Some Things Never Change

[marct]

Hi Ken,

Well, I'll admit I tend to use theological terms for a lot of things that aren't necessarily theological per se; bad habit I picked up, I'll admit, but I tend to think its better to say "souls" than something like "the inanate, existential drive shared by all members of the species to 'belong', to believe that their lives serve some purpose and hold some mean".... "Souls" is just more parsimonious .

I'd agree that most conflicts were over resources but there are some that are simply about power. Much else to agree with in that Post. A lot, however, seems to have little bearing on rape as a weapon.

True, I'm afraid my brain goes into these "moments" every now and again . BTW, I would argue that "power" is just another way of saying "resources", especially if we are using the Galbraith forms of power.

If we go back to the earliest indicators of organized conflict of the kinetic variety (sheesh, I'm sounding like an academic again!) - okay, "warfare" - it seems to have been based around raiding with particular resources, including women, as a key goal. Given that a lot of groups were pretty small in terms of numbers, that actually does make sense at the population genertics level.

As for the rest having little bearing, okay, you're right - my mind was "theorizing" again....

Well, given the option of fighting for corporate profits -- the essential driver of British and US fighting for a great many years -- and the other options; religion, ideology for a couple of examples, I think the corporate profit bit has done more good and less harm by most measures.

On the whole, and taking a really long view, I would tend to agree, especially if we define the Good as "the increase of individual potentiality". Certainly it was a major driver in most of the Industrial Age wars from the Dutch revolt through to the modern era. Where I think the divergence is happening is in where those corporations are based, which is increasingly internationally rather than within the boundaries of a nation state (yeah, I know, that's being going on for quite a while now, but it is getting more spread out). So, for example, fighting a proxy war for the British East India Company in China directly benefited Britain and, to a lesser degree, India. Is the same true today? I really have to wonder...

FWIW, I disagree with Barnett on many things and the 'fact' that there will be these wars and the Gap will be problematical are among them.

I think that it is a "plausible" scenario, but that many of the grounds of his underlying assumptions are becoming increasingly divorced from reality. For one thing, it is all predicated on the current energy regime, and that may well be blown out of the water in the next 5-10 years.

In any event, I'm unsure of the "why say that" factor for your comment -- as for the Major General, I've met some smart ones. Met some who weren't as well...

Ahhh, sorry, being way too cryptic - it was the paradox of trying to motivate people to fight for something that wouldn't benefit them directly and for an interest group that is increasingly getting a bad public odour. I mean, seriously, how would you motivate a group of soldiers to fight for Madoff ?

Long way of saying that fighting for corporate interests has been broadly successful and beneficial to most of the world, whereas the ideological and / or religiously fervent types who aim for our souls -- not so much. They have no staying power when the initiating generation dies.

Oh, I think we'll have to disagree on that - I think they have a remarkably consistent staying power. Then again, I think their main motivation is based on gaining ego-centric control of power structures and a totally psychotic joys in telling people what to do "or else" .