War: What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing

All My Sons by Arthur Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, is a sad tale of loss in war, the least of which seems to be that of the war itself. Areas, the play tackles, include the sense of responsibility and commitment to the world that young men gain in a war, some of the horror and industry's gain from and the ethics of making money from war and death.

However, the play tackles the responsibility of the individual and not that of society. It has individual men take responsibility for individual elements of the war (such as that of providing defective parts for planes) rather than society and its promotion of the American Dream. This individual person's failing was treated as shocking and unforgivable, because it resulted in the death of pilots. Whereas the idea that the affected individual men, who were pilots, were dropping bombs on other people, and killing them was taken for granted. At no time was war itself ever questioned. It just seemed to be legalities. Illegal killing was bad but it seemed legal killing was acceptable. An individual person's mistake which resulted in accidental death was treated as worse than the deaths which resulted from a society's intentional and deliberate actions to kill. Not a message I am comfortable with. But one, unfortunately which seems to pervade much of war literature.

This glorification of war may even finds it roots in society's unrelenting, at-all-costs, pursuit of the 'American Dream', much like the individual who will do whatever it takes to protect and provide for his family. An individuals flaw is punished and order is restored but society continues to create, promote and nurture such flaws, so for that we will all suffer.

As Gale (2011) contends, 'Americans fighting in the war were fighting for the preservation of the American Dream.' Yet when one man makes a mistake by attempting to do the same in his family business, he is abhorred.

And so society hides from responsibility in it the safety of  hegemonic power. During the time frame of the play, atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. Actions which, the New Statesman (2015) consider 'war crimes', as Robert S. McNamara (US Secretary of Defence), stated 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.'

Gale (2011) How the American Dream Has Changed Over Time, Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit
Awan, A. (2015) Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Single Greatest Acts of Terrorism in Human History? The New Statesman

*Title quote from Edwin Starr's  (1970) song War


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Forecast: Probability of Miracles

Who expects miracles? Do you? Do they require faith, luck or magic? Are they answers to pleading with deities or are they rare events which we have no real understanding of?

In Sedgewicks (2013) book 'She Is Not Invisible' we are taken through a journey of exploration including numbers, patterns, probability, coincidence and miracles. We are shown the links between what seem to be random events and also dissuaded from making correlations between random events which are not connected.

One example is how we might be 'amazed' at the coincidence of meeting someone at a party with the same birthday, when we only need 23 people to be at the party to have a 50-50 chance that there will be 2 people who have the same birthday. Furthermore, we are told if there are 30 its a 70% chance and if 57 a 99% chance (Sedgwick, 2013).

And we are told of Littlewoods Law which explains 'miracles' as 'something that might have a million-to-one chance of happening' which when we consider the vast number of experiences we have every day, means they happen more frequently than we might think (Sedgwick, 2013). 

Statistically, we can 'expect to see something miraculous happen every 35 days' (Ibid). So no need for belief or magic, while you go about your normal life something 'miraculous' will happen, approximately every month. 

What is going to be your million-to-one experience this month?

Careful – you might miss it, if you're not looking out for it, if you don't believe in miracles or think they are not going to happen to you. Million-to-one happenings are not so rare and miracles happen whether you believe in them or not.

The forecast for the future is a high chance of miracles. 

Sedgwick, M. (2013) She Is Not Invisible, Hachette UK

Shooting an Elephant: Acting Foolishly to Avoid Appearing Foolish

How likely is it that we might revert to the animal instinct of not showing weakness in case we are pounced upon?

Orwell (1936) in his story Shooting an Elephant describes a British Officer's experience in Burma, when as a representative of British rule and authority, he was called upon, by 'an unarmed native crowd', to shoot an elephant (p.95). Even though he did not think it was necessary, because it was expected of him, he did. And he did it 'solely to avoid looking a fool' (p.99)

He was 'only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of [others]' he said and 'wears a mask and his face grows to fit it' (Orwell, 1936, p.95)

How much do we do because of what is expected of us or to avoid appearing foolish or to maintain hegemony or a status quo? How much are we reverting to the animal instincts of not showing weakness?

The chimps of Gombe studied by Goodall, are unable to control their facial features and when they are afraid make a 'fear grimace' (Hall & Dawson, 1998, p.31). A chimp displaying such a 'fear grimace' will cover his face with his hands,  lest it be recognized as weakness and he is attacked by a rival (Ibid).

