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Viewpoint 4 Species of War & 3 Types of Aggressors By Edward Carpenter Edward Carpenter There are in general four rather well-marked species of wars-Religious wars, Race wars, wars of Ambition and Conquest, and wars of Acquisition and Profit - though in any particular case the four species may be more or less mingled. The religious and race motives often go together…Wars of race, of ambition and of acquisition are common. Only very rarely happens that any of these wars are set in motion by the mass-peoples themselves. The mass-peoples, at any rate of the more modern nations, are quiescent, peaceable, and disinclined for strife. Why, then, do wars occur? It is because the urge to war comes not from the masses of a nation but from certain classes within it. In every nation, since the dawn of history, there have been found, beside the toiling masses, three great main cliques or classes, the Religious, the Military and the Commercial. It was so in far-back ancient India; it is so now. Each of these classes endeavors in its turn - as one might expect - to become the ruling class and to run the government of the nation. The governments of the nations thus become class-governments. And it is one or another of these classes that for reasons of its own, alone or in combination with another class, foments war and sets it going. In saying this I do not by any means wish to say anything against the mere existence of Class, in itself. In a sense that is a perfectly natural thing. There are different divisions of human activity, and it is quite natural that those individuals whose temperament calls them to a certain activity - literary or religious or mercantile or military or what not - should range themselves together in a caste or class; just as the different functions of the human body range themselves in definite organs. And such grouping in classes may be perfectly healthy provided the class so created subordinates itself to the welfare of the Nation. But if the class does not subordinate itself to the general welfare, if it pursues its own ends, usurps governmental power, and dominates the nation for its own uses - if it becomes parasitical, in fact - then it and the nation inevitably become diseased; as inevitably the human body becomes diseased when its organs, instead of supplying the body's needs, become the tyrants and parasites of the whole system. It is this Class-disease which in the main drags the nations into the horrors and follies of war. And the horrors and follies of war are the working out and expulsion on the surface of evils which have long been festering within. How many times in the history of "civilization" has a bigoted religious clique, or a swollen-headed military clique, or a greedy commercial gang - caring not one jot for the welfare of the people committed to its charge - dragged them into a senseless and ruinous war for the satisfaction of its own supposed interests! It is here and in this direction (which searches deeper than the mere weighing and balancing of Foreign policies and Diplomacies) that we must look for the "explanation" of the wars of today. The Healing of Nations (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1915) Victory of the Loud Little Handful By Mark Twain The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men... Mark Twain Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the 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. Violence: A Dead-End Ploy By Jack Nichols Jack Nichols Much of what goes by the name of defense is productive of little more than acute paranoia. The person who would defend himself has become so conscious of his defensive posture that it brings upon him, like a self-fulfilling prophecy those misfortunes he is ready to expect. In the heat of expectation, as he looks about anxiously for an attacker, he often finds deranged misfits believing masculinity requires an attack-mode and who catch his eye at the same minute he spots them. His aggressive carriage - oh, so defensive -is an open invitation for compulsive assailants to prove their skills. If defense is always conceived of as a state of readiness to do battle, then it may well lead to the destruction of the person or nation so conceiving it. "Living by the sword" means not only striking others with it but also swinging it around and continually suggesting that its use is possible. If men are going to construct meaningful defenses, these must include gentleness, sharing, generosity, and a host of other peaceful characteristics. They must be both active, like generosity or passive, like the willingness to listen. Our ideas of defense are primitive because they are based on tribal fortifications. We have carried the idiocies of the duel into the international arena. A public insult finds us ready to demand resititution of our honor. In a nuclear age, however, being trigger happy can mean universal death. The more ominous our supply of weapons, the more likely it seems to others we may be tempted to fight. If defense is our true motivation, we must give every sign that we are peaceful, restraining implanted aggressive impulses in any sphere where we have sublimated them, especially in our economic dealings. Men's Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity (Penguin Books, 1975, 1980)

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