On People Who Go To War And Why

Understanding will remove all the cant.

On Thursday the 19th of October Common Knowledge will host The People’s Lawyer, David Adelman, a trained solicitor and awake to common and natural law. It will be an especially extended evening, starting sharp at 7pm. Tickets are here.

Two hundred years ago, the Gothic Irish novelist Charles Robert Maturin, had his eponymous character from his greatest novel, who had entered into a satanic compact, bitterly denounce the human race for its foolish appointment of, and obedience to, its leaders:

"'These people,' said he, 'have made unto themselves kings, that is, beings whom they voluntarily invest with the privilege of draining, by taxation, whatever wealth their vices have left to the rich, and whatever means of subsistence their want has left to the poor, till their extortion is cursed from the castle to the cottage--and this to support a few pampered favourites,
who are harnessed by silken reins to the car, which they drag over the
prostrate bodies of the multitude.'"

And their own simplicity and credulousness when it comes to war:

"...they amuse themselves by making war, that is, collecting the greatest number of human beings that can be bribed to the task, to cut the throats of a less, equal, or greater number of beings, bribed in the same manner for the same purpose. These creatures have not the least cause of enmity to each other--they do not know, they never beheld each other. Perhaps they might, under other circumstances, wish each other well, as far as human malignity would
suffer them; but from the moment they are hired for legalized massacre,
hatred is their duty, and murder their delight. The man who would feel
reluctance to destroy the reptile that crawls in his path, will equip
himself with metals fabricated for the purpose of destruction, and smile
to see it stained with the blood of a being, whose existence and
happiness he would have sacrificed his own to promote, under other
circumstances." 

The mixture of petty aims, degeneracy and psychological neediness, instead of a truthful accounting with oneself, is what Melmoth, the contractor with the Devil, fuels wars, as he explains to the innocent female character of Immalee, whom he tries to corrupt, enticing her through his explanation of sordid reality,:

"“But what do the kings do?” said Immalee, “while they are making men
kill each other for nothing?”--“You are ignorant, Immalee,” said the
stranger, “very ignorant, or you would not have said it was for
_nothing_. Some of them fight for ten inches of barren sand--some for
the dominion of the salt wave--some for any thing--and some for
nothing--but all for pay and poverty, and occasional excitement, and the
love of action, and the love of change, and the dread of home, and the
consciousness of evil passions, and the hope of death, and the
admiration of the showy dress in which they are to perish. The best of
the jest is, they contrive not only to reconcile themselves to these
cruel and wicked absurdities, but to dignify them with the most imposing
names their perverted language supplies--the names of fame, of glory, of
recording memory, and admiring posterity."

And in his demonic denunciation, he is equally perspicacious on how religion is perverted to sustain killing, theft and false glory. (And do not all the major religions claim to be peaceful?)

"“...they have religion; for in their zeal for suffering, they
feel the torments of one world not enough, unless aggravated by the
terrors of another. They have such a religion, but what use have they
made of it? Intent on their settled purpose of discovering misery
wherever it could be traced, and inventing it where it could not, they
have found, even in the pure pages of that book, which, they presume to
say, contains their title to peace on earth, and happiness hereafter, a
right to hate, plunder, and murder each other. Here they have been
compelled to exercise an extraordinary share of perverted ingenuity. The
book contains nothing but what is good, and evil must be the minds, and
hard the labour of those evil minds, to extort a tinge from it to colour
their pretensions withal. But mark, in pursuance of their great object,
(the aggravation of general misery), mark how subtley they have
wrought. They call themselves by various names, to excite passions
suitable to the names they bear. Thus some forbid the perusal of that
book to their disciples, and others assert, that from the exclusive
study of its pages alone, can the hope of salvation be learned or
substantiated. It is singular, however, that with all their ingenuity,
they have never been able to extract a subject of difference from the
_essential_ contents of that book, to which they all appeal--so they
proceed after their manner.

“They never dare to dispute that it contains irresistible
injunctions,----that those who believe in it should live in habits of
peace, benevolence, and harmony,--that they should love each other in
prosperity, and assist each other in adversity. They dare not deny that
the spirit that book inculcates and inspires, is a spirit whose fruits
are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, mildness, and truth. On these
points they never presumed to differ.--They are too plain to be denied,
so they contrive to make matter of difference out of the various habits
they wear; and they cut each other’s throats for the love of God, on the
important subject, whether their jackets should be red or white--or
whether their priests should be arrayed in silk ribbons, or white
linen, or black household garments--or whether they should
immerse their children in water, or sprinkle them with a few drops of
it--or whether they should partake of the memorials of the death of him
they all profess to love, standing or on their knees--or---- But I weary
you with this display of human wickedness and absurdity. One point is
plain, they all agree that the language of the book is, “Love one
another,” while they all translate that language, “Hate one another.”

Melmoth the Wanderer tells of a man who has been cursed by his acceptance of eternal life from the Enemy of Mankind, yet his attempts to escape by exchanging with another unhappy soul his unenviable fate of endless sojourning seems less diabolical than the malicious propagandising, half-truths, the murdering of the innocent, and venomous tribalism, on all sides, which is the meal of humanity’s warring peoples. Two hundred years later and we’re still learning nothing.

On Thursday the 19th of October Common Knowledge will host The People’s Lawyer, David Adelman, a trained solicitor and awake to common and natural law. It will be an especially extended evening, starting sharp at 7pm. Tickets are here.