Windows on Humanity

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."

- Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670)

My own ideas that were raised by the quote:

On the other hand war is the absence of benevolence, confidence and justice. War as we define it is initialed by some nation or some more unofficial actor. They need to think that they can get something with the aid of violence that they believe that they can not have with other means.
However, wars and all armies have their origins in the raids of early humans that aimed to steal the food or other property of their neighbors. This is one reason why all military historians like to dwell only in the armies of the recorded history. Armed stealing from the neighbors just seem to be much more acceptable to us when they are used by a state.

Most people quite consistently seem the think that states have the extraordinary right to use violence as they please. They do not see it inconsistent that individual members of that same state are not allowed to use violence under any normal circumstances.
However, the first wars between the first states were also just organized stealing and plundering. The goal of subjugating victims to one’s continued rule did give these endeavors a new kind aura of respectability. Outright stealing and plundering would not have similar respect in our eyes.

The first real wars between organized states were quite probably fought between the city states around Mesopotamia and in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. The aim of these wars was to make more people pay taxes for a ruler. In fact, the money collected was for the most part just regular protections money.
The new tax-payers did mostly get in return just the privilege of gaining protection from other rulers. The neighboring rulers were eager to collect a larger amount of tax-payers to pay for the lavish life-style of the small ruling class. In fact, ordinary people paid for an army that was needed mostly to keep other tax-collectors away.

Grim reality is that all armed forces of today are descendants of these thuggish mercenaries. These thugs fought other similar bands of mercenaries for the right to collect money from ordinary unarmed people in return of a favor of not killing them.
It is quite understandable that the admirers of war and warfare do not want to dwell in these unpleasant facts. They like to speak even of these armies as they would have been on some kind of mission for the defense of  'fatherland'.

It is so easy to forget that these first city-states were quite artificial constructions. This is of course the case with most of the later states and ‘nations’ until the rise of the modern nation-states that were based on a common language.
Naturally also nation-states are products of a human ideas and ideology. However, sharing at least a common language gives a state much added credibility in our eyes. A nation state just feels real to us. It is not based on purely imaginary things as so many states were earlier in history. Quite abstract ideas like religion, monarchy or accidents of geography were used as means to divide the earth between different state-formations for millenniums on end.

It is also quite easy to forget that the main aim of Roman legions for spreading out through the Mediterranean was just large-scale robbery and plunder. Every new Roman conquest was always directed to areas which promised treasures to be robbed for the conquerors. Romans did fight also for their own survival too when they fought with the the Carthaginians or early Celts. They got much of their lands also as spoils of victories of these defensive wars.
However, most of the Roman empire was built when individual leaders commissioned armies to rob and plunder fertile areas. Vast fortunes were amassed in this process, which also did bring large new areas under Roman control.

In fact, even the medieval states were mostly just mechanisms for collecting protection money and keeping other protection-collectors away from one’s turf. The medieval states did carry little responsibility towards the people under their rule. However, the ruled had the responsibility to pay in full for the upkeep of the armies that were used to keep them subjugated.
The medieval wars were still fought either for the right to tax new people or for keeping neighboring rulers from stealing old tax-payers away. For the people themselves the outcomes of these endless, quite unnecessary and pointless turf-wars were mostly extremely insignificant. Normally only people who were collecting the taxes were replaced with new ones.

Only in the modern times the idea of a state as a provider for its citizens did arise, also because the extraordinary rise in wealth did generate means for providing them. In the modern nation states that were mostly based on common language (even if not always) the states gained real functions. These new functions did really benefit the subject. They also differed from nation to nation so that there was soon real reasons for the population also to fight for their state.

Before that there were also commercial interests at stake. However, wars were mostly about who would get the right to tax people living in a certain area. Philosopher Bertrand Russell did think that even the first World War was originally just about owning (and taxing) certain small areas of land. It was not started to protect or further any kind of higher principles.
Germany had a democratically elected parliament with a sizable social-democratic portion at that. Bertrand Russell suggest that if Germans had beaten the French and Russians in the summer of 1914, not much would have changed in the world in the end.

However, millions and millions of people would not have lost their lives in pointless slaughter in the trenches. Well-educated and intelligent people often think that keeping and paying for large armies is an unavoidable part of life. They see that the need to protect one's own nation form unruly and aggressive neighbors will be always there.
Extremely rarely anybody even thinks of the ways how one could cure or even tame the the unruliness and aggressiveness found in ones neighbors. It is as if there would be an international consensus for stating that it is impossible to stop wars and unruly and aggressive neighbors just always will be there.

