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RE: We are not a civilized society

in #philosophy7 years ago

What you're saying sounds good, but it's utopian. There will always be conflict, hence there'll always be violence. Even civilized people need to be prepared for when that violence hits them, even if they try to avoid it. Armies still have use, and I doubt they'll lose them any time soon.

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I know, I mentioned that it's utopian, but hopefully in the future, something like this will be possible.

Yeah, I know you mentioned it. What I meant with that is, that until there is no conflict it's silly to think of abolishing armies. When, and most importantly if, humans become 100% peaceful and there is no more conflict, then it's reasonable to find a solution to that. But I also think it's silly to believe such a thing is possible. It's nice to strive towards such an outcome, but frankly, it is impossible in my opinion. People will always disagree on stuff, big and small. I don't think I even want a place where no conflict exists, it's what drives progress and improvement. I wish such conflict will never devolve into violence, but again, such a thing is utopian as well.

And even if all humans do become completely non-violent towards each other, even though I believe this to be impossible, it's best to be prepared. We're on the cusp of becoming multiplanetary... who knows what's out there?

In any case, my main point is, that not being prepared is a weakness. Being too pacifistic is a blind spot against danger that will be taken advantage of by potential enemies. Again, it's nice to want good and try to find peaceful solutions to everything, but it's good to be prepared. Not sure who said this (or something similar), but I think I can boil it down to "if you want peace, get ready for war", as armies are the garantor of the peace already forged.

Conflict and violence are not the same. You can disagree with someone and be in conflict with that person from a lot of viewpoints, but you don't have to get violent. They are two different things.

Yeah, maybe some kind of protection will still be necessary but not what we have now, this is too much. In an anarchist society, where the people do what they want as long as what they wish to don't hurts other people, armies are more or less useless.

People were never expecting that the technology will evolve as much as it did now, so we never know how people will develop from now on. Have a little bit of faith. ;)

I know conflict and violence are not the same. But some conflicts inevitably lead to violence, so I disagree with your anarchist assessment. It's as utopian as communism. It would inevitable devolve into feudalism. Same as communism, it cannot work in large societies where people don't know each other personally, and it degrades to a point where each society that sees eye to eye form local militias, in essence, small armies. I do have faith, but up to a point. Human nature rules us all, and people will fight for their own and ignore stranger's plights.

I more or less agree with what you said. Yes, humans, as we know them right now, would not be able to pull something like this off. But I'm talking about the future, when humans will be more spiritualized beings, something like this may be possible.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”― Rob Siltanen

Well, who knows what the future holds? Maybe, I dunno. I don't think we can change that much. And in some ways, I don't know if I want to. Competition (thus conflict) breeds innovation. A good enough world breeds complacency. Maybe there will be a better world, and I'm not advocating for a complete status quo. But there's a fine line between ambition, and crazy :p

Till then, our country didn't have its finest day today, so there's that, and it's not the last bad thing to happen. (I wrote a post about it, if you're interested. Sorry if the shilling is off base.) That's why I think that we should be careful going forward in any direction. As mentioned before, I think it's just as utopian, and potentially destructive, as communism, which also sounds great on paper, while reality shows the complete opposite :)