Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Peace-on-Earth

To No 73 – Do you not feel an instinctive resistance to actualism? I do. Even if I regard it as both a sensible and fascinating thing to do, a part of ‘me’ still cries out against it and wants to bust loose. (emphasis added)

And if one equates actualism, or the end product of actualism, to peace on earth –

To No 73 (example only) – Do you not feel an instinctive resistance to peace on earth? I do. Even if I regard it as both a sensible and fascinating thing to do, a part of ‘me’ still cries out against it and wants to bust loose. (emphasis added)

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No 66 – …to have emotions and to perpetuate having them is opposing a 100% peace on earth

It is not ‘opposing’ 100% peace on earth (unless you mean it prevents 100% peace on earth)?

Maybe I can help clarify this issue for you – or you never know, maybe you will end up clarifying it for me. As I understand, only an Actual Freedom from the human condition is what can enable ‘a 100% peace on earth’. When I read that ‘to have emotions and to perpetuate having them’ is ‘opposing’ peace on earth –as well as preventing it – I immediately knew it to be a fact.

To give you one example, as I write this, sure I want peace on earth; but I also really want to fornicate with (name of supermodel omitted).

While this desire for sexual interaction (with someone whom I don’t even know) may not appear to exclude peace on earth, I (experientially) know that peace on earth would exclude such desire. Having subtly seen this, I cleverly say to myself something that we Mexicans have a reputation for saying… ‘Mañana’. Tomorrow will be another day, tomorrow I’ll try peace on earth, tonight I’ll kill kittens (http://www.hosstyle.com/kittens.htm).

I have, right now, consciously decided to oppose peace on earth in order to affectively enjoy some fictitious event (if only for a day, ‘I’ slyly say, and anyways I am not really opposing it; just postponing it, aren’t I?); something that not only prevents, but resists peace on earth. But see, no one is supposed to know this, least of all my ‘self’. So, of course I am not opposing peace on earth as say Hitler did...but as Richard has said, ‘a difference in degree is not a difference in kind’.

Now (I hope I haven’t lost you), in my experience, when I am feeling so good as to consider myself in (what is known as) Virtual Freedom I notice that I still have (lessened) emotions, but I no longer perpetuate them; as in I no longer endorse, look forward to, or prefer them to peace on earth. In other words, and in the strictest sense of the word, I am only preventing peace on earth without opposing it... … with the added benefit that the more time I spend in Virtual Freedom, and the closer I get to an Actual Freedom, the less I prevent peace on earth from happening and the closer I am to it.

I hope to have been of some assistance. No 47 to No 60 25.1.2005

This is evidentially so from my cursory examination of the MoveOn.org website. Right up front, prominent on their web page, is the statement:

‘The outbreak of war is not the end of the fight for peace – only the beginning.’

If peace is a ‘fight’, then what means are to be used in this fight? Who is being fought? Just how far will people go in their quest to address injustices? This is certainly not peaceful language. This is rhetoric intended to inflame and ignite the passions, in my opinion, something that all good political rabble-rousers are particularly skilled at. I personally find nothing appealing about this obvious call to arms.

I must admit I have gone no further than examining their home page. I have not viewed the downloadable video segment or looked at their poster.

If you do agree that they use scary language, yet further on you say that scare tactics are ‘not the way to garner agreement and participation, then what way, may I ask, is?

I can only really speak from personal experience here. The reason I regard all peace movements as ultimately futile in bringing about peace on earth is related in a direct way to my own personal involvement in peace movements. In this, I am no stranger. From campus protests during the Viet Nam war, to more present day rallies demonstrating against nuclear proliferation, to my misguided involvement in a pacifist religious sect, I witnessed firsthand the baleful, often violent results, and the all-too-often undisguised hypocrisy of people (including myself) claiming a concern for peace, yet not being peaceful themselves. I was a most reluctant pacifist. I could not square my stated aim of peace with my own internal violence, and my own squabbles within the group, including undisguised power grabbing behaviour. Eventually I jumped camp and joined a new spiritual movement where, yet again, I was beset by the same conflicts and the same inner-group rivalries. Peace vigils, prayer vigils, candlelight séances, group prayers – all these things are ultimately futile because they do not address the root cause of warfare and strife – the primitive instinctual passions.

Actualism is a simple, hands-on method aimed at eliminating the root cause of war, disharmony, violence, conflict, fear, as well as the so-called positive feelings of love and compassion. Until one’s entire instinctual package is extirpated root and branch, one’s involvement in peace movements will have little practical result. Lives may be saved in the short term by such band-aid approaches, but war will continue as it has since time immemorial.

Pardon the hyperbole – that’s just fine and dandy. But let’s keep in mind that the peace movement, or perhaps I should say ‘peace movements’ in the plural, has a dark underbelly. Witness when demonstrations turn violent.

