On a scale, war may be the most violent event that can be put on a society. However from an individual viewpoint, for a human in the warzone, the experience of them on it, may differ greatly. An example is World War Two. Those that were in the concentration camps, suffered greatly, though an individual that lived in the countryside of some country during World War Two, may not have suffered at all during those years. Experiences may thus scar you or not. One can thus argue that war –as an experience- is factually just a collection of individual experiences. Seeing it like that, the scale of the war does not matter, as “the war” is felt individually. But yes of course, it may be a shared group experience. If your society, your country, your group, your clan, your tribe, have a large number of these suffering individual experiences, then the war becomes an event shared by a society. However since there is no group conscious, war will still be experienced as an individual event.
“War” as a concept is not unique to mankind. Ants as an example do it on a daily basis. Ants from one Anthill will raid other Anthills for food and yes will even raid them for new workers (slaves). The difference is consciousness. Though we cannot place ourselves in the mind of an ants and may not be sure of the suffering of a individual ant during an ant-war, what it at least shows, is that the concept of war has a value in the natural world. So the question we should be asking ourselves, if war is to be bad , are the natural evolved mechanics evil? Well of course not. A mechanism cannot be considered bad or evil. The mechanisms that evolved in the natural world serve a biological purpose and have no consciousness.
What is important about the Ant example though, was the point of consciousness. We humans have the ability to look at ourselves and judge our own actions. We consider ourselves “intelligent” great apes. Our intelligence made us what we are today, but it has also broadened the gap between us and the natural word. It stands to argue we do not live in the natural world anymore, as much as we did thousands of years ago. Our scientific and technological development has drawn walls around our global human society,… and everything we do today, is done from a higher viewpoint looking down on the natural world. Our framework of references and experiences are not that anymore of a creature living in a European forest, the Sahara desert, the south American jungle or the Australian outback. If we put a human city-dweller in a jungle, the change he or she will come back out alive, is slim.
Now why would that be important to know? Simply, because if our frame of reference is different compared to that of the natural world, our frame of reference on war is that too. I would have no trouble with ancient cavemen smashing each other’s brains in, if the valley where they live is lacking food. It is for pure survival they will be doing that. On that they will not differ too much, for me at least, with the ants. I do have problems with modern massive warfare.
The moment an individual human suffers an experience in a war situation, he or she will be as close to the natural world as he or she can be. Animals experience pain too. Though it would be sad, if you are a grazing animal on the plains of Africa, to be torn apart by a pack of hungry Spotted Hyena’s, whose sole goal would be to feed their own bellies and to feed their cubs. Within the framework of modern human developed society such suffering of pain, is simply not acceptable within the evolved framework, because the framework we are using is not that anymore of the natural world. The individual suffering would be immoral. So for the individual experience, war would be evil, as we should know better by now, and we have the ways to prevent it. We should be smart enough, by now, to simply say “NO” to it.
So the answer would be “Yes, war is evil” compared to the a single human suffering.
Another question should be asked then too. If for the individual experience war is evil within the evolved modern framework of the developed modern human brain, … then how about war as a tool for societies? But that is a question for another blog.
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