HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH

HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH
And Hell Holds Open a Special Place for writers like John Tierney. Our better angels have come to defeat forever what has bedeviled mankind. John Tierney is the happy herald of this happy talk.  Tierney cites Greg Easterbrook in The End of War?

At least Easterbrook offers The End the question mark it deserves.  John Tierney is more of an exclamation point kind of guy!!!  War is so yesterday!!! The future is for we who see war is diminishing!!!!  If the war in Iraq teaches us anything, just because someone says something does not make it so.  But let's just wish it so!!!!!!!!!

JOHN TIERNEY/ NEW YORK TIMES: You would never guess it from the news, but we're living in a peculiarly tranquil world. The new edition of "Peace and Conflict," a biennial global survey being published next week by the University of Maryland, shows that the number and intensity of wars and armed conflicts have fallen once again, continuing a steady 15-year decline that has halved the amount of organized violence around the world.

Those statistics are no solace for mourners in Iraq and Darfur. But so many other people are now living in peace that you don't have be a dreamer like John Lennon to take seriously the question raised by Gregg Easterbrook in this week's New Republic cover story, "The End of War?"

I posed that question nearly a decade ago to my favorite prophet, Julian Simon, the economist who spent his career refuting doomsayers' predictions. He was convinced that three horsemen of the apocalypse - famine, pestilence, death - were in rapid retreat, and he suspected that the fourth was in trouble, too.

"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

The Iraq war is sometimes described, by both foes and supporters, as a pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing, but not even the most ruthless accountant can justify the expense. Even before the war, America's military costs in the Persian Gulf were much greater than the value of all the oil it was getting from the region, and now it's spending at least four times what the oil's worth.

Of course, wars are also fought for noneconomic reasons, but those, too, seem to be diminishing.

---Snip---

These benign trends may be hard to believe, especially if you've been watching pictures from Iraq or listening to warnings about terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons. One explosion could indeed change everything.

But before you dismiss the optimists as hopeless naifs, you might ask yourself if you're suffering from the malaise described in a book by Mr. Easterbrook called "The Progress Paradox": the better life gets, the worse people feel. The more peaceful and wealthy the world becomes, the more time we all have to watch wars and warnings on television.

So now war makes us feel bad because we have the time to watch the explosions, when instead we should just pack up the SUV and hit the road? Forget those explosions.  Life really is better for people, people who don’t care about explosions that happen to other people

Yes, an explosion would change everything, particularly for the people getting blown up. As people get richer and smarter, they may have no true rational economic incentive to go to war.  As if people went to war for rational reasons . . . The rational is a veneer over an unholy wood of passion, the deceiving and benevolent green leaf that hides the venomous snake beneath it.

I have a competing theory about war and about intelligence.  Perhaps war, like intelligence, is a virus. A virus replicates, but only takes life from its host.  The virus changes form, its manifestations and infestations mutate, but the disease and war remain constant visitors dark at our door.

Mister Tierney, as his employer The New York Times would call him, is not an idiot.  He merely sounds like one. 

Thanks to Grace at Scriptoids for the point to Tierney.

What do you think?  Is it possible to end all war?  Or can we only diminish the circumstances that create the unhealthy water in which war spawns?  Should we congratulate ourselves now and pack up the SUV?  Or should people like this pack up their arguments and take off somewhere?

Comments

[Agitprop]

I hate to be a cynic here but I think war is the natural state of humankind. Look back 2,500 years to the time of Alexander the Great. Not much has changed. White armies have once again invaded the Middle East in the 21st century to spread democratic culture and "freedom".

As for Tierney, how dare he disgrace the name of John Lennon. Is it possible to end all war? Well, I know what Rumsfeld would say...

[Treban]

War has just become more subtle, wait till peak oil hits and I think we will see a reamergence of major armed conflict. Of course the two biggest players will be the U.S. and China. (on opposite sides) Now, with China holding the riegns on a steadily increasing number of our goods, this is a recipe for disaster on the homefront. With China in the position they are in now in relation to our economy we would be f*cked.

By the way, I hope I am just predicting doom and gloom that won't happen. Nothing would make me happier than to get a "I told you so" from anyone who disagrees with my analysis of current events. So if you do think I'm mistaken I will be just as happy as you when you blow me a raspberry.