Are we constantly trying to hide our real emotions and live up to expectations, living in fear of showing weakness and being attacked? 

How much do we go against our better judgements to maintain the status quo? What would it take for any one of us to end up shooting an elephant?

Hall, M. E. and Dawson, P. (1998) The Submission Reflex, Nova Publishers.

Orwell, G. (1936, 1957) Shooting an Elephant, Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Penguin

Let the Albatross Fly

'Water, water, everywhere,

Nor a drop to drink.'

 Coleridge, S. T.  (1798, 1817) Rime of the Ancient Mariner

We may thirst for knowledge but not be able to use it, understand it or be sustained by it if it is tainted, like the becalmed sea water of our life's journey coming to a halt.

Coleridge's (1798, 1817) Rime of the Ancient Mariner , a ballad form which seems allegorical in nature, creates an air of ancient folklore passed down in the oral tradition, interpreted as heard and retold according to that interpretation. We can read it in many ways, even in modern times. As a debunking of eye-witnesses testimony or as a way to say what is past is past and whatever you learn from it will be your choice. That no matter how terrible the experience, what is important is what is learnt. And how our very reading of the poem itself is a choice, including what we take from it, what we understand by it and what we learn from it.

We can see it as a moral tale, a fable, a parable if that is what we choose to see. We can choose to see it as an entreaty to love and appreciate what you have, lest you lose it. To treat all 'creatures great and small' with the care. Or as a reminder that we will be borne down and burdened by the harm we do in life until we understand and change our ways. Or that we must not only learn from our experiences but be an example and teach others from them too.

Of course we could just see an albatross as an albatross. If we could do that maybe we wouldn't try to kill it as an ill omen much like we do to anything we fear. Perhaps we are being told, rather than killing the thing we fear, that we should kill the fear itself or we will continue to carry it about and see everything in its darkened hues. We read into our experience what we perceive to be true and then judge further experiences with prejudice to fuel our discrimination.

On our individual paths in life, to continue on, we must not keep looking over our shoulders in fear, but instead keep up the forward momentum knowing that it is not what we fear, that is following us but just fear itself, which we are instead leaving behind.

'Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.'

Coleridge, S. T.  (1798, 1817) Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Middle Ground, The Common Ground

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Kay Joy Fowler (2013) teaches us much about kinship. Sometimes it means beginning in the middle, not just the middle of the story as Rose's story did but in the middle between what we know and what we don't know.

We make assumptions constantly and at the same time know those assumptions are not the whole story. So why not make assumptions that are positive. Ones that celebrate what we have in common so we can better understand each other rather than open up what sets us apart.

Fowler, speaking about We Are All Completely Beside Outselves, said she 'wanted the book to start with the assumption of kinship' , that she 'wanted the reader to assume the similarities, before looking for the differences' (Online Q&A).

A good place to start. A foundation to build from. A positive connection. The middle ground. The common ground.

More Lessons from Harper Lee

Author Harper Lee passed away on the 19th of this month and having read and been inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird, I turned to her other novel Go Set a Watchman to find some solace. I was aware there had been controversy around this novel, however I was interested in knowing where young Scout's story had originated. The book, a precursor of To Kill a Mockingbird has an older Scout trying to find her way in life and reminiscing about her childhood in an effort to make sense of her world.

My Goodreads review: 

Go Set A Watchman will be forever compared to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and at the moment, in the main, seems to be seen as coming up short. However if we talk about the message of the novel, rather than the plot or structure, we might see it as being the better of the two in the future. The message?

• Heroes are only as we perceive them.
• Consciences, like morals are malleable.
• Power corrupts, whether in terms of sexism, racism, class or any other oppressive force.
• We cannot understand what is right if we rely on other people to tell us.
• Concepts like 'right' , 'truth' and 'good' all change according to and need context to be understood
• Prejudice comes as much from faith and culture as it does from good intentions and ignorance.
• There are no 'good' or 'bad' people, only the good and bad they do.
• Children need to evolve past parents guidance and learn from themselves.
• We are all flawed.
• We are all bigots in some way.
• We are afraid of what we have being taken away from us.
• Our response to what scares us is fight or flight.
• We, as a species, are not as evolved as we think.
• And history does repeat itself – until we learn.

If, by  reading this book, any one of the above is understood, maybe we will not take for granted the benefits we have and try harder to be better people.

* * *

Go Set a Watchman was published in 2015 but much of its material pre-dates To Kill a Mockingbird (Telegraph, 2015). Although it was never published in the fifties (perhaps because of its inflammatory politics) it is as pertinent today because of those same politics and social commentary.

Comments on Need and Greed:

 'If you did not want much, there was plenty.' 


'The only thing I’m afraid of about this country is that its government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn’t be worth living in.'

Comments on Prejudice, Conscience and Faith:

' Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.'

'[E]very man’s watchman, is his conscience.'

'[T]he twenty-first chapter of Isaiah, verse six: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.'

'As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings—I’ll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes ’em like all of us.'

Comments on Friendship and Love

'[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong.... They don’t need you when they’re right.'

'[A]lmost in love... No, that’s impossible...either you are or you aren’t. Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all.'

Lee, H. (2015) Go Set A Watchman, Heinemann 

The Big Short & The Cost of Unemployment

The Big Short told the story of the 2007/8 housing market collapse and banking irregularities and the subsequent economic collapse in an engaging way that meant I came out of the movie feeling entertained and educated.

The story is one we are somewhat familiar with and one we certainly know a lot more about by the end of the movie. However one thing mentioned, hit a chord for me. Among the banking and housing terms and the stories of cover ups and high finance greed, it was mentioned that in the US, every time unemployment increases by a percentage that 40,000 people die.

I checked. And yes, according to Thomas and Carson (2014)  this is, pretty much, as they put it:

'The Cost of Unemployment'

Thomas and Carson (2014) mention the costs 'in human terms' as eroding 'morale and self-esteem', destroying motivation and positive behaviour patterns and increasing negative social behaviour , 'morbidity, mental illness and crime' (p. 300).

Thomas and Carson discuss a study where a 'one-percent-point increase in the unemployment rate will be associated with 37,000 deaths' (Ibid).

These deaths include:

• 20,000 heart attacks
• 920 suicides
• 650 homicides

In the UK the Trade Union Congress (TUC,  2010) found the 'costs of unemployment' to include higher mortality (including infant and maternal), increased ill health (mental and physical), increased substance abuse and increased poverty related other issues.

The cost to children includes  all the fall out from the above, such as:

• 'by the age of 2, the children of long-term unemployed parents were up to an inch shorter than the children of other parents' (p.6)
• 'the death rate for children of parents classified as never having worked or long-term unemployed was 13 times that for children whose parents worked in higher managerial or professional occupations' (Ibid).

We could think of the 'big short' as that of the toddlers who are, because of other people's greed, shorter than their peers. At least they are not part of the real 'Big Short' - all those who are dead - the real cost of greed.

Thomas, W. L. and Carson, R. B. (2014) The American Economy: How it Works and How it Doesn't, Routledge
TUC (2010) The Costs of Unemployment, a TUC Briefing to Mark the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, 

Room

'Room' by Emma Donoghhue has had a great movie interpretation of the book, capturing the atmosphere, characters and situation of living for the first five years of a life locked up in a room. I cried through most of it and was riveted by the limited (but vast) world view of a five year old. It replicates the skewed perspectives which come from an unusual upbringing in a restricted environment.

This story is certainly a 'different kind of true' and the idea that 'everyone's got a different story' has special resonance.

My childhood story was certainly set on a stage larger than a room. It included rooms, houses, schools and playgrounds, fields and roads and cities and counties. But for all its horizons it was usually limited to the people in the vicinity and usually not much farther than a room. 

However big the house or however far I traveled, it was one room at a time and even when phoning home it was just from one room to another.  

In many places I've traveled I've seen a family live in a room, converting it at night to sleeping quarters by laying out bedding and clearing it away in the day to live. It has made me question my 'need' for so many rooms in my home, despite the modest size of our maisonette. 

My rooms:

1 room just to sleep in

1 room just to wash in

1 room just to toilet in

1 room just to cook in

1 room to lead me to the other rooms downstairs

1 room to lead me to the other rooms upstairs

1 room just to sit in

It seems ridiculous that many of our rooms are only used for a portion of the day and unused the rest. The nearest I've come to living in less wasteful accomodation is when I have lived in bedsits which convert from day to night and camping which is an all-in-one with communal toilets. 

And that is just our houses. What about our workplaces. Billions of rooms which are only used for a portion of the day, week and year while there are people sleeping in the streets calling a doorway their 'room'.