There just might be so much vested interests in keeping up the war-machinery that the systems for keeping people from not doubting it has been perfected a long time ago. The claims that are used to justify this system are learned like religion in an early age. Many people never gain the ability to look at them critically. This is unfortunately all too often the case with religions also.
Very few people dare even dream about universal mechanisms that would make the unruly and aggressive nations not to attack their neighbors. Now almost all nations use a large part of their income for the upkeep large standing armies. They often do it just because of the faint possibility that unruly and aggressive nations will emerge some day.

At the same time most people are quite willing to discuss all the possible mean to curb violence inside the society. This is the case, even if the violence between nations does cause much more sorrow and grief, when and if it is let loose.

(This piece was refurbished at 14th of December, 2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoza

"Baruch de Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. By laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. His magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes' mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important contributors. Spinoza was raised in the Dutch Jewish community. In time he developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem (a kind of excommunication) against him, effectively dismissing him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books."

Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away."

- Anaxagoras (c. 500 BC – 428 BC)

My own ideas on the quote:

The idea that claimed personal ownership of things (also of humans) is the source of many of the majo0r problems in the human societies was not invented by Karl Marx. This fact has been self-evident for many of the thinking men for millennium.
Unfortunately, there really is nothing much that we can do just now to remedy this problem. Our world has simply been so strongly built on this very idea for tens of thousands of years.

The concept of personally and permanently owning land saw the light with the first agricultural societies. A hunter-gatherer can really own only the things he or she can carry. However, in stable agricultural societies cultivated land and all the things that are used in cultivating it soon become permanent and inherited property that can also be fought over. Unfortunately, also all the problems that are inevitably connected with ownership did soon arise.
Anaxagoras does not say that it would be possible to abolish the idea of ownership. He does just notice the inevitable consequences that come with the idea of ownership. Of course, one needs a bit of flexibility even to understand that the idea of permanent and hereditary ownership of things really is only a quite recent human idea. It is not a permanent and inevitable property of anything.

A man alone in an island does not need to develop the idea of ownership. He can freely use fish and all other resources. He has the need to "own" them exists only in relationship to other people. However, if there is more than one person in the island the idea of ownership is suddenly relevant.
The original loner can still "own" the fish he gets from the sea as long as nobody else knows about them. However, a society can decide that fish of the sea are a common property and can order him to share his catch with others.

In the end, ownership is just a commonly agreed social relationship. There is nothing absolute in it. We have just decided that it is beneficial for the whole society to let individual people have the sole ownership of also of some of the common resources like land and water.
Bringing this idea up does not diminish the fact that the system of private ownership has at least up this day shown itself to be the best available method for creating a maximum amount of well-being from existing resources.

However, history is full of instances where ownership is partially overturned in due process of law. For example, land has been often distributed more fairly. This can happen when the ownership of land has been concentrated in too few hands. This has caused the society to dysfunction.
The Communist or Soviet experiment did clearly show how giving the state ownership of all common resources does not work very well in real life. This does not mean that all other models of owning things would be wrong also. There could be even more effective and beneficial ways to run things that can be developed in the future.

Ownership is important commonly only of things that several people can use or can benefit from. However, ownership is often claimed over things that can give you a benefit over those who do not have this ownership. A piece of desert or of deep seabed has no private owners. Ownership of man-made things has existed as long as people have been able to make new things by themselves.
Ownership of land and water is a quite another issue altogether. Owning land or water means that the resources situated in these areas are reserved to its owner only, and the use of them is denied from others. Thomas Paine noted that nobody has created the land. Thomas Paine wrote that people are entitled only to claim the added value that they can produce with land, but the land itself is inevitably a common property of mankind.

By giving the state the right to tax our income and our property, we give our consent to the idea of giving up part of our rights of ownership for greater common good. Of course, we simply have do it if we want to be able to run a complex modern society.
In a normal modern society, there is generally no disagreement over the basic principle that one must always give up a part of one's rights to keep up and defend the society in which one does live. Libertarians who completely deny this right are still a very small minority.

The disagreement is often only over to what degree people are willing to sacrifice for the common good. People disagree over the specific things that should be paid for with the money that is collected with the authority of the government and which not. So, the disagreement rises normally only over the borders in which the best interests of the whole society and the needs of an individual will be best served.
On the other hand, it just is all too often very difficult to bring up the negative sides of any big issue that has both negative and positive effects. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing in this world does not have both.

Very often those who are mentally tied to an idea do not want even to know about the other side at all. They can see even the bringing up of these issues assault on their own values. The idea of private ownership seems to be even almost sacred to some people.
In reality, full objectivity over even of our own decisions is an unreachable goal. I will also strive for it in vain. However, even by trying to reach this kind of unreachable ideals we can improve ourselves and our societies, as at the end we are the society.

