Action and Power

If there's one takeaway from my sleep-deprivation-written post on the fake quote, I'd like to repeat, it's this:

War doesn't happen because of some kind of pure and abstract hatred. This quote conjures up the stereotypical image, spread by Balkan Ghosts and other books, of two tribes with "ancient hatreds" that control their minds. While primal violence and enmity is important, but to see conflict through the prism of "hate"--sustained by hate and somehow eroded by an equally vague "love" is simply bizarre. War is fundamentally about politics. Conflicts are fought for political objectives, even if those objectives might seem irrational to anyone except the one who sets them. ...[w]hether or not you meet hatred with hatred or hatred with love really matters little because such terms are really too general to meaningfully describe the political reasons why people conflict. Sometimes those political visions are flexible and can be modified to fit reality if actors judge that the price of continued violence is too high, or actors can realize that their goals are best met through cooperation rather than conflict. ...In short, you use the method most appropriate for your policy and most acceptable to your own system of morality.

Comments

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While primal violence and ill will is significant, but to see clash through the crystal of "contempt"--continued with by contempt and somehow disintegrated by a uniformly unclear "adoration" is basically unusual. War is at heart about politics. Clashes are defended political goals, even if those goals could appear nonsensical to any individual with the exception of the individual that sets them.