According to Crisis, last year 7581 people slept rough on the streets of London. And for every rough sleeper in London 100 people are in hostels and 1100 households are in overcrowded accomodation.

With all those empty rooms.

Bitterness can be a Snake

'For my own sake I must forgive you. 

One cannot always keep an adder in ones breast to feed on one

nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of ones soul.'

 (Oscar Wilde cited by Hughes in Forgiveness in Victorian Literature: Grammar, Narrative, and Community, 2015, p149).

Bitterness will poison me slowly and destroy my soul, so forgiveness will save me according to Wilde. 

Hughes (2015) talks about the therapeutic value of forgiveness and likens resentment to a poison or toxin, citing Anne Lamott's suggestion that: 'not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die' (p.134 cited in p.149, 2015).

Generosity: The Four Kinds of Giving

The Dalai Lama (2012) in his book 'Beyond Religion' talks of 'ethics for a whole world' and speaks of the following 'four kinds of giving' (p.130):

1. giving material goods
2. giving freedom from fear – providing safety, security and honesty
3. giving spiritual counsel – providing 'comfort, concern, and advice to support others' psychological and emotional well-being
4. giving love

The Dalai Lama has the following to say about generosity:

'It seems worthwhile to say a few words about the value of generosity. Generosity is the most natural outward expression of and inner attitude of compassion and loving-kindness. When one desires to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being, then generosity – in action, word and thought – is this desire put into practice. It is important to recognise that “generosity” here refers not just to giving in a material sense, but to a generosity of the heart.'

(Dalai Lama, 2012, p.129)

Let's be generous. Like a puppy, generosity is not just for Christmas !

On Writing: Sermons, Carols and The Choir Invisible

We strive to be better. To develop. To learn. To be 'that better self' as George Elliot would put it. Organised religion doesn't always get it right and when they get it wrong the distrust earned eats away at what is the base good. Love and generosity of spirit and a search for peace, justice and equality.

Having never been in St Paul's Cathedral in all my years living in London, this weekend I went to Morning Choral Matins to see it in use as it should be. The choir sounded as good as a choir should in the high roofed echoes of a cathedral with an organ as accompaniment and at times was so moving a sound that it resonated though your whole body flushing out negativity as it swept though like a spiritual colonic irrigation. Once you turned a deaf ear to the camera clicks, off-key congregation and the hissing from the speakers as the minister spoke, it was as perfect as any Morning Choral Matins. What made it, and came as a great surprise to me, was the sermon. It was relevant, political and not afraid to take a stance on war and peace and justice and equality, as well as slam the Daily Mail (for another one of those surveys of all the people who think something the Daily Mail want them to say they think). The experience was uplifting.

Standing in Canary Wharf carolling for 3 hours had a similarly positive effect. My calves stung, my back grew stiff and my arms burned as the bucket I held got heavier, but it got heavier. People were generous. The Salvation Army Band played. And I had the privilege of smiling and saying 'Thank you' to hundreds of people and in reply to my Christmas greetings was wished a 'Happy Christmas' by hundreds of smiling people in return.

 

George Elliot is one of those 'immortal dead' she writes of 'who live again in minds made better by their prescence' as a writer. How many other of the 'choir invisible' inform our choices, teach us right from wrong and how, not just to love but also how to show that love in generosity of spirit and doing good.

Perhaps when we search for immortality in our writing, humanity would be better served searching for it in the good we do. As George Elliot entreats,  'Oh may I join the choir invisible' :

O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude,
In scorn of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds
To vaster issues
......

May I reach

That purest heaven,—be to other souls

The cup of strength in some great agony,

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,

Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,

And in diffusion ever more intense!

So shall I join the choir invisible,

Whose music is the gladness of the world

Loyalty & Love

'Our Man in Havana' is a comic look at international espionage and the role and unreliability of informants in state affairs and although it shows its age by some of its inappropriate racial references it is also ahead of its time in its predictions.

I left London for Havana, having read Our Man in Havana (1958) by Graham Greene, set in both London and Havana and planning to watch the Alex Guinness black and white version while there. We watched it noticing we had passed Sloppy Joes, one of the locations on the film and while we sat eating sloppy joes at the home of the original sloppy joe, on the TV appeared Our Man in Havana.