(This piece was completely refurbished on 13th of December, 2012. This little essay was originally published in my own other major blog or Being Human -blog at http://beinghuman.blogs.fi in 2009, and the later completely re-written version is also in this blog.)

Anaxagoras is in Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/anaxagorasphilosopher

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism” I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one’s own nation, which is the concern with the nation’s spiritual as much as with its material welfare — never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship."

- Erich Fromm in "The Sane Society" (1955)

Some of my own ideas raised by the quote:

Having clear-cut political goals need not be the same thing as having some form of Utopian ideals. Life in a democracy would be impossible without goals and political ideals, but Utopians differ from other people in that they so very often believe in only one possible solution. What is most dangerous they very often refuse to compromise because of these absolute ideals.
A concrete example of practical goals that are married to higher ideals is the formation of European Union. The willingness to modify the structure of states is a part of quite normal political ideologies. Modern nation states are products of political ideologies and fusing them to work better together is a very pragmatic goal.

There need not be any Utopian dreams of coming happiness. On the other hand, people who are steeped in nationalistic thinking have a hard time adjusting themselves to this kind of new situation in which nations really work together instead of just driving selfish nationalistic goals.
The two world wars did show the limits and extreme dangers of the nationalistic Utopian visions. However, the legacy of this lost nationalist utopia does linger on in legal structures of these states. The modern West-European states are already wholly dependent on the other states of the continent in countless ways. This is the case even without any formal agreements.

This is the existing reality, not a dream; the real Utopia is the idea of sovereign European nations doing whatever they want and not caring about the well-being of their important trade-partners and neighbors in any way. Many people have difficulty in understanding that modern national states themselves are products of a Utopian nationalistic ideology. This new and untried ideology finally gained upper hand in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

However, a fully independent nation state has always been just one possible (even if very popular) system of government. It is fast becoming more and more antiquated in networked and fully interconnected world.
Of course, the garden variety of nationalism is a quite pragmatic approach for handling certain things. Also most Utopian ideas ideas can be mellowed with time so that their more moderate followers are finally able to compromise and work with others. However, the idea of creating from a group of nation states larger economic, social and political entities, that can better handle new problems of a new age can also be a very pragmatic and practical solution.

It must also still be remembered that European Union was and still is also an extremely important peace project. It has build bridges between bitter old enemies and has worked excellently in this respect. It has created a strong economical area that has very strong common cultural heritage, common history and a lot of common values.
This process can of course also well still fail for many reasons. Most of all it can fail, if the old nationalistic values win in the long run.

Of course, the difference between just having strong ideas and being an irrational idealist is hair-thin at times. In fact, all idealism can become dangerous when forwarding the idea itself does become more important in ones mind than happiness and well-being of humans and their environment.
However, human ideas drive our societies forward, if only their followers just don't lose touch with reality and most of do not lose their ability to work and compromise with others who have different sets of ideals.

(This piece was refurbished on 12th of December, 2012)

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm
"Erich Seligmann Fromm (March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a Jewish German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory."

"It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ. "

Karl Popper in "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 1963

Some of my own thoughts raised be the quote:

A good debate can raise one's thinking and reasoning to new heights. What is most valuable, it can make one understand why you think as you do. Sadly, good, open debates and debaters are all too rare. When one finds a good and different enough opponent, one needs to cherish him of her.
In fact, in my mind even an extremely fruitful debate does not need to lead to any chancing of positions of the debaters at all. However, it can lead one into a situation where one looks at one's own positions from a new angle. This can be only beneficial and can bring forward only good things in the future.

The fruitfulness of a debate grows from the growth and development of debaters own ideas. It does not come from transforming or even affecting the opinions of the other party in the discussion, even if this can (rarely) happen.
However, simply a exposure to new ideas in a debate can have very beneficial effects in the long run. These effects can be observed in all parties who are involved in an good intellectual discussion. Of course, the discussion needs to stay within the limits of integrity and does not degrade into a any kind of shouting-match.

Amiable discussions with like-minded cronies are naturally often very pleasurable experiences. However, their value can on the worst be just on the side of entertainment. A very real danger is ending up in a loop of just finding more and more support for ones old ideas from people who already think alike.

(This piece was completely refurbished on 11th of December 2012)

Karl Popper is in Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/popperphilosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_popper
"Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS[1] FBA (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austro-British philosopher and professor at the London School of Economics. He is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century; he also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy."