"Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names." -translation from Sanskrit
I do not even use the above quote as a part of some set of wares to be shown off. I use it to testify to the many threads that mix to form the complex web of motives, and the varying strength of belief in those motives: I speak to unify differences.
Stepping back for a moment from the annals of American History, and looking on the world and the world's wars that have been fought, turning the plains and the seas alike to a tide of blood (and do not mistake me: I do not say any of this for want of 'literary eloquence'), I can see this much, that the complexity of ideas, and the will to assert ideas through force, upheld by the fervent conviction that any one idea is greater or nobler or more righteous (or simply more advantageous) - this is the root of human conflict, in my estimation. Men who desire power for themselves will seek it, and perhaps hide behind a cloak of 'serving the public good' (or perhaps not); those who believe an assault on their land is rationale enough to strike back, regardless of past transgressions), they will do so, thrusting forward the banner of their belief, earnest or no, for all to see.
Many can and have argued that the Revolutionary War, that legendary and oft-forgotten root of our cultural Liberty Tree (if I may beg pardon to be poetic), whose boughs for Two Hundred and Thirty Years since the Declaration in 1776 have borne fruit in fair weather and foul, was but a selfish war fought to preserve the rights of selfish men; but our cultural backdrop aside, can we not say all mortal warring is at the root a motivation of the self, to avenge injury, to take what is deemed right to be taken, to protect what the self deems is worthy of protecting? If so, and I cannot personally see otherwise, then it must also be true that wars, ancient and modern, are at their core a battle of wills; selfish motivation or perceived selfless motivation matters little, if the collective will of a people cannot suffer to be defeated, in their view deprived of victory, for a cause some will paint clear, others will not see, and still more will follow even in their neglect.
I cannot cast a stone and say this or that, Oil for a sense of clannish security of resource or Terrorism as the new affront to Liberty, whose roots were in the 20th Century Communism and Fascism, and in the 19th Aristocracy and Slavery; and this brings another final point, that the Civil War, the taker of more American lives than are remembered in collective memory, was fought with two divergent ideas in mind: those in the South believed they were rebelling in the spirit of their forefathers in 1776, protecting their rights to slaves (for such was the Southern meaning of Liberty: rights for a few and respected to command and subjugate those deemed 'lesser' in rank or authority), while in the North the abolitionists fought for a renewed sense of human dignity and brotherhood.
And still, there was a trend for historians in the early 20th Century to pass off these high-minded affairs to what they saw as the truth: an industry-relying North against an agrarian, farmer's South; a conflict of selfish interests.
To all who are to read this, and pass judgement on me and my words, harsh or fair, know that even if you disagree with Kate she is right on this: the truth is in the middle. Standing from the center, one may see all angles.
I do not even use the above quote as a part of some set of wares to be shown off. I use it to testify to the many threads that mix to form the complex web of motives, and the varying strength of belief in those motives: I speak to unify differences.
Stepping back for a moment from the annals of American History, and looking on the world and the world's wars that have been fought, turning the plains and the seas alike to a tide of blood (and do not mistake me: I do not say any of this for want of 'literary eloquence'), I can see this much, that the complexity of ideas, and the will to assert ideas through force, upheld by the fervent conviction that any one idea is greater or nobler or more righteous (or simply more advantageous) - this is the root of human conflict, in my estimation. Men who desire power for themselves will seek it, and perhaps hide behind a cloak of 'serving the public good' (or perhaps not); those who believe an assault on their land is rationale enough to strike back, regardless of past transgressions), they will do so, thrusting forward the banner of their belief, earnest or no, for all to see.
Many can and have argued that the Revolutionary War, that legendary and oft-forgotten root of our cultural Liberty Tree (if I may beg pardon to be poetic), whose boughs for Two Hundred and Thirty Years since the Declaration in 1776 have borne fruit in fair weather and foul, was but a selfish war fought to preserve the rights of selfish men; but our cultural backdrop aside, can we not say all mortal warring is at the root a motivation of the self, to avenge injury, to take what is deemed right to be taken, to protect what the self deems is worthy of protecting? If so, and I cannot personally see otherwise, then it must also be true that wars, ancient and modern, are at their core a battle of wills; selfish motivation or perceived selfless motivation matters little, if the collective will of a people cannot suffer to be defeated, in their view deprived of victory, for a cause some will paint clear, others will not see, and still more will follow even in their neglect.
I cannot cast a stone and say this or that, Oil for a sense of clannish security of resource or Terrorism as the new affront to Liberty, whose roots were in the 20th Century Communism and Fascism, and in the 19th Aristocracy and Slavery; and this brings another final point, that the Civil War, the taker of more American lives than are remembered in collective memory, was fought with two divergent ideas in mind: those in the South believed they were rebelling in the spirit of their forefathers in 1776, protecting their rights to slaves (for such was the Southern meaning of Liberty: rights for a few and respected to command and subjugate those deemed 'lesser' in rank or authority), while in the North the abolitionists fought for a renewed sense of human dignity and brotherhood.
And still, there was a trend for historians in the early 20th Century to pass off these high-minded affairs to what they saw as the truth: an industry-relying North against an agrarian, farmer's South; a conflict of selfish interests.
To all who are to read this, and pass judgement on me and my words, harsh or fair, know that even if you disagree with Kate she is right on this: the truth is in the middle. Standing from the center, one may see all angles.
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