Generally when people cannot achieve their aims by peaceful means, they adopt increasingly strident, confrontational and increasingly violent tactics. We haven’t seen anything yet as far as that is concerned.

I have played it both ways. I have voted in elections, often a kind of reflexive vote because I did not agree with the politics or tactics of the opponent and voted for a less than savoury alternative. I have also eschewed voting in political campaigns. In a Western Democracy such as the one I reside in, it is a person’s constitutional right to decide for themselves when and if they want to vote. Until that changes and I may be compelled to vote, I can make that decision for myself and not be bothered with what other people think. As far as I’m concerned, it is nobody else’s business what I choose to do with my vote. No, I don’t think that a non-vote is a vote, by any stretch of the imagination.

Opinions are beliefs in disguise. Beliefs are intensely held. Beliefs are not the basis of salubrious action. In most political discussions, the participants are driven by their beliefs. When beliefs clash, violence is often the result. I find it essential to separate what is factual from what is opinion and belief. This is nothing new – it has been said repeatedly by the actualists on this List. When I differentiate between what is factually known and what is speculation, common sense returns and one’s native intelligence can result in beneficial actions. Until that happens, ‘I’ will be drawn into the fray and must choose either one side of the battle line or the other.

Who are you defining as the ‘most sensible’?

The ‘best thing’ as I see it is to self-immolate. Actualism is certainly not about ‘doing nothing’.

I am glad you realize you are not omnipotent.

That is why I say it vital to make the differentiation for oneself between what is a fact and what is a belief, and by extension, an opinion. If decisions are made on the basis of emotion, as they frequently are, it begets more of the same confusion.

That is indubitably so.

Not only is law ‘convenient’ but it is a downright necessity.

I for one am glad I live in a society with an effective police force, emergency response services, military, and civil authorities. I would not want for one minute to go without the rules and laws, which keep most people most of the time on the rails. I had a personal experience of that last summer when the neighbourhood was being terrorized by teenagers who were speeding around in their cars, creating a dangerous situation. The situation was easily solved by a tactful confidential call to the police, reporting the culprits. There was no need to ‘take matters into my own hands’ so to speak, although the anger and outrage triggered by this episode provided plenty of grist for the actualism mill.

Law is good as far as it goes, but one must realize the limitations.

Establishment of agreed-upon international law will not prevent rogue nations from taking it on themselves to violate the rights of other nations.

Also keep in mind that some of the most law-bound societies are also the most dangerous societies to live in, and the most likely to suppress individual freedoms, such as the right to assemble and speak one’s mind plainly. For instance, the wartime American and British legal systems did not prevent Roosevelt and Churchill from assuming near-dictatorial powers at that time.

Well, I can see you have not spent much time in Haarlem, Chicago, or in the territories. It is amazing how lawless life can be in the most civilized of places.

Not as long as people cling to their own malice and sorrow. International law is not going to change that. Gary to No 49

Actualism is a simple, hands-on method aimed at eliminating the root cause of war, disharmony, violence, conflict, fear, as well as the so-called positive feelings of love and compassion. Until one’s entire instinctual package is extirpated root and branch, one’s involvement in peace movements will have little practical result. Lives may be saved in the short term by such band-aid approaches, but war will continue as it has since time immemorial.

Here again your question seems somewhat leading. You are mainly referring to a hypothetical situation which does not have a definite answer, there being many variables to consider. I do not think matters are as black-and-white as you paint them. You may believe that by protesting the war, any particular war, lives are being saved in the long run. But you have to keep in mind that the people who are carrying out the war, those who are prosecuting the war, are also concerned with ‘saving lives’. In fact, they believe that lives must be lost in order to save other, more ‘innocent’ lives.

This is where things get a bit complicated. One could equally well make the argument that by protesting the war, the troops in the field and the military authorities are being deliberately undermined and that the war protests, feeding right into the hands of the ‘enemy’, are needlessly prolonging a military engagement, uselessly prolonging the war, and resulting in higher casualties, on both sides.

Have you ever looked into and investigated the belief ‘I am saving lives by protesting the war’? Is it accurate to say that this belief animates your protest of the war?

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… let’s keep in mind that the peace movement, or perhaps I should say ‘peace movements’ in the plural, has a dark underbelly.

Peace on earth already exists – it is literally lying right in front of our noses, so to speak. This is stunningly obvious in a PCE, a temporary experience, but one which most closely approximates what it means to be living in Actual Freedom. I am a little bit puzzled by your statement that you want to choose the direction of peace on earth. I don’t think of the already always existing peace on earth, as experienced in a PCE or in Actual Freedom, as having any ‘direction’.

As long as ‘I’ exist as a psychic entity, peace on earth will be unattainable, thus requiring that I go in search of ‘finding’ peace. ‘I’, as the instinctual entity, am responsible for all the wars, rapes, murders, child abuse, and ad infinitum throughout history. Only when ‘I’ cease to be is the already always existing peace on earth readily apparent.

