant (at least I hope so 
). But what about the aggressive counterpart?
Picture 2: Maslow's Hirearchy of Needs
There are two ways to exploit this hypothesis. The first one is to go higher in this hierarchy and make up some “higher cause” based on those needs, the people will like and feel entitled to, but “someone” is preventing it from them, to have it at the moment.. And the other way.. Go down the hierarchy, as far as you can, find some “entitlement” you like, take it away from them, and then blame someone else for it. (Bush “excelled” at this.. Taking security and scared the shit out of Americans and many others with Al Kaida, and than they granted him the war on terror, with permissions for attacking almost anyone he wished). But for God’s sake, don’t do anything of the above. Because..
Human mind is capable of providing us with abundance in all areas of life. So rather than kill and conquer, create and serve to each other. And why not love your fellow human for a change? Would do you no harm.. Because like you, every one only strives for happiness and fulfilled life. And don’t search for this on the outside, in land, power or wealth.. Because even with all of this, you will only find it, when you create peace and balance in yourself. Therefore, there is no need for aggressiveness, unless someone limits any of your fundamental needs. But try not to let yourself to be deceived..
Tags: battle, development, happiness, needs, war
Leave a Reply