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Why does mankind wage war and kill?

Friday 11th November 2011 10:58 am

What is the purpose, why the pain

to live in hope and die in vain?

As mourning turns love lost - to blame,

and man repeats the vengeful game.

For lessons missed in histories pay

for dogma we shall die today,

for in our words and deeds we sow

a deathly seed we do not know.

So do we tar religions door

or those who send us off to war?

Who is at fault, who did conspire

to cause such woe, make world so dire?

Mans natal trait is to conform

he does as told from when he’s born.

So it should come as no surprise

that evolution is not wise.

What is the purpose - why the pain

to live in hope and die in vain?

A stone age mind we must obey

For dogma is - our dying way.

remembrance war

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Comments

Chris Co

Fri 18th Nov 2011 21:45

My apology for the late reply to those who have kindly given their time to read and comment since I was last here.

Thx John, Lynn, Dave and Elaine- very much appreciated.

The judging is very difficult Elaine- but you did a great job. imho you couldn't have picked more worthy winners/poems- very well thought and balanced!

Elaine Booth

Thu 17th Nov 2011 21:30

Chris, would love to hear this performed. A great poem. You were fantastic last Tuesday. You are so right about the judging though -mind-blowingly difficult - an impossible task really.

Dave Carr

Tue 15th Nov 2011 22:15

Good poem Chris.
I can't disagree with the sentiment.
Dave

Lynn Dye

Mon 14th Nov 2011 23:12

Love your poem, Chris, it works for me.

M.C. Newberry

Sun 13th Nov 2011 15:12

Evolution is surely the great "ESCAPE" in this
world of ours. It has fascinated me that when
mankind reaches a stage when there is some huge
threat to the world, the recognition and, thank
goodness, the means to cope arrive at the right time. Is this luck? I don't think so.
The deeper question is whether evolution is,
in itself, part of a greater plan "beyond our ken"?

John Coopey

Sun 13th Nov 2011 09:34

Nice one, Chris.

Chris Co

Sat 12th Nov 2011 15:05

Glad the poem works for you Harry. Part of the pain of explanation, when it comes to ‘the thinking’ behind a poem, is that while it may afford a certain clarity and interpretation; the two things are distinct and in their own way separate. You can concur with the poem without necessarily concurring with part or even any of the thinking behind it. That may be the case here? In any regards- you’ve done me the ultimate kindness as a reader in both reading and commenting upon what I have had to say- appreciated.

In terms of my comment;

We could get into a debate surrounding science and evolution. I could say that evolution is a fact, that there is more evidence that evolution is fact than there is evidence for the existence of almost everything we commonly accept as fact on this planet. I could talk about how your using a God of the gaps argument in citing the missing link which is as old and debunked as the gaps argument that used to relate to the geographical record. I could detail how nearly all world leading theologians accept evolution as fact and how many, many religious people do as well.

All of this would very much side track us (as indeed my long comment already has) from the point of the poem- war and remembrance.

I’d welcome that debate at a latter date though Harry- it could be interesting.

Harry O'Neill

Sat 12th Nov 2011 14:41

Nice -timely - poem Chris (and what a comment!)

You`re right, it is dogma. But the dogma today is evolution itself

When faced with the bewidering variety of life,
Science today eschews all mental strife,
Or segs on their eyeballs from looking for the (any!) missing link,
Or strains on their brains by leaving the box and endeavouring to think,
They lean on the `Elegant Theory` and tell us it all just `evolved`

SOLVED!

Chris Co

Sat 12th Nov 2011 11:52

Thx for reading and for all the feedback everyone- it is appreciated. It is a time of year that puts many things into perspective isn’t it? On which note the timing of the poems inclusion on the site was very much deliberate- well spotted Dave. Glad the poem worked for you. Skara Brae- would seem to be one of the few exceptions to the norm- if only mankind was different..

Stella- glad it works for you. Thx for the feedback. A lack of questioning- yes I think that is at the heart of the matter. I didn't originally write this with a view to the first or second world war. It was more a philosophical sigh at all wars and why we do what we do. It would be great if it became dated by mankinds future actions- but I can't see it somehow.

I wouldn't disagree with what Steve said (thx mate)- sometimes what you say is very much true and- such paradoxes do indeed exist. Thx for the time.

M. C- The rhythm of the poem is due to it being written in iambic tetrameter rhyming couplets- I'm glad you felt the form worked- thx. Laurence Binyon- really could write couldn't he. At the going down of the sun fame...indeed the poem from which that line relates offers a beautiful ideal. Hard to believe that the human mind can posses the ability to write like that- yet is also part of the struggle for survival and a part of nature in all its struggle (thx for the feedback.