What do you personally find the most daunting aspect of Actualism? You state that you are ‘grappling’ with the package of emotional and cultural baggage. Since the word ‘grapple’ stands for hand-to-hand combat, do you find this to be an even fight or a slug-fest with a more powerful adversary?

Lest there be a misunderstanding about what it means to ‘work on myself’, as you say. While Actualism definitely involves cleaning myself up, it does not involve ‘self’-improvement in any way, shape, or form. The goal is ‘self’-immolation, not ‘self’-improvement. In the past, my practice of spiritual beliefs involved keeping a kind of moral scorecard on which I would, either figuratively or literally, chalk up the good things, good feelings, good beliefs I had had that day as well as chalking up the bad feelings, bad actions, and bad thoughts. It involved the minimization of the ‘negative’ and accentuation of the ‘positive’ emotions and mental states.

Actualism is radically different and does not appeal to people who are interested in band-aid solutions to the Human Condition. Actualism involves radical change ... a complete break with past, and radical extirpation of the total psyche.

Also keep in mind that some of the most law-bound societies are also the most dangerous societies to live in, and the most likely to suppress individual freedoms, such as the right to assemble and speak one’s mind plainly…

‘I’, and my precious feelings, are the only thing that is preventing the underlying peace and harmony of this infinite universe to be actualized in this flesh-and-blood body. As ‘I’ am my feelings, and my feelings are ‘me’, ‘I’ am literally standing in the way of peace on earth. There is no difference between my resentments and ‘me’. I am literally my resentments, in those terms.

But speaking more personally, what I have done, like the other dedicated Actualists on this list, is to turn the emotional energy of the feelings and emotions that prevented and spoiled the purity and pristineness of actuality into a burning passion to be free from the Human Condition. This has always been an exciting adventure, never a dull moment.

Oh yes, progress has been made alright. If you have not already noticed, mankind’s wars are more destructive, more numerous, and in spite of all the progress, people are still being raped, tortured, sodomized, etc, etc., on ad infinitum. The Human Condition is rotten to the core. Gary to No 49

Basically, poverty is a multifaceted issue and quite often has many complicated causes.

However, having said that, I think we can often identify malice as the main cause. If a person ended malice in themselves, then there would no longer be any reason to be greedy or to deliberately deny to another person the resources one is so intent on maintaining for themselves. Greed is a major factor in poverty as it is in the hunger problem. Hunger results directly from poverty. There is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone many times over.

If every human being was free from malice and sorrow, there would hardly be any reason for poverty to exist because there would be enough of everything for everyone to go around. There would be no greed, avarice, or hoarding of resources. There would be no cause for one person to maliciously dominate another person or group of people by denying them resources. For instance, it is probably redundant to point out that much poverty results from oppression, and the major forms of oppression are the ‘isms’: racism, sexism, class-ism, so on and so forth. Human beings oppress other human beings basically as a means of having power over them and controlling them. In other words, quite simply oppression is a ‘power trip’. One need not chronicle every instance of oppression down through the ages to realize that man’s inhumanity to man is legendary. Every single instance of oppression, either in intimate relationships as mental cruelty or violence or collectively as a nation or country to oppress other countries, is an example of unmitigated malice in action.

Sorrow is no doubt related to this. Sorrow is a consequence of poverty, and in turn sows the seeds for malice. But this relationship need not be a necessary cause-and-effect relationship, as a person living in Actual Freedom would be incapable of experiencing malice or feeling sorrow. Thus, one need only look at the ‘lessons of history’ to see that quite often the roles of being victim and persecutor are conveniently interchanged. So poverty would not lead to sorrow for one who is living in Actual Freedom. Effectively, the cause-effect relationship would be broken. Parenthetically, I find it interesting that in the present debate over the Iraq crisis, the old countries of Europe, once the primary Imperial powers, oppressors, and disturbers of world peace, have now taken the moral high-ground in the debate, lampooning the US as a demonic, militaristic superpower.

This is like, as my grandmother put it: ‘the frying pan calling the kettle black’. But I digress.

I don’t think poverty is always the result of malice however. For instance, there was a man, recently deceased, who lived on our road in an appallingly dilapidated trailer, who always looked like he was half-starving. He was an extreme hermit, and I always thought that he must have some serious mental disorder like Schizophrenia. He had a lot of medical problems and eventually died. I don’t think he was being oppressed because he looked and talked like everyone else. But he may have experienced discrimination as a result of his mental condition, and been unable to care for himself. I think this does bring up the issue as to why in a country so rich as ours some citizens live in shockingly primitive conditions with scarcely the resources to maintain life. Obviously there are great inequities in the distribution of resources in society, which permit these conditions to exist, and I think these can often be sheeted home to malice, pure and simple. Gary to No 48

I want to correct what I think is a critical misrepresentation which I made in my previous post to No 48.

