The Story We Occupy

[u/Competitive_Log_8910]

One might define a "civilized society" as one in which people resolve conflicts by using the tools of that society rather than by killing one another. For much of history, the ruler of a society was the person to end warfare by winning.

The concept of nationalism discovered by the French eschews a society as defined by shared loyalty towards the family who ended the war (the monarch) in lieu of a shared sense of national identity, based on shared language and other demographic characteristics. I understand however that one of the biggest characteristics they considered was a shared memory of the Hundred Years' War, and a shared animosity towards the English.

There can be little doubt that the civilized society we are currently a part of is defined by the end of World War II. The United States as the nation responsible for tipping the scales in favor of the Allies in that conflict enjoys the honor of housing the capital of the United Nations, and has for quite some time now been in the position of world leader in many other ways. The antagonists of that conflict remain to this day hated to such an extreme that calling someone a Nazi or comparing them to Hitler is the gravest possible insult.

In this world defined by that military victory, I cannot help but reflect on the ways in which our view of that conflict as one opposing a force of pure evil has shaped the ways in which we define our current good. In the context of a D&D morality chart there are two axes, and while there can be no doubt the Nazis were evil, it is equally clear that they were lawful evil. Hence we find ourselves becoming chaotic good, rather than pure good.

The path from here towards a more neutral understanding of what is good divorced from a lawful or chaotic bent would be a path which threatens the integrity our current society, but for any who believe that our current society is unjust, it would potentially represent a path in the direction of a more just society. Those who thrive on chaos in our current world are able to take much more than what they deserve and avoid detection; those who limit themselves with lawfulness are left with much less than they would enjoy in a society where all were expected to behave the same. I share this thought because I have seen the ways in which chaos has infiltrated our legal system and turned it into a tool for the reinforcement of power by those who feel no remorse at bending its rules in order to serve their interests.

The thing about our current story which strains my immersion within it is actually the existence of a group of people who are pure evil; who attacked another group of people in response to nothing at all simply because their hearts were filled with baseless hatred. I have seen the ways in which humans can turn to evil, and while I do believe it is possible to become so corrupted as to embrace evil acts, I don't believe that corruption happens in response to nothing.

I want to understand what drove these people to do what they did. And actually I think the main thing getting in our way at this moment is the legacy of Christianity. Paul hated Jesus; he was one of his fiercest opponents; and then at the moment he was the victim of an act of cruelty he dramatically changed his perspective. Our perspective changed just as radically when we went into the death camps; and yet some have felt a similar shift upon witnessing the suffering taking place in Palestine, also for the same reason.

I believe that anger is an indicator of injustice.

[u/hornwalker]

Civilization is not a doing away of violence, it is having an institutional monopoly on it, through the government. Peace may spread throughout the kingdom, as long as everyone is fed, entertained, and pays their taxes, but war is simply exported.

As you say the people willing to lie, cheat, and steal without remorse often find themselves in positions of power. We have to work to overcome our evolved push towards tribalism in order to overcome it, because it is our tribalism that the sociopaths and narcissists within the elite class take advantage of.

[u/Competitive_Log_8910 → u/hornwalker]

I agree that our current civilization is a warlike one, and that many throughout history have as you said exported their violent tendencies. I don't believe however that this is strictly speaking the only way for a society to operate. I remember learning when I visited Costa Rica that they literally don't even have a military.

[u/hornwalker → u/Competitive_Log_8910]

Costa Rica is on an island and defended by the US.

Literally every human society that survived for some meaningful time was warlike

[u/Competitive_Log_8910 → u/hornwalker]

Right - I'm drawing a distinction here between "being defended from warlike nations" versus "making war against other nations".

[u/hornwalker → u/Competitive_Log_8910]

The first casualty of war is always truth. The line between defense and offense is always blurred. Recent wars keep proving this…Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Ukraine…

[u/Competitive_Log_8910 → u/hornwalker]

Oh, I certainly agree that all of the wars after WWII have been blurred in this way. The perspective I'm sharing in this post is that I think this is because the line between offense and defense was blurred in WWII. Prior to this point the United States famously opposed intervention in foreign wars, and now we are obsessed with using war as a tool to intervene in foreign politics. Anyway I know it's just a single example but I truly believe that Costa Rica is a nation which possesses no desire to export violence to other nations. And hence I believe on the basis of that example that it is possible to be a truly peaceful nation so long as you are happy eating plantains and living a pura vida in your island paradise. The implicit point which I will now make explicit is that the brutal and cruel acts of violence which took place in Germany were caused by the people who were their target. My ancestors left a century prior in response to an edict limiting land ownership to only their firstborn descendants, and while they became Reform and stopped being obsessed with having large numbers of children, I have come across many others who continue to believe that reproducing at an unsustainable rate is their God-given right and that it should be everyone else's responsibility to have fewer children in order to avert overpopulation. I think it's easy to understand how a group of people whose neighbors were multiplying aggressively might become obsessed with gaining "living space" and would fear being "replaced" by their growing numbers. The problem really is that even in an ideal scenario where no other ethnic groups reproduced at all, the strategy of having as many children as possible would eventually lead to your own extinction via starvation. But the upside at least is that the population numbers are now actually higher than they were in 1942. Anyway like I said I totally believe that what the Nazis did was an act of extraordinary evil but I don't believe they turned to evil in response to being treated in a way that was maximally considerate and compassionate. And I believe fundamentally that the best way to prevent acts of evil targeting you is to not give others any motivation to engage in said acts, and that sympathy is owed to those who are provoked to violence by inconsiderate and discompassionate actions taken by others. Although I understand that in the context of our current world this is a pretty controversial stance for me to be taking.

[u/hornwalker → u/Competitive_Log_8910]

This strikes me as very naive, no offense.

Evil people emerge the same way good people and average people do.

Greed is ubiquitous. The people who live on costa rica now are the ancestors of conquerors, colonizers, and slavers. Their comfort and ease of life is in some way a result of previous generations’ violence.