A War Isn’t The Result of Knowledge

Human conflict is not a product of knowledge; it is a natural aspect of the genus homo sapiens. We are the sole surviving group of a number of varieties of bi-pedal upright walking hominid. Males have a genomic configuration enabling them to grow large in order to compete for females. Females have an endowment providing for longer lives and conservation of energy for gestation and nurturing. Human nature inevitably returns to such basic themes in its social technological infrastructure and yet exploit’s the technological products of genius in a lethal combination. The externalities of the basic human drives lead to global warming, a dumping of externalities and conflicts, and an inability to work collectively to advance for the common good as a pervasive trend.

If all human beings had equal knowledge, human character would still drive some to plunder and victimize others. Not only is social knowledge important as it manifests within individuals and in the ossified representations of knowledge such as this essay, the personal history and biochemical construction of each individual forms determinations for peace or war.

Collectively wars are led by elites. Defense actions tend to be legitimate while aggressive war tends to be wrong, yet there is no clear-cut formula to determine in advance if a war is morally right or wrong or even if there is an existing, prevalent ethical standard. Sometimes the authorities deciding ethics are themselves corrupt, censorious and abusive.

Elites socially generally are classes of powerful thugs interested mostly in keeping financial or material power and advantage for themselves and  their class.  Many modern conflicts are simply ignoble jousting through proxy by elite classes struggling to control a material morsel or right. Society is not fundamentally a rational entity subject to wise democratic leadership–if such exists anywhere.

Average individual intelligence in a social environment is neither creative or non-conformist. The dialectically formed social interactions of civilizations move complex economies toward striving after various resources that are rare, the influence at the social frontiers such as the Mexico-U.S. border bring legal violations and adversely affect the interests of the different cultures. Such conflicts have in the past led to war when the issues are such that they cannot be mediated satisfactorily and rationally in relation to the actual status and requirements of such resources as are at issues.

Needless to say the majority are not intellectuals generally, and the ability of non-establishment intellectuals to objectively influence the course of an establishment is quite limited. It is difficult for the majority laboring in the engine room or even basking on the sun deck of a cruise ship to navigate a vessel safely through the shoal-waters and pirates of the Red Sea. As It is in navigating so it is in the wild kingdom of politics with pervasive ignorance demanding cheese cake without strife or expense while the leaders are simply corporate vassals working for elites seeking to concentrate wealth and power. Fruits of knowledge haven’t much to do with the circumstance of the majority working in the corporate boiler-rooms. perhaps