In the inanity of my rant on the superpowers of old Europe, I mistakenly described them as the ‘disturbers’ of world peace. In that I erred, and I would like to set the record straight on that account. The disturbers of world peace are the primitive animalistic instincts, sourced in the amygdala, as described by LeDoux et al.

It is the primitive instincts, which result in the periodic outbreaks of war, violence, and other depredations down through history, in the life of individual human beings, as well as collective bodies, nations, and tribes. The occurrence of warfare is universal and cuts across cultural, national, and tribal boundaries. To single out any nation or group of nations as the ones responsible for upsetting the precarious balance of power in the world is tantamount to making others responsible for one’s happiness or lack of it. I suppose in many ways, my previously mistaken view on this was another example of a conditioned ‘American’ attitude and bias, acquired as a result of cultural conditioning, which includes experiences with two disastrous world wars and much blood shed. I notice these things popping up every now and then, but particularly lately as the dialogue in the world related to the Iraq crisis has heated up and the US is posed for a blitzkrieg against Saddam Hussein. Gary

It’s fascinating, yet it is dreadful, isn’t it? War and preparation for war, particularly in the computer age, is so impersonal. Aggression in human beings is instinctual but it is also socially programmed and conditioned. One of the things that occurred to me in reading this is that mock combat is engaged in by animals, for instance, in whitetail bucks (which I have had a lot of experience pursuing through the forests). Whitetail bucks ‘attack’ tree branches and battle with them in the same way they battle with other rival bucks in competition for territory and the sexually receptive does in heat. This is so obviously patterned instinctual behaviour. Do we regard mock combat in humans, playing video games with depictions of combat, as instinctual or socially programmed? Perhaps it is both. Whatever it is, it is programmed nonetheless and the program can be eliminated.

The Gulf War saw the emergence of ‘smart bombs’ by which the enemy could supposedly be wiped out by a neat and clean surgical strike. The carnage could then be graphically displayed on pretty charts and blow ups of the operation in press briefing rooms for the TV audience’s satisfaction. The whole horrible, ghastly element of war and the destruction of other human beings is removed from one, reducing it to a point value or something resembling a soccer match. I have been reading a book about World War 1. There is a fantastical element to these world conflagrations, of which we have seen two in the last century. It is hard to understand the forces that would impel so many ordinary people to destroy other people the way they did and still do. The level of carnage and butchery involved in the trenches of France was beyond comprehension. I must admit too that there is a level of fascination for me with it all. Perhaps reading about it all is a vicarious satisfaction of aggressive instincts (?) It is clear that people are fascinated by violence and violent death. Anyone, at least in this country, can turn on the TV and see plenty of murders, beatings, etc and ad nauseam. Gary to Peter

Recently you wrote on the differences between intelligence and instincts. I am going to continue with my practice of snipping relevant passages and sentences from your post and then responding to those, rather than try to reproduce the entire large post and reply to each and every point. I find that it is bit more manageable for me that way. However, I must say before I do that your recent post was exceptionally well written and powerful. I think you expressed your points with particular clarity and forthrightness. All in all, I found your points have persuaded me to take a long, hard look at just what I think and feel about the whole matter of intelligence as it relates to the instincts. At first reading your post aroused a kind of defensive response in me and I was inclined to respond in a defensive kind of manner, but I decided to wait, think it over more, and really consider what you are saying, ‘chew’ on it a bit more before putting anything down in writing. I also decided, as you suggested, to re-read that portion of your Journal on Intelligence. I recognized immediately that I had read it before, but this time the words took on a different meaning, fuelled in part by my desire to unravel, understand and get to the bottom of this whole thing.

This is where the defensiveness set in. I thought I don’t need you to tell me about the appalling brutalities that have been committed in the past 100 years. But rather than persisting in a defensive reaction, and making some kind of defensive retort to your post, some kind of knee jerk reaction, I decided to really try to understand what I was feeling defensive about and why I was feeling that way. There is something about this whole issue that I just have not ‘gotten’, something that has not clicked with me. And it goes way beyond just dealing in the semantics of it – the meaning of words and their usage – and it goes to the heart of the matter. And I must admit – and this is very hard – that I have been mistaken in this: you see, I thought that making and using weapons was an intelligent reaction to a perceived danger from other human beings, but I am reconsidering this.

This is the crux of the matter. You see, ‘I’ have been living in fear and I don’t want to admit it nor give up my cherished existence. ‘I’ don’t want to give up my ‘extensive defensive preparations’, for ‘I’ feel naked and vulnerable without them. The simple truth of the matter is that fear is not intelligence. It is the instincts that are killing people around the world, and it is the instincts that make me not only capable of killing but of wanting to kill another fellow human being. I found that in thinking about what has happened in the last 100 years, indeed in all of recorded human history, it has been impossible for me to separate what has happened historically from what goes on on an individual, ‘personal’ level, what takes place inside of this critter named ‘Gary’. I am just another sane, normal human being- and it has been these same sane, normal human beings that have, for the most part, been responsible for the appalling bloodshed that has happened and is still happening.

