Victor Davis Hanson is a great scholar of ancient history. In his latest article on Imprimus, the Hillsdale College publication titled "The Future of Western War," he makes a great case about how war is in the nature of man and part of who we are. Now this, in no way glorifies war, but discusses our human nature and how it is in our human nature to make war. When I was a child, I recall that I would think about whether I would end up in a war, since my dad had been involved in one, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and in World War II. I wondered whether that would also be my fate. Sure enough, although I was in a world completely different that I was born in, the hills of Sicily. As a child of 12 years old my family moved from Sicily to Los Angeles, California. In 1968 I found myself in Saigon, South Vietnam in the U.S. Army. My fears had come true. I was now in a war just as my father had been.
I highly recommend this article by Dr. Hanson. Very true and revealing of the heart of men.
I came to this article as a peacenik looking for some insights into our warring nature and whether those who support the status quo have an acceptance that some nation has to have military superiority and its better us than them.
ReplyDeleteI found Hansons piece far too one sided.
He didn't touch on the relative peace between European sovereign nations since 1945 and the expansion of the European union. Nothing about the Wests relationship with China. Nothing about mans first (faltering) steps towards global peace via the League of Nations and then the UN. Also the case that Iran actually is seeking to develop neuclar weapons is far from having been made - the recent IAEA report confirms the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, despite what we read in the news here. And as opposed to us all having being duped by net-savvy Hezbollah agents it is proven fact that Israel did indeed bomb civilians in Palestine during its attack on Gaza last year.
Despite the above it was nonetheless quite interesting