Today the messages still hold true, whether they are black and white on the page on on the screen:

'Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?'

Back to The Future Day

I watched Back to the Future in 1985 and imagined a future like Marty McFly's. We had remote control TV, the home computer game Pong, video machines, games arcades and the Walkman - we knew this was just the beginning. I joined the 'Computer Club' and was amazed that after a long, careful and patient amount of typing in green that I could programme a machine to respond with the word 'Hello'. I knew this was the beginning of the future.

Who knew, though how the future would loop round? Record players are back again playing 'vinyl'. We have 'vintage' clothes shops, 'old school' music and 'classics' and 'antiques'. Books are still here, despite video and audio alternatives. 

Doc in 1955 sees a hairdryer in a future suitcase contents and asks 'A hair dryer? Don't they have towels in the future?' And he is right. There are things we don't need replacement for or the solution to the problem is not what we expect or a new need is identified.

What did Back to the Future predict?

• Self drying coats? Coats with waterproof but breathable tech don't need to be - different solution.
• Self-tying laces? Design of footwear like using Velcro instead is a different solution.
• Big screens and video conferencing? We have it in PCs, flat screens, laptops and tablets
• Hand held communication device? What are mobile phones?
• We have holograms, glasses screens, thumb print recognition, dehydrated food, 3D, cosmetic surgery, drones and hands free video games. (see Gawker and The Independent)

So what if we don't have the hover board and electronic dog walkers, or flying cars...we have the Internet, medical science curing cancer and eco-friendly alternative power sources - not a bad trade.

As Marty says: 

"If you put your mind to it,

you can accomplish anything."

Now I can make my computer say so much more than just HELLO .

Martian Worships Duct Tape

'The Martian' by Andy Weir is a wonderful tale of survival against the odds. Although the odds were better for a botanist's be able to 'science the hell out of this' and survive being the only man left on Mars, it was still his spirit which kept him going through adversity. How would any of us survive on an alien planet when we are left for dead...depends on your science, I suppose, and possible how much duct tape you have available. As Mark Watney, 'the Martian', puts it 'Duct tape should be worshipped'. I understand this sentiment – and although I may not have a roll on me, I always have a few lengths wound round and old credit card in my first aid pack in my bag and Ive often been glad of it.

Advantages of duct tape:

• Tears without a scissors
• Tears in strips
• Strong
• Waterproof
• Easy to carry
• Adhesive

10 uses for duct tape

1. Patching up a tent or taping broken poles
2. Sticking bubble wrap and wrapping postage parcels to keep shape & secure
3. Use as grip for opening jars
4. Protect floor from furniture streaks by applying strip to under legs of furniture
5. Prevent wires and cords from becoming a trip hazard by fixing to ground
6. Temporary stopping of leak in plumbing
7. Patch for hole in shoe, waterproof coat or inflatables
8. Remove fluff from clothes or pet hairs from couch
9. Patch a bicycle inner tube
10. Use for emergency splints or bandages or keeping a blister plaster on when sweating

Ps. Forgot No 11. For kidnapping purposes in thriller movies to prevent screaming

According to Today I Found Out, duct tape was invented as a waterproof tape for ammunition cases and was military green and was called 'duck tape' , possible for its green and waterproof properties later called duct tape for its use on ducts and coloured silver to match. However today we are advised that the one area we should not use duct tape is ironically, on ducts!

Escapism and Escape

Neil Gaiman, in a lecture quoted in the Guardian, discuses how the term 'escapism' is 'bandied about as if its a bad thing' as if its a 'cheap opiate'. He considers that it is instead the ability, when 'trapped in an impossible situation' to find a 'temoprary escape', that 'opens a door, shows the sunlight outside'. That 'during your escape' that the experience will give you 'knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.'

That was how I found myself in Secret Cinema's Star Wars finale, holding hands with my own Obi Wan Kenobi, running down the centre of hundreds of people following Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and a Wookie in the final scene. 

And since then I haven't looked back, except to reflect on what I learned from the experience of 'temporary escape' for my longer term, 'escape for real'.

Acceptance kills hope

Would we bother doing anything if we just accepted our lot? What would be the point? Nothing to be gained. We'd probably be happier. With realistic to no expectations. No need to dream. No need for fiction. No need for an imagination. Or the future. Just the here and now. No coulds or woulds, or the impossible, or improbable or odd or strange.