To move on a bit, you wrote:

That is the commonly accepted view. I am reminded in this connection, however, that in school we were taught the same thing about the Kaiser and German militarism in the First World War. I recently was browsing a book in the book store about WW1 wherein the author developed the interesting thesis that the English were actually responsible for the start of the war in that they consistently provoked the Germans and their allies and deliberately and with malicious intent engaged in the kind of sabre-rattling and expansionist policies that goaded on the war, with the resultant bloodshed. This is quite the opposite from the usual view. Actually, I would say that since every human being inherited the blind instincts that nature genetically endowed all sentient creatures with as a rough and ready software package for survival, that all the human beings that lived at that time were responsible for the war and what happened in the war, that would include the pacifists, the isolationists, the politicians, the priests and ministers, rabbis, gurus, and every sane, normal human being living on the globe at the time. Maybe that seems to be going a bit too far? What do you think?

... a species that gets to the stage of MAD is not intelligent, it is a species driven by senseless passion. To bring a permanent end to this MAD-ness would undoubtedly be a triumph of intelligence over blind passion.

And because ‘I’ live in fear, indeed ‘I’ am fear, my intelligence is hamstrung by the instinctual passions and cannot therefore operate freely. To me, mad and afraid go together – it is exceedingly difficult for me to tell where fear starts, leaves off, and MAD begins. I have noticed at times in the past while driving that when a careless driver swerves into my path, there is the first instantaneous burst of movement to avoid the danger and then, sometimes, this is followed a bit later by an angry reaction (‘You f...ing jerk, watch where you’re going’). So the anger seems to come a bit later. Sometimes too the fear comes a little later. I don’t know if that makes any sense – maybe it is just my labelling of the fear or anger that comes later and not the emotion itself, but at least what I explained above seems like what happens. Often though, there is the instantaneous reaction to avoid the danger and no anger, no fear. I much prefer it that way.

This is another thing that I was thinking about ... I do carry a weapon ... a revolver in the glove compartment of my car. I live in a country and a state that gives law-abiding citizens the right to carry concealed weapons, and a few years ago I decided to get one. After the necessary fingerprinting, records search, etc. I got the permit and started carrying the gun in the car for ‘emergencies’. Just last week, on the way home from work, I accidentally ran a red light. The road conditions were very slippery and I had swerved to avoid a car that stopped rather abruptly in front of me. As the gun is in the compartment with the vehicle registration and the insurance card, and as the officer asked to see these documents, I thought it the intelligent thing to do to inform him that I have a gun on board and am legally licensed to carry it, lest he blow my head off when he spied the revolver in the glove compartment. After running a check on my license, and being satisfied that I was not a criminal on the run or that my license was under suspension, he told me everything was all right and I could proceed home. He thanked me for telling him about the gun and didn’t even ask to see my carry permit. I am glad I live in a country which allows its’ citizens to privately own firearms. Obviously, though, America is a place where gun violence is rampant, further fuelling the fears that people have about violence being directed at them, and leading much of the citizenry to take to gun toting as a reaction to that fear. I have noticed distinctly many times that, before venturing too far from home, I feel ‘naked’ without my gun in the car with me, and go to some pretty ridiculous extremes to ensure that I am armed. I remember when I first came to this list and began a correspondence with you that you and I considered the issue of ‘self’-defence, the use of deadly force to avert a murderous attack. I made it clear that I am not pacifist and would use deadly force to avert a murderous attack on me or my partner. This would seem to be an intelligent thing to do, rather than let oneself be victimized, murdered, or tortured by a madman. These things do happen in this world, although their incidence is relatively low in the region that I reside in. I have sometimes thought that it is ridiculous to carry a gun because statistically the probability of me being harmed by someone is so low. It may be more likely that I would be attacked by a rabid chipmunk or a disturbed moose than by a fellow human being. Associated with this issue, though, is a related one: if one is fearful, in other words living in a state of fear of attack, to what extent are they then responsible for being attacked? I seem to remember Richard saying that, in all but the most random cases of violent crime that the supposed ‘victim’ of the assault is just as responsible as the ‘perpetrator’ for the violence that occurs. While an extreme position on it, it does seem to make some sense to me. If I am fear, in other words if I have fear on board, to what extent would I myself be responsible for attracting violence from others? I have seen this dynamic at play recently in my reactions to someone at work. I have felt nervous and afraid of this person and then felt ‘offended’ and even malicious when they ‘attacked’ me. There seems to be considerable grist for the mill in these reactions.

