Last night my wife and I walked over to the Hudson River and joined a crowd to watch the Macy’s fireworks display. It was quite a beautiful show, and also America beating on its chest and throwing its chin up. The good will was palpable, the cops were friendly, and glances over to the New Jersey side of the river drew good natured chuckles at the feeble fireworks attempts of our poor neighbors. We’re the winners and it felt good. Altruism was in the air. We’d work together, sacrifice for each other. It felt good to be part of the winning team.
In the June 5 issue of Science Magazine there is an article by an anthropologist with evidence that many small conflicts between relatively small groups were driven by climate changes ten thousand and more years ago. Those groups that worked more effectively together, in which the individuals were more altruistic in their behavior, watched out for each other, sacrificed themselves for the group, tended to win the battles. The winners grabbed the losers’ women and so whatever were their customs or even genetic proclivities that made them successful in war were passed on to their descendents. And those descendents had the stuff to win and grab more women and so on until here we are today, thousands of year later, descendents of those winners, at least according to the anthropologists, feeling altruistic toward each other, ready to back each other up in war, while we watch our power demonstrated by the fireworks. Fireworks can’t help but remind us of the power brought to bear by technology for the purpose of war. We stand in awe of our power, when we work together, to beat those who are against us.
Sometimes fireworks do the kind of damage done in war. As usual on any July 5th in the United States the news is replete with reports of the many accidents with fireworks, which kill, maim and even decapitate. There’s little reason to be surprised considering that the chemicals used in the weapons of war are identical to those found in fireworks. The explosive power of fireworks sometimes shows itself on an unintended large scale demonstrating the value for war such as this video taken in Holland: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6126121898177679789
Before explosives came on the scene we had limited capacity for inflicting death per unit time. With explosives we’ve become much more efficient. The value of explosions in war has driven inventive characters to come up with many new ways to make explosions. But whatever the explosion, even nuclear bombs, their fundamental nature is identical: produce a large volume of hot gas in a short time.
Human beings must love war, considering how much war has been a part of the more than one hundred thousand year history of our species. Homo sapiens we are called meaning in Latin, wise or knowing man, and we come in many varieties often at war with each other. We have big brains and certainly the power from the big brains is combined with our aggression to overwhelm other forms of life and over the years of our existence, to overwhelm each other.
So we stand near the river watching the beautiful colorful display realizing the connection between the display and use of the identical technology in war. Is it possible to avoid war? Mark Twain had strong opinions about war. Here is a quote I found on the web (http://www.twainquotes.com/War.html): Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
And Twain, in 1910, went even further in “War Prayer,” a piece so shocking that Harper’s Bazaar would not publish it. I recommend picking up the book combining Twain’s words with John Groth’s drawings - a perennial imprint from HarperCollins.