Listening to a friend's questioning of why people don't accept their lot I became aware of why I didn't. Mainly because otherwise I might not leave the sofa. With everything that was either hard or scary, if I didn't think there was some chance that things would get better why would I bother? I said to him, something along the lines of  'acceptance kills hope'. He agreed whoelheartedly and delightedly recounted a scene in the play Separate Tables by Terence Rattigan, where Major Pollack ask Miss Cooper about her lost love. 'Any hope?' he asks. She replies, cheerfully, 'No, none at all.' He asks why she's so cheerful about it and she tells him that there no point in being any other way. She says, 'I've settled for the situation you see, and its surprising how cheerful one can be when one give up hope.'

Could I be happier if I stopped hoping? My friend reminded me of the proverb 'What can't be cured must be endured.' But I amended it in my head to the less pithy: 'What can't be cured for now must be endured until....'  Or otherwise we would continue to live with polio, small pox and cancer. At one time none of these could be cured and if simply endured would not be eradicated as they have been and are being.

Marching in today's demonstration in the rain, in flip flops, with my rainbow PEACE flag over one shoulder and umbrella over the other, through Parliament Square to Downing Street, there was plenty of time to think. There was a background wash and sound-track of anti-war banners, Peace banners, placards saying 'Welfare not Warfare', chanting:

One, two, three, four - we don't want another war

Five, six, seven, eight - stop the killing, stop the hate

A French news camera appears in my face and I am asked by the cameraman, why I'm marching. I point to my flag. For Peace, I tell him. Peace as a process that doesn't just happen over night or can be brought about by bombs. He asks me what I thought of the death of Alan Henning. I said that it was shocking, as every death is shocking, and that nothing is solved by bombs. Peace is a process. A long one. 

And we need hope.

So I don't accept that we fight fire with fire so we're all end up burnt. And it can't be an eye for an eye until we're all blind. We just can't teach peace through war.

So.

I hope for better. I march for better. I try to do better.

And hope.

'Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.'

Martin Luther

52 Quotes on War and Peace

Luther, M. (1848) Table Talk or Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther (translated by W. Hazlitt), David Bogue, London

52 Quotes on War and Peace

Quotes on war and peace for every week of the year. I chose the 52 I could most identify with from the hundreds on Anti-War.com.

1. Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. Abraham Lincoln
2. In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus
3. One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one. Agatha Christie
4. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. Albert Einstein
5. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. Albert Einstein
6. Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. Albert Einstein
7. War is never a solution; it is an aggravation. Benjamin Disraeli
8. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?Benjamin Franklin
9. There never was a good war or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin
10. War does not determine who is right, only who is left. Bertrand Russell
11. All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons. Dalai Lama
12. We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
13. All wars eventually act as boomerangs and the victor suffers as much as the vanquished. Eleanor Roosevelt
14. It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. Eleanor Roosevelt
15. No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. Ernest Hemingway
16. Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. George Orwell
17. War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and...too intelligent. George Orwell
18. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. George Orwell
19. Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. George Orwell
20. Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. George Washington
21. Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck. Guy de Maupassant
22. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction! Helen Keller
23. Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: ‘War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.' Immanuel Kant
24. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Issac Asimov
25. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. John F. Kennedy
26. Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. John F. Kennedy
27. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. John F. Kennedy
28. For what can war, but endless war, still breed? John Milton
29. Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. Mahatma Gandhi
30. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? Mahatma Gandhi
31. An eye for an eye makes us all blind. Mahatma Gandhi
32. Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood. Mahatma Gandhi
33. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. Mahatma Gandhi
34. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. Mahatma Gandhi
35. We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others. Martin Luther King III
36. The chain reaction of evil--wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Martin Luther King, Jr.
37. Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. Martin Luther King, J
38. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. Martin Luther King, Jr.
39. Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. Martin Luther King, Jr.
40. Nothing good ever comes of violence. Martin Luther King, Jr.
41. If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. Nelson Mandela
42. Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. Noam Chomsky
43. Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder. Percy Bysshe Shelley
44. Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men. Pope John Paul II
45. Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war...Pope John Paul II
46. Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. Ralph Waldo Emerson
47. Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock. Sigmund Freud
48. If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. Simone de Beauvoir
49. All wars are fought for money. Socrates
50. Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice. Spinoza
51. War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. Thomas Jefferson
52. Peace demands the most heroic labour and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. Thomas Merton