Larisa- thx- 'So, wars will always be as long as mankind exists'- I think (sadly) that this is likely to be the case.

In terms of intention;

I find myself in the difficult position that many poets find themselves in, that poetry indeed often finds itself in, of only saying so much and implying the rest with a view to not being too prescribed. One person said that the poetry exists in the holes you leave behind for interpretation. Not sure I totally go along with that, but it does emphasise the importance of often not wishing to be too prescribed. So with that in mind should I now go on and say what the intention was/is in the poem?

I guess so. And with me that allways means war and peace as opposed here to just a question of war. I hope my explanation of the intention does not lessen the poem.

For my part I was/am not saying that war is good or war is bad or anything like that, that would be to have some form of child-like sticklebrick/lego, good versus bad black and white view of the world. I was simply asking the question- without loading in any morals.

The question, why does mankind wage war and kill? It is a very basic question, simple even. But this belies the enormity and complexity of potential answers, or in fact what needs to be considered, in order to come up with any form of answer. Just like, is there a God? The naïve sounding simplicity belies the fact that the question is far from easy to answer.

I do not attribute war to revenge, religion, leaders etc (sorry Dave).

mourning turns love lost - to blame,
and man repeats the vengeful game.

This is just a self evident truth that runs a course through the history of mankind at a personal level and the level of countries. It does not always occur, but it often occurs. But it is the working up to the answer, skating the question- not the answer that I was leading to.

For lessons missed in histories pay
for dogma we shall die today,

George Santayana once said ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. I think there is a lot of truth in this. Unfortunately time and time again mankind ignores the lessons of the past, the lessons of history. Despite the fact that it is one of the very few tools he has when trying to predict the nature of his own actions and likely outcomes from his behaviour. History unfortunately, especially in wars, often does repeat itself.

for in our words and deeds we sow
a deathly seed we do not know

Not just in the deeds of war. But the rhetoric and deeds that allows the build up of positions, the polarisation of thoughts and creation of and mounting of dogma. The words and deeds prior to a war, aimed with intent that lead us to conflicts are all part of why we end up where we do (again skating the question).

So do we tar religions door
or those who send us off to war?

So do we? I ask the questions, but I do not come back to them, I do not answer them. Actually by not answering them and going in another direction, I hoped to answer them indirectly.

It is too easy to blame war simply on religion, even if religion has been a cause of war so have a lot of other things. As for our leaders, well, even in democracies the world over where the leaders have been democratically elected- we have still seen wars- plenty of them too. Elected leaders are just an extension of the people, with all their faults loaded in. They are people afterall. The point here is elected or unelected, wars occur. So again despite the fact that leader are sometimes the cause of wars, they are not ultimately the answer or reason for wars per se, it is an easy but unsatisfactory conclusions to say that leaders of nations are the cause of wars.

So the question remains?

Mans natal trait is to conform
he does as told from when he’s born

There is this idea that mans innate nature is awareness. I disagree. I think that Michael Crichton had it somewhat right when he said

‘Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity’

For most people I believe this is sadly true.

Believe it or not there is an evolutionary pressure towards conformity when it comes to group animals. It doesn’t matter whether you are an ape, a chimpanzee or a human. There is not enough time to have a discussion with the very young about the dangers they face coming into this world.

The young are told, they are chastised if they put there hand towards a fire or stand too close to the edge of a cliff. There simply isn’t the time to have a philosophical discussion as to why the young should not put their hand in the fire, or not stand on the edge of a cliff. Those that conformed survived and in far greater numbers, than those that did not- it really was that simple. Conformity, evolution towards behaviour that sustains the group is something that is a factual result, time and time again when looking at evolution.

So it should come as no surprise
that evolution is not wise.

The above is the natural follow on. We should not be surprised by conformity. It is an innate aspect of humanity. Do I blame evolution? Blame is a strange way of looking at it. Do I blame tigers for having stripes? I guess Tigers are at fault for more Tigers, but certainly they have little say in the fact that procreation results in offspring with stripes. That man conforms from when he’s born seems to me to be another self evident truth- like the stripes (dealing in generalities here- big ones that nevertheless are generally true).

Some religious people (I emphasise some) think that atheists wonder at evolution in the same way perhaps that they wonder about God. This is certainly not true, at least not in my experience. Most atheists marvel at aspects of evolution and nature, the laws of science etc. But most atheists also acknowledge the brutality of nature and evolution. One look at natural history shows a bloody struggle for life with over 90% of the species that have ever existed on this earth- now being extinct. And the driver of evolution- natural selection is in of itself a hard and bloody fight for life to this day right across the planet. It is this way and it’s always been this way. The point? Atheists do not typically posit nature or evolution in place of God as by way of something that we want- we just simple believe it to be true on the basis of evidence- mountains of evidence.

