When you were a kid, did you ever play dress-ups? I did. Often my sisters and I would put on some old clothes belonging to our parents and, giggling unashamedly, pretend that we were adults. Little did we realize that we were readying ourselves for some of what was to follow in our lives. If we’d known all that lay ahead, the games would’ve been spoiled and we might’ve cried.
As a child, I once fashioned a rifle out of some bits of wood. I would spend hours play-acting that I was a soldier and, with incredible courage and bravado I destroyed the enemy which in those distant days were Huns and Jerries. I had a sword too so the role of a pirate also beckoned, and, in a wooden box, I became an ace fighter pilot. In my imagination I became all things but always in a noble, honourable way, man against man.
The above photograph shows a person dressed up to kill. Right across the world, give any man (and now women it seems) lots of indoctrination, some training, a uniform, some heavy boots, a helmet, some body armour, night glasses, and a machine gun and, voila, you have a willing, capable killer.
Of course, with modern warfare, the man shown in the photograph would be accompanied not only by tanks but also by helicopters and fighter aircraft that would quickly take care of stubborn pockets of resistance. They have missiles on board or bombs that can destroy whole buildings and everyone inside (if there happen to be women and children present, they are cleverly called collateral damage and their deaths are not counted).
Then, as well, we have missiles with nuclear warheads in deep underground bunkers or on circling ships and submarines, all of which are at the ready. They can destroy whole cities and vapourise millions of people in a few seconds. Wow! When I dressed up so long ago I never imagined such fiendish things would ever exist. How naive I was.
Then the people who control these infinitely destructive arsenals, are they sane? Are they responsible? Of course not! They see the world as purely black and white, consisting of the good (them) and the bad (anyone who disagrees with them). They see their ambitions as just and justified and believe that any means justify their ends including torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium explosives and the bastardization of democracy, etc.
They also believe that their god is on their side, that might is right, that greed is meritorious, that they and their ilk are superior to all other nations and races. Behind locked doors, they plot and plan and constantly re-draw maps of the world.
They are not dressed to kill. They get others to do their dirty work while they wave flags and make solemn speeches that others write.
Dressing up. It was a wonderful, happy part of my childhood.
To others, it was a rehearsal for killing.
David G.
You paint a very bleak picture of humanity. The sad part is that it’s all too true.
We humans are a product of the tooth and claw evolutionary process we call nature. The natural process of evolution has no moral or ethical aspects. The only criterion in the game of survival is survival.
It is sentimental humans that confuse the issue with concepts such as loving and caring and such. And even such sentiments are themselves tools for survival. Loving and caring are great emotions for keeping a group together but seldom do these feelings go beyond our “kind”.
But nature is a trickster. While loving and caring has been the cement that helps a given group to survive nature has set a trap for us humans.
Our success as a species has led to a population size that threatens our very survival.
The only way we can pass nature’s current survival test is to expand our group’s horizon to include the entire human race. Our emotions of loving and caring must encompass all of humanity. The challenges we face now are global. The solutions are global.
We live in the most challenging times that humans have ever faced. Our challenge is to overcome our very nature of greed, arrogance, and combativeness and to reach out to all humanity with love and caring.
This may be too much of a challenge but the alternative is extension for the human species and maybe for all life on this planet.
If all life on this planet were to cease nature would not skip a beat. Nature’s only criterion is survival. Nature has the whole universe to play the came of survival.
Nature’s evolutionary path is the ultimate “Survival Show”………..
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Loving and caring and capitalism just don’t mix, David F! Capitalism is based upon infinite greed and selfishness. Not much room for love and caring or global equality there!
Nature is an interesting word. It has many connotations, most of them vague and many are tinged with almost human qualities.
Nature to me is just a word that describes a mindless, indifferent, pointless, haphazard process.
Cheers.
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David G.
Nature may indeed be mindless, indifferent, and pointless but it is not a haphazard process.
Nature represents the natural processes of the universe. Our science and technology could not function if the natural processes were haphazard and unpredictable.
As far as mindless, indifferent, and pointless is concerned well that is were the human spirit comes in. If there is any “meaning” to life, it is what we humans assign to it.
Nature only provides us with the canvas and paints. We humans are the ones who paint the pictures of reality good, bad, or indifferent.
We humans need to learn how to be creative painters or we will destroy the painting.
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Why do humans, generation by generation, continue to create such an ugly painting, David F?
In theory, we could create a beautiful world, one filled with love and caring and equality, yet we don’t! Or can’t!
Makes you wonder.
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I really don’t understand militarism, racism, and consumerism as giving pleasure, but I think I am in the minority.
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People with depth and values are always in the minority, anti-neocon!
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Compassion , the base answer and the biggest challenge , to love unconditionally,
Started to appreciate the importance of compassion in all its aspects when I buried my little sister.
Humans only learn hard lessons , if we are comfortable we become lazy.
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