Whenever and if people give up their guns and nuclear weapons indeed doesn’t really seem to be the point. I have decided for myself that I am not going to live my life a hostage to fear, come what may. This means that I am going to examine each fearful and/or angry reaction that comes up in me, as well as all my ‘good’ emotions, as the necessary first step to eliminating my own malice and sorrow. The way is now open to completely eliminate what has been bringing the human species to grief throughout the long history of its’ presence on this planet. This is not a belief or a hope. This is a desire born of sheer desperation and a stubborn refusal to follow the same Tried and Failed path of those who preceded me. This desperation that I talk about comes out of my life experience. Everyone I know has been affected by war and violence. Nobody has escaped the carnage, at least nobody I know. I myself have been both victimized by violence and prone to violence myself in the past. I had a sharp memory during the period of time that I was considering your posting of a time in my life, many years ago and in my drinking days, when I actually plotted the murder of this man because he had assaulted me. At that time, my drinking was at the height of its’ destructiveness and even the simplest thing, like going to grocery store for food, was incredibly complicated because I was ‘drunk as a warlord’ most of the time. I thought long and hard about how I could murder this man and had seized on a means and a plan. I was just too drunk at the time to carry it out and knew it. But I thought I would throw this in because you said in your journal that you had been shocked when you realized that you relished the idea of killing someone after reading about a murder in a local paper. It is indeed shocking to get a real glimpse of intensity and extent of these deadly passions once the mask of Love Agape and Divine Compassion is taken off.

Thanks for the encouragement Peter. I enjoy our correspondence and I appreciate your sagacity and intelligence in these matters. I did not come to this list for group hugs or to be reaffirmed in my beliefs (‘emotional support’ I think its’ called). I am looking for a simple and practical way to bring about suffering and sorrow. I appreciate the actualists on this list that have challenged me to my core, and upset the proverbial apple cart. It is not my way to stand off on the sidelines taking pot-shots at actualism like some list participants have done. I welcome questions and observations from others that really make me think. It is a hard thing to admit that you have been wrong about something all along, but it is also the only way to really throw off the past and free yourself from it. Gary to Peter

Today we visited the American War Graves cemetery at the Omaha beachhead in Normandy. This was the first time I had visited a war cemetery, though I have seen pictures of them on TV. The TV does not convey the vastness of the site, nor give the sense of appalling carnage which occurred. There are 10,000 men buried there – about a quarter of the total Americans killed in the space of a few weeks – and this is just one of the American cemeteries of one war – German, British, French, Polish and Canadians are buried all over this area, from both the last war and the previous one. Man’s inhumanity to man, as it is commonly called – and I got to reflecting on why it is called this. As the mass slaughter was carried out by men how can it be deemed an ‘inhuman’ act? Is it because it is ‘easier’ to believe that ‘humans’ cannot carry out such acts of atrocity against one another, that it is some external ‘evil power’ which somehow ‘takes over’ and is responsible. Is it not much simpler to realize that it is the ‘human condition’, inherent in everyone, which is responsible. In fact the reason for the fighting and killing is ‘humanity’ itself – to be human, structured on the instincts of fear and aggression, is to have malice towards one’s fellow humans, especially those who oppose one’s most cherished beliefs. From an early age, though, it always struck me as odd that protagonists on both sides of the battle front would pray to their God for deliverance and victory – and in this case it was the same, supposedly, Christian god. Life is actually simple (and pretty hilarious) when one examines the facts. Alan

All of the misery and suffering is completely unnecessary – all of it! Oh sure I have read it before and even written about it and Richard continually ‘bangs his drum’ about all of the wars and the rapes and the murders and the child abuse and the domestic disputes and the suicides. But, this morning it really hit home to me. Read the words and take them in – all of the misery and suffering are 100% unnecessary. Don’t just read and move on saying ‘yeah, I agree, they are unnecessary’. Take in the fact – get your teeth into it – examine it until it sinks home – all of human suffering need not happen. This is a fact of such staggering enormity that it beggars belief – and therein lies the problem, for ‘I’ will never believe it to be true. It has to be experienced. So, ponder on it further and do not wander from the subject. Try to believe it. Imagine every single instant of misery, suffered by every person in the world, for countless millennia – all of it need not have happened. And all that is required to stop it happening is a bit of intestinal fortitude to see the evidence. And, none of the metaphysical nonsense of ‘suffering does not exist’. It does. It is all too real. However, it does not have to exist.

These are only suggestions, mind you. Everyone is completely free to continue suffering to their heart’s content – or, should it perhaps be heart’s discontent? Similarly, it is of no avail me telling anyone what is so – except, if it is said often enough and long enough, a few facts may penetrate and someone may decide to experience for themselves what is fact and what is belief. Alan

I enjoyed your ‘rave’ the other day. There is no doubt that humanity is doing a much better job of cleaning up the planet and, as you say, is now faced with the task of cleaning itself up.

