notes of a non-combatant

accomodation

Democracy does not come with a blast radius and peace is not labeled with a maximum effective range. Violence does not propagate security in any part of the world, and democratic states do not spontaneously rise from ashes or blood. These facts go directly against the grain that is commonly seen backed by governments, discussed across television, and written about in newspapers. Democratic governments flail pitifully in attempts to grow on salted and unsteady soil tainted with the scorch of daisy cutters and mushroom clouds. Battles can come in many forms that go by a plethora of names, including “war,” “massacre,” “genocide,” “cleansing,” or “occupation,” but peace does not spring forth from spilt blood.

Long military occupations and drawn out international conflict could only seek to force peace through total submission or annihilation of the enemy; indeed, it would seem that either widespread death or learned helplessness, a common psychological phenomenon, would be the ultimate goal. Assuming that annihilation of the enemy is impossible, since people may die but their ideas continue relentlessly, it would seem easier to strive for a condition of generally accepted learned helplessness. This condition is a complete adaptation to specifically harsh consequences that are handed down in one form or another, as there is a point when both humans and animals simply stop resisting the constant onslaught of traumatic events. At this time, after losing all hope in the future, the subject gives up the fight and accepts the present conditions as their own. It is in this moment, when a creature ceases all attempts to avoid or escape ongoing traumatic conditions that one can confirm helplessness has been learned. Psychological manipulation of this type, as horribly unethical as it is, can be enacted in individuals with a highly effective rate of occurrence, though there are certainly limitations to the phenomenon.

The techniques of learned helplessness can work perfectly in small groups. It is possible to beat several dogs into submission, even until they stop flinching at the sight of the beating stick or lack the will to walk out of an open door and away from the beatings. Similarly, both children and adults can be individually beaten into submission and may even learn to love the hand that strikes them. However effective it may be on small groups, this method of manipulation will never force an entire army or nation to submit to an iron-fisted ruler. Calm and quiet may ensue under oppressive rule, but there will always be revolt strictly because it is impossible to squelch hope in a contiguous group of people; like a flame that never dies, hope is not crushed by tanks, knocked down by bulldozers, or eradicated with munitions. This is the human spirit.

For this reason, battles are not the answer and war is never the solution for a situation such as the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Besides being ethical and humane, negotiations also offer the prospect of pleasant, lasting results that could never be realized through warfare. Rather than sending fighter jets and infantry to settle a score, it would be much more beneficial to send an envoy capable of settling conditions for a solid and mutually beneficial peace. Before such lofty goals can even be approached, one major issue must be tacked: perspective.

Perspectives, by nature, can be varied, although this allows humans to approach situations in individual fashions. The major drawback is that perspective always comes with a vector: it is inescapable that one’s perspective has a point of origin, a direction, and a magnitude. On heated topics such as armed conflict, human rights, and humanitarian crisis, perspectives can be wildly varied, coming from different or even opposing directions. Emotions can run deep and differing historical accounts may be irreconcilable, as perspectives not only oppose each other but also have long pretexts of large magnitude. It is in situations such as this that perspective cannot be seen as a gift nor a dead end, but rather a difficulty that must be reconciled as it is a large but movable obstacle to peace.

Reconciling opposing viewpoints is obviously not easy and requires much effort to concede a large portion of everybody’s most incompatible goals in exchange for a mutual desire to work towards peace. This is in hopes of finding a middle ground that will most likely never be enough for the desires of either side, but should satisfy the needs of all parties and provide enough stable and secure ground for both sides to grow on. It is common knowledge that two conflicting perspectives can never agree on much, but it is essential to actively discover what can be agreed on and bury all the rest in order to obtain a lasting peace that is paramount to all other desires. Justice may not be served and the dead may never be avenged, pride may have to be swallowed and minor goals may never be realized, but if peace can be achieved, what could possibly be worth more?