No right thinking/decent atheist would choose evolution or natural selection if it were in their power to simply choose a different nature of existence or way that the world could exist. It’s bloody (think red) and often horrible. It is evolution and natural selection that result in the endless struggle/arms race of parasites versus hosts and predator versus prey. It is why animals can get torn to pieces in the wild, it is why the guinea worm exists (go look up the guinea worm if you are not aware of it). It is why certain types of wasps sting caterpillars repeatedly, so they can lay their larvae inside them to eat them from the inside out while alive.

No right minded person would wish to choose the nature of existence as it appears.

But we don’t get a choice, it is what it is, in all the beauty and marvel of a blue whale and in all the brutality and pain I have detailed above.

So I blame evolution and I don’t blame it. I blame it, so I acknowledge its existence and I blame it in so much as I cite it as the reason for why we are what we are. But I do not blame it in so much as- evolution had no choice really either- it to is what it is.

Mankind for the most part conforms (key being most part), this stems from evolution and is evidenced throughout history, from warfare to psychology experiments.

A stone age mind we must obey
For dogma is - our dying way.

The point here was that, we have not evolved in a VERY long time and by that I mean to say the human brain. Stone age in this context was meant to hark back to the image of clubs, but also in general speech it has often been used as an invective/insult. I did not in this sense mean to literally refer to this period in history.

If we look all around us the world has changed beyond measure, in the last 50 years, and the 50 years before that- and has been doing so since the industrial revolution at least. But all of the changes, the inventions the technologies etc;

It is like we have created brilliant new software- think linux or some ultra efficient operating system- think wonderful new applications. But we are having to load up all that onto hardware ludicrously out of date- stone age hardware (again in the general- invective sense rather than literal).

Our brains are no different from that of our distant ancestors- no better, despite our technology, despite our age.

Religion, our leaders, pride, resources….whatever any one of hundreds of things are not the ultimate answer to the question.

Mankind conforms, his innate nature is to create and build dogma.

Who is at fault, who did conspire?

That was a line- set up to a false and simple premise in the middle of the poem- a question that itself was false.

To highlight the way mankind likes simple answers- likes easy simple human targets.

Why does mankind wage war and kill?

Why does a Tiger have stripes?

P.S

If you got to the end of my turgid spiel- well done. I apologise for it.

Larisa Rzhepishevska

Sat 12th Nov 2011 08:52

"Why does mankind wage war and kill?" - Because of greediness. And the people in that village had no evidence of warfare in this 5000 year old community because (it's only my opinion) they are not greedy.
It's only one reason. There are so many others.
So, wars will always be as long as mankind exists.
Very strong poem. I like it so much.
Best wishes, Larisa

Dave Bradley

Fri 11th Nov 2011 19:36

This reads as well as it performs Chris. The time of posting is perfect. A two minute read, posted at 10.58 on the 11th November.

You attribute war to different causes - revenge, dogma, religion, conformity, evolution. There are a few others, principally economic pressure in its many forms. Solving problems by violence does indeed seem stone age, and much of the stone age must have been like that. However, on visiting Skara Brae in the Orkneys - Europe's oldest intact village - it was surprising to be told that there was no evidence of warfare in this 5000 year old community. They probably had found a way of talking to each other, something some of our generation could do with

<Deleted User> (6315)

Fri 11th Nov 2011 16:47

I do enjoy this piece Chris you raise questions that I think many of us ask about how we follow with little questioning..I like what Steve said too..especially in the light of Tunisia etc..seems conflict had to come sometimes to ensure a hopeful future..

I find this piece of yours timeless Chris..great work.. :)

M.C. Newberry

Fri 11th Nov 2011 14:08

I listened after reading and was impressed by
your heartfelt performance; and I thought the
rhythm employed was ideally suited to the material.

M.C. Newberry

Fri 11th Nov 2011 13:59

I suppose mankind has been asking the question
and never finding the answer - except that I go
along with Steve's "paradoxical" observation...
captured in some lines from a favourite poem
"The Burning of the Leaves" by Laurence Binyon
(he of the famous "At the going down of the sun...") - and I quote:
"They will come again, the leaf and flower, to
arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour..."
War can have the same result.

Steve Regan

Fri 11th Nov 2011 11:11

You tackle serious themes really well, Chris.

In response to the theme raised here, I would simply like to posit my belief that it is a paradoxical but profound truth that humans, sometimes, really have to go to war in order to build peace and justice.

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