REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Is war inevitable?

There are, undoubtedly, hundreds of ways to consider that question. We can, for instance, ask: is it mankind's nature to aggress and prey upon our fellows to the point of annihilation? Or, through mentoring, can we be made to see that cooperation and equitable sharing offer far more "booty"?

Yes, one can point to nature and assert: you see, the strong prey upon the weak. It is right. It is just. It is God's will. It is nothing to be concerned about. But that is a very narrow reading of nature. Yes, life experiences a press toward sustenance, power, and expansion. And one might take that as justification for war. But nature itself offers numerous forms of resistance and obstruction, from drought and flood, to famine, to unbearable heat or cold, to pestilence and disease. It does not, has not, and never will allow one dominant hegemony, one ultimate victor. It only allows, encourages, and rewards equilibrium and variety. In nature's terms, it is blasphemy to assert one species or variety of species is "chosen" or "favored". Nature says: your way is only one way. There are more ways than you can imagine, trillions and trillions. Nature says: your insistence that your way is the only way, the best way, the chosen way, will only lead to resistance and, eventually, you will be forced to retreat. For the forces of variety and inclusion will not be denied. In your pathetic terms, that is God's will, not your perverted self-serving hallucinations.

Ah, a contradiction surfaces. If nature asserts self-serving aggression will inevitably be forced to retreat, isn't that war? Isn't resistance to aggression the very heart, the very seed of war?

Troubling. Very troubling. We seem doomed to suffer the endless consequence of our failure to see the light, to successfully mentor and meaningfully include, so that the imperative to aggress is never without more satisfying alternative.

May you, at least, not fail to see the light.