The environmentalists tend to go a bit over the top here, as evinced by an article I was reading yesterday. A leading scientist and his family have had to be under police protection for years and have had bombs sent, disguised as Xmas presents, cars trashed and a ‘fatwa’ issued against them. This scientist has discovered the cures for many human ailments, including the major cause of blindness in babies and is on the brink of discovering a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. And his ‘crime’ was to use animals for experimental purposes. Admittedly, a great deal of unnecessary suffering was caused in the past for non medical purposes, such as ‘beauty’ products, but today it is very tightly regulated and controlled. And do these environmentalists forego the medicines and treatments discovered as a result of experiments on animals – I think not, they are probably first in the queue to demand their ‘right’ to be treated.

We are currently having an extremely violent demonstration of the ‘sickness’ of the human condition, which you have probably seen in the media. Blacks, Asians and gays have so far been targeted – watch out, actualists could be next! Which, of course, could never happen – with no beliefs to defend, there is nothing to attack – and all that is required is to come to one’s senses!

‘Political correctness’ is also rampant here – a leading judge made a joke at a dinner party last week, along the lines of ‘someone made great advances in the legal profession after having three transplant operations – he was given the breasts of a lesbian, the penis of a black man and the buttocks of a gay man’. I thought it quite amusing, but such is the power of the three lobbies he ‘insulted’ that he is likely to lose his job.

The military are also engaged in peace keeping operations, which do not amount to ‘war’. If bombing the shit out of someone and firing dozens of cruise missiles (costing in excess of a million dollars each) is not ‘war’, I’d like to know what is.

Well that is all the news from the home front. It is a gloriously sunny bank holiday here and I am sitting on the garden swing, typing this, while keeping an eye on our four newly hatched goslings, watching the first swallows dart and dive and planning the first barbecue of the year. Alan to Peter

Your post, as usual always thoughtfully presented, contained the following statement:

I cannot honestly say that I have always been interested in living in peace and harmony with other human beings – probably only for the latter part of my life.

I nearly perished in a sea of alcohol, anger, depression and sadness which, at the age of 34, made me see the complete untenability of my way of life – the only way of life that I had known up until then. I suppose extremely crude survival instincts kicked in and kicked me in the butt to do something to stop killing myself. Besides, the pain was unbearable. Presented on a silver platter, through the vehicle of AA, spiritual ideals seemed the only way out of the morass that I was in – in fact, at the time, it was the only thing on offer. I went from the personal madness and delusion of the alcoholically insane to the institutionalized madness of religious and spiritual belief. Even after becoming involved with a religious pacifist group I still had my reservations about living in peace and harmony with other human beings. I remember thinking that I could never be a pacifist because I could not vow not to kill another human being. I would kill if I had to. It seemed insane to allow someone to have their way with me or those near to me, without lifting a finger to do anything to stop it.

Over a long period of time, the ridiculousness of living one’s life according to an ideal has hit home. I chuckle to myself during this holiday season when so many wishes and hopes are offered for peace in our world. Wishes and hopes are about as worn-out as all the other useless ideals that humanity has dreamed up. Only the most determined efforts to rid oneself of malice and sorrow are up to snuff. Ideals are a waste of time. One can wish and hope until the cows come home for peace and harmony, pray, sing, troop around singing Xmas carols, but all these collective, feel-good activities pale in comparison with getting down to brass tacks and doing something about it. You are really on your own in doing this work – that doesn’t mean that talking to others, like on this list, is not helpful or advisable, but when it comes right down to it, nobody can do it for you, you have to do it for yourself. If you pay heed to what most other people are doing, you might as well forget it, because most people are running off in the wrong direction. Gary to Peter

The Breton and Largent article, interesting though it may be, seems to be a rather shallow treatment of the subject of warfare and killing. I would like to take this opportunity to comment on it, perhaps at the risk of seeming to ‘nitpick’.

One of B & L’s theses is that human beings are not blood-thirsty killers such as depicted in Hollywood treatments of war. This hardly seems surprising. I would think it would be rather evident to any but the most naive that Hollywood depictions of real life events are given wide latitude to depict those events in the most lurid ways. This is so obviously true about Hollywood depictions of warfare that we hardly need these authors to remind us about it.

But of greater concern to me is that the authors seem to think that the socially and morally inculcated aversion to killing that occurs in the several up-front and personal accounts of combat that they offer along with the article are enough to answer the question that they start the article off with. Although I have never been in a war, and so have no personal experience with combat, I am aware that there is this gut-level aversion to the killing of other human beings. I suspect, though I can’t prove it, that for every personal combat account of revulsion with the killing aspect of war, there will be another account of the exhilaration, indeed the feeling of jubilation at the vanquishing of an enemy.

