Is it true that there has always been war and always will be?

When discussing the possibility of a peaceful world, one frequently hears the argument that peace is impossible because “there have always been wars and there always will be.” This argument is supported by educational texts that present history as a continual series of wars, conflicts, revolutions, and struggles, which students memorize along with the details of place, date and important figures. It is as though war were the ‘natural’ state of humanity, and peace a mere anomaly that only occurs once in a while. In reality, however, it is wars have been limited events and have covered a minimum of the total history of each people. To think otherwise is to ignore their years, decades and even centuries of peace, prosperity, progress, and happiness.

It is as if we read the medical history of a person in an effort to understand her reality. We would see that one week after birth she had stomach cramps, at one month a skin rash, at six months a fever, at twelve months diarrhea, at two years a bump on the head, and so on. We would conclude that the person’s natural condition is ailment, that health is an exception, an abnormality, or merely a respite in order to take ill again with greater zeal, and that the most one can hope for is to learn to accept that reality and live with it. This is because our study concentrated on her few, fleeting bouts of illness and ignored the long periods of health, strength, development, and happiness.

Similarly, war is an illness of the political body, while peace is a healthy state. Why assume that war is a more essential feature of that entity than peace, when both have existed throughout history? Taking into account the preponderance of the peaceful periods in our collective existence, it would be closer to the truth to say, “There has always been peace and there always will be.” Understanding peace as the ‘natural’ state of humankind and war as an aberration makes possible to diagnose the causes of this disease and seek ways to prevent or remediate it. In the Seville Statement on Violence we read:

It is scientifically incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors. Although fighting occurs widely throughout animal species, only a few cases of destructive intra-species fighting between organized groups have ever been reported among naturally living species, and none of these involve the use of tools designed to be weapons. Normal predatory feeding upon other species cannot be equated with intra-species violence. Warfare is a peculiarly human phenomenon and does not occur in other animals.[1]

The perception of human existence as an endless chain of wars is reinforced by the fact that humanity is currently going through one of the most critical, convulsive periods in its history. This has been exploited by the mass media which, in its continual search for the dramatic, in order to attract larger audiences, tend to exaggerate conflicts and overlook the true substance of life: the daily efforts of billions of human beings –lovers of peace– to build a better world for themselves, their families and their communities. The renowned social scientist and peace activist Kenneth Boulding says,

Warfare, which figures so prominent­ly in history textbooks, rarely occupies more than 10 percent of human time and energy. The other 90 percent or so goes into plowing, sowing, reaping, weaving, building, and making furniture and implements, utensils, and so on.[2]

There are those who justify war by saying that it fuels the economy. However, this effect would be achieved far better if the same level of effort were spent on enhancing people’s quality of life. Others point out that military activities have given rise to great inventions and discoveries, but if the same budget were allocated to researching things to benefit humanity, even more wonderful developments would be seen. Finally, there are those who promote war as a means to control population growth. However, it is well known that other more humanitarian means, such as increasing the general level of education, are much more effective in stabilizing the birth rate.

It is essential to re-write human history, in order to place war and peace in their true perspective. This has been the proposal of several authors. Elise Boulding, in her book “Cultures of Peace – The Hidden Side of History”, describes numerous cultures of peace that are not found in history textbooks. Arnold Toynbee, in the twelve volumes of his “Study of History” analyzes the human dynamics of the rise and fall of 21 civilizations. John Huddleston, in his “The Search for a Just Society”, retells history has the exploration of an increasingly complex and just social order. In his works titled “The Unfoldment of World Civilization”, “Foundations of World Unity” and “The Goal of a New World Order,” Shoghi Effendi portrays history as humanity’s socio–political evolution towards peace, projects that trajectory into the future, and poses what we must do today in order to further that process.

Notes:

[1] UNESCO, Seville Statement on Violence, written and signed by 20 Nobel prize winners for the International Year of Peace in Seville, Spain, on May 16, 1986.

[2] Kenneth E. Boulding. Three Faces of Power. Newbury Park: Sage, 1990, p. 23.

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