Peace?
I just watched Munich for the first time, and it left me very troubled.
I know the history of the events, and the passions they unleashed on both sides. Is it troubling to anyone else the abandonment of reason on all sides, in all the actions? It makes me sad.
I am a 24 year old student of philosophy, and deep down I want to believe in the rule of reasonable men and women, that there can be peace and equitable governance. Not rule, rule is the wrong word. Rule implies the ascendancy of one person or group over others. Governance is necessary. Absolute freedom is untenable as a mode of life. Perhaps it is my overlying cynicism that does not believe that all men and women are capable of governing themselves completely. But I am not talking about individuals here. Society must have some type of law, some structure. A society comprised entirely of individuals will devolve into the anarchy of one person coveting and believing themself entitled to the fruits of another's labor. The notion of ownership is flawed, but I cannot see a way for all humankind to share everything, all the time. I cannot bring myself to believe in utopia. But again, what seems reasonable to one seems a horrible wrong to another. How can that be solved?
I want so much to believe in peace and reason, and the ability of mankind to use those higher faculties which so separate us from purely animal nature. But how can I not be cynical when the idea of murder for peace is so prevalent? The concept that the elimination of unreasonable elements by other equally unreasonable elements will ultimately end in the ascendancy of reasonable elements? It is sheerest folly, but so alarmingly prevalent. It erodes all that I want to believe to look around the world and to see what mankind falls to. Others would use the phrase 'has fallen to' but throughout history has there ever been a time of peace and self-sufficiency, where society was content in its own present form? There has not. It has been a continuing fall interspersed by 'golden ages' where a plateau interrupted the downward trajectory of human history. In the end it would appear inevitable that we will destory ourselves and all around us.
I fight all the time against the sense of despair that pervades this entry. Sometimes it slips through, however, and I regret that. It is a constant battle between all-encompassing cynicism and the desire to believe in reason and something higher. Plato wrote of the philosopher kings in the Republic, of the rule of an enlightened individual, but ultimately that too will fail because one man's reason is another man's folly. There must be reasonable dialogue, compromise in the face of differing beliefs, hope in the face of despair, and aspiration to contenment not utopia. Can we all just get along?
I want to believe. I do.
I know the history of the events, and the passions they unleashed on both sides. Is it troubling to anyone else the abandonment of reason on all sides, in all the actions? It makes me sad.
I am a 24 year old student of philosophy, and deep down I want to believe in the rule of reasonable men and women, that there can be peace and equitable governance. Not rule, rule is the wrong word. Rule implies the ascendancy of one person or group over others. Governance is necessary. Absolute freedom is untenable as a mode of life. Perhaps it is my overlying cynicism that does not believe that all men and women are capable of governing themselves completely. But I am not talking about individuals here. Society must have some type of law, some structure. A society comprised entirely of individuals will devolve into the anarchy of one person coveting and believing themself entitled to the fruits of another's labor. The notion of ownership is flawed, but I cannot see a way for all humankind to share everything, all the time. I cannot bring myself to believe in utopia. But again, what seems reasonable to one seems a horrible wrong to another. How can that be solved?
I want so much to believe in peace and reason, and the ability of mankind to use those higher faculties which so separate us from purely animal nature. But how can I not be cynical when the idea of murder for peace is so prevalent? The concept that the elimination of unreasonable elements by other equally unreasonable elements will ultimately end in the ascendancy of reasonable elements? It is sheerest folly, but so alarmingly prevalent. It erodes all that I want to believe to look around the world and to see what mankind falls to. Others would use the phrase 'has fallen to' but throughout history has there ever been a time of peace and self-sufficiency, where society was content in its own present form? There has not. It has been a continuing fall interspersed by 'golden ages' where a plateau interrupted the downward trajectory of human history. In the end it would appear inevitable that we will destory ourselves and all around us.
I fight all the time against the sense of despair that pervades this entry. Sometimes it slips through, however, and I regret that. It is a constant battle between all-encompassing cynicism and the desire to believe in reason and something higher. Plato wrote of the philosopher kings in the Republic, of the rule of an enlightened individual, but ultimately that too will fail because one man's reason is another man's folly. There must be reasonable dialogue, compromise in the face of differing beliefs, hope in the face of despair, and aspiration to contenment not utopia. Can we all just get along?
I want to believe. I do.