My only real personal experience of this was with my near and dear friend, whom I have been friends with since the age of 4, who was drafted into service in Vietnam, who was wounded in action in Vietnam, who came home and told the most blood-curdling stories to his personal and intimate friends of his ‘up-front and personal’ experiences of killing Viet Cong, and there was absolutely no remorse or revulsion with the business of killing. Was he a monster? I think not. He was raised in a milieu much as the one I was raised in. He was not a monster but he clearly enjoyed the business of killing. Was he a freak, an aberration? Again, I don’t think so. But so much for the personal anecdotes.

The other thing, though, that these authors seem to skip over completely is the shattering and overwhelming evidence of history. Even assuming that most people have a gut-wrenching aversion to killing another human being, who do they think is responsible for killing the millions of human beings who have perished in wars in the last hundred years? I’ll tell you in case you haven’t guessed it already -other human beings. The simple fact is that human beings are killing one another, and in prodigious quantities. So far, the inculcated aversion to killing has not been enough to stem the flow of blood from the battlefield. In fact, quite the opposite. Given the wonders of technology, we now have wars that look more like Nintendo games. Isn’t it also a fact that most men firing at the enemy in combat do so at ranges that are extreme – at least that is my understanding of the European war. Most men firing at the enemy didn’t even see who they were firing at.

But to get back to the point I am trying to make: human beings kill other human beings. There are more wars going on in the world at this time than at any other time in recorded history. The history of any particular nation is the history of armed conflict, of conquest, exploitation, murder, and mayhem. The authors of this article seem to have an overweening confidence that ethics and morality will stem the flow of blood that flows across the pages of history. I think they are mistaken. Many of my fellow countrymen and women are clambering at this time to get their hands on Osama Bin Laden right now. Many of them would proudly step up to the plate and personally wring his neck or get a few kicks in for the thousands who died in New York. Do you think they would shrink from the killing? I doubt it, judging from the comments I hear made and from what I witness on TV and in the press.

Are human beings killers? There are two ways to look at this. Who else has killed all those millions of people who have died in wars in the last hundred years? Of course human beings are killers.

The other way to look at it is this: the only thing that makes one a bona fide killer is the act of killing, at least legally speaking. By that definition the overwhelming majority of human beings in the world are not killers. But the evidence of history makes it scarcely possible for them to congratulate themselves that they haven’t joined in the fray and killed their fellow human beings.

Just a few thoughts. Gary to No 22

Article posted by No 22 –

© 1999 Denise Breton and Christopher Largent

One of the persistent pictures that we have of ourselves comes from the phenomenon of war. We tend to believe that in wars ‘brave fighting men’ and women (by the way) patriotically and emotionlessly kill their fellow beings for any cause that demands it. <snipped for space>

When we’re not waving a flag about this – when we’re not consumed with patriotic feelings or anger at ‘the enemy’ – we look at war more objectively. And most of the time, we look at it with sadness, because it presents us with a murderous humanity. A war-focused history gives us the impression, even the conviction, that beneath a thin veneer of moral heroism and civility, we’re all killers.

Up front, we want to be clear that we’re not saying that there isn’t bravery during wars; quite the contrary, there is exceptional valour. What we’re saying is that a close look at the history of warfare reveals two surprising facts: (a) that soldiers do not kill each other the way we see on war films and (b) that valour comes as much from those who do not kill as those who do. <snipped for space>

That in the entire history of warfare only a very few humans could be induced to kill other humans is a fact known to military historians – though not generally known to the public. <snipped for space>

Most of this refusal to kill is hidden from the public, and in its place, we usually see what combat veteran Jack Thompson calls ‘Combat Addiction.’ That is, the efficiently killing soldier we see in movies or on television comes mostly from that tiny percentage of men who become addicted to violence. <snipped for space>

Along with combat-addicted soldiers are those who kill from combat stress and for revenge (someone who saw a buddy killed in battle and wants to kill in response).

How about the other 196 men (out of the 1000) who do fire? How do they feel if they kill someone? In general, the results of war trauma are devastating, and Dave Grossman devotes an entire chapter of On Killing to ‘The Nature of Psychiatric Casualties: The Psychological Price of War.’ No soldier – as society learned painfully in a famous World War II study (Grossman, pp. 43-44) and from Vietnam veterans – simply returns from war. Even those who refuse to discuss what they’ve been through, as Sandra Bloom shows in Creating Sanctuary (pp. 64-69), pass their wounds down to later generations with ever more destructive results. <snipped for space>

Suddenly, humans look less like brutal killers and more like beings struggling with the phenomenon of war. They seem more trapped in this horror than at home in it, and the traumas from it scar their lives. And we need to remind ourselves that none of the soldiers had any say in starting the wars. Even those who kill intentionally didn’t set out to be killers. Rather, they ended up in wars begun – especially in modern times – by those who do not fight.

So, when we look at war’s history rather than war’s propaganda, we see a different nature from the one portrayed in war films. And we see responses that suggest that we humans may not be as murderous as the entertainment industry makes us out to be. © 1999 Denise Breton and Christopher Largent 

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