World Peace
Current human culture has put world peace into the comedic Miss Universe category. I assume, you know which cliché I have in mind. You may argue with the political correctness of the statement, but the fact is, we treat world peace as a naïve, unreachable ideal. The state of our planetary society speaks volumes in this regard.
I’ve read tons of articles about recent conflicts. Setting aside my notion that those conflicts are just separate battlefields in an ongoing global war, I wonder that no author mentioned some obvious facts.
Like, for example, that the shit that goes on between Israelis and Palestinians is just the result of an eye-for-an-eye mentality on both sides, which is historically deeply ingrained in both cultures. And neither of those cultures is willing to stop with retaliations. Well, logical conclusion is that eventually all go blind. In other words, it’s no wonder that genocide of the enemy, despite enormous genetic similarities of adversaries, seems as a rational option. Sigh.
Similarly, I don’t exactly remember anyone mention that the moment Putin ordered the start of invasion into Ukraine, he was left with one option only — war to the bitter end. And as he and the group of “princes” and “boyars” around him demonstrated many times before, they are willing to kill anyone in their path and even burn Earth to ashes in order to survive without facing consequences.
Well, when you look at Russian coat of arms — that eagle with scepter of secular power in one claw and the orb of Godly appointment in the other while its two heads apprise both equally — billboards claiming that Russia has no borders because everything belongs to it should not surprise anyone. On the other hand, it seems that Russians in their sentimental recollection optimism replaced that scepter and orb with hammer and sickle long time ago, and now use them exactly as the Marxist-Leninists did — only to smash and cut … people. Particularly those who don’t fit the mold.
I must admit, state symbols and national coats of arms are quite fascinating. They sum up the national ideologies and predominant public identifications pretty well. I mean, look no further than the symbol of Pax Americana, the eagle that makes one out of many, holds olive branch of peace and a fasces of arrows with primary focus on the former, while he’s sending a clear message, “Lest you want to feel the wrath of war, accept the olive branch under our umbrella.”
But the real kicker is the obverse of the Great Seal. With the pyramid, all-seeing eye, and literal inscription, “New Order of the World”, the irony of contradiction could not be more obvious as when patriotic crackpots in USA are on the lookout for globalists, New World Order, or Illuminati, not realizing they are the progeny.
Furthermore, I would be also interested to know to what extent current China relives its Romance of the Three Kingdoms and similar myths in its cultural lore. Folks over there seem to dig it quite a lot.
And I could go on.
But in any case, how can world peace become manifest when people identify with such idiocies and none wants to be the one to break the vicious cycle of conquest and violence because they fear that it would put them to disadvantage?
As I said elsewhere, when you stop holding stupid beliefs, no propagandist has a chance to manipulate you. To paraphrase a classic, they could give wars but no one would come. And that’s the only way to world peace because you are the one holding the keys.
So use them.
