Be wary of those who advocate war

Author: Wei Zhou

Two years ago, just a few days after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, I was deeply shocked by a photo**: when the Russian army was approaching the city, a group of civilians in the western suburbs of the capital Kyiv were hiding under a broken bridge destroyed by bombs when they tried to flee across the Irpin River. On and off the bridge, two worlds, but a peaceful and stable other shore is out of reach.

This is the epitome of the situation of ordinary people in a modern war: their daily lives are suddenly interrupted, even if they abandon their homes, they may not be able to reach safety safely, they may be separated from their loved ones at any time, and they may die on the road at any time, and human life is like ants, and they can only crowd under some crumbling shelter, waiting in panic, not knowing when the danger will pass.

Every time I see some people on the Internet advocating war, I am reminded of this image and should be wary of that kind of argument. Because it seems to me that I don't want to put myself, my family, or anyone else in that situation, for whatever reason. People shouldn't live like this.

Of course, it is not only civilians who are in danger in war, the rate of soldiers is much higher, sometimes in a rather tragic way. Last year, the New York Times published a thrilling photo of the skeleton of a soldier dressed in a Russian army being completely crushed into a dirt road. ** said the photographer:

When I first saw it, I thought it was just a ** abandoned on the road, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a corpse. No one tried to move him. He was run over so many times that his body became one with the road.

Note that this is a key trait for those supporters of war: when you sympathize with ordinary people in war, the most important thing for them is to take a stand, to divide the enemy camp.

The American journalist William Scheiler, in his Berlin Diary, recorded his impressions in the early days of World War II, in which he mentioned that a German Captain D, who had also opposed the war, had a patriotic heart that made him resent Britain for stopping German aggression: "Why did the British intervene in Danzig and threaten to go to war if a German city returned to their homeland? ......Don't we have power over German cities like Danzig? ”

The territorial dispute over Danzig contributed to the outbreak of World War II.

Susan Sontag, in On the Suffering of Others, puts it right that "for militants, identity is everything"

In the eyes of many anti-war debaters, war is a generic term, and the images she portrays are nameless, generic victims. ......For those who believe that one side is right and the other is oppressive and unjust, and that the fighting must continue, it is precisely who is killed and by whom is important.

During the Vietnam War, the United States once strongly supported the use of war to solve all problems, but after 1969, more and more people realized that it was not a legitimate means. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was the first to oppose the Vietnam War, was motivated by a sympathy for people, saying, "We have destroyed two of their most cherished mechanisms: the family and the village." The anti-war Vietnam veteran leader John Kerry (who later became a senator and ran for election**) questioned the justice of the war itself, famously asking, "How can you ask a man to persevere to death for a mistake?"”

Ideas like this are likely to be scoffed at in our case, because the reason why so many people advocate war is precisely because they believe that violence is an effective means of solving problems, or even the ultimate means of solving all problems once and for all, and that as long as the end is justified, it is therefore justified - for these people, "useful" is "justified", in fact, this is the true meaning of "unscrupulous".

Further, it also means that they see themselves as the embodiment of justice and refuse to reflect, because only then can the use of violence be justified. This is consistent with the internal logic of domestic violence: because you are at fault, I have the right to punish you, and all means, including hands, are fine, just because I judge that you are at fault first.

The Ukrainian city of Kherson after the war.

Do you find the destroyed homes and lives distressing?The warmongers may scoff at this as a sign of weakness. Of course, no one wants to be the object of destruction, therefore, for them, it is necessary to pursue the strong at all costs, in their imagination, the weak do not have the complete right to live, can only beg for mercy on the strong. It is a social Darwinian philosophy of survival.

To be fair, such people are also ruthless to themselves, and they just attribute the blows and pain they have suffered to themselves to not being strong enough. In the rough realities of life, they may never be treated with respect and kindness, and certainly not treat others as such. Behind this belief, there is a logic of power: "As long as I am strong enough, I will not be beaten; As for those who were beaten, who called them weak? ”

Their self-image is usually firm, which necessitates an indifferent attitude to the suffering of others, which is why the "heart of the Virgin" is stigmatized in the country as a "woman's kindness" that does not do enough to achieve more than fail.

In the final analysis, this is because they believe that there are certain grand things above people: compared to the major affairs of the family and the country, the joys and sorrows of individuals are nothing at all, if you are not ruthless enough, because a few people die and cry, then what can you do?

There are quite a lot of people who think this way, in fact, in Chinese history and culture, you can often see such a narrative: those who achieve great things are not informal, and even must be cruel and ruthless, and they can be ruthless.

The assumption that the individual is entirely capable of being sacrificed for the sake of a grand goal must be based on a collectivist value base: the collective good takes precedence over the individual. This is what many people are now ridiculing after waking up: to ordinary people, you are the "price" that "will do whatever it takes".

Why can't they just be the "price"? In addition to the fluke mentality, what is more important is the prevailing Muqiang mentality among these people: they habitually substitute the perspective of power, stand on the side of order rather than ordinary people, and like to punish those they don't like. In a patriarchal society, this mentality is quite common, and it is conceivable that people like this inevitably have an underlying tendency to be sadistic.

Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is bombed by drones in September 2022.

The reason why so many people in China are supporting Russia in the war in Ukraine is not only because of abstract national interests and geopolitical realities, but also because there are corresponding value preferences in our society, which can only be different when more people base themselves on the situation of ordinary people and empathetic individuals, and believe that violence is by no means a legitimate and reasonable means to solve problems.

The reason why it is necessary to be wary of those who advocate war is not that their ideas are dangerous, after all, they are free to think whatever they want, but if you are going to be friends with them, you better be careful, and the idea of war is a reliable test strip that is intertwined with a set of intertwined values.

It also shows that the collective psyche of our society is still obsessed with power and even violence, and tends to devalue peace, dialogue and sympathy, impatiently seeing them as signs of powerlessness and weakness, not to mention respect for the individual. There is every reason to doubt whether individuals can fully enjoy their rights and freedoms in it.

A few years ago, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature for Belarusian female writer Sa.Alekseevich asked: "My only pain is why we have not learned from our suffering, why we can't say that I don't want to be enslaved anymore." Why do we suffer again and again? Why is history still our burden and destiny? I don't have an answer. ”

There is no need for an answer to this question, but we should think about it.