Up to 150 years ago, the Japanese people would record time through the
successive rulings of different Shogunates, or military leaders. The
country is a perfect example, of how a military is truly the ruling
force in most civilizations; actually the Japanese military was so
influential, that the Emperor was just a puppet compared to the Shogun.
This happened because the Japanese people were so militaristic, that
10% of their population was in the warrior caste. Such militarism is
common and sometimes even more severe for most countries in the world
(it is also ironic that now Japan is one of the pacifistic countries in
the world).
For the past 7,000 years, most development in civilization came as a
consequence of war. Notice how peoples who were peaceful throughout
history, were always technologically inferior to the rest of the world.
A perfect example of this is Tibet. Tibet had arguably no military for
hundreds of years, yet the Tibet was always a giant center for
Buddhism, and constantly was in contact with India and other Asian
countries. Still, they remained technologically primitive (in the sense
of efficiency and productivity of their civilization). Now, China has
taken over Tibet and annihilated most of the Tibetan culture and
people. It seems that only a warring country can develop because only a
warring country has a reason to develop: competition.
Consequently, violence has become so embedded in the Human mind that
it is no longer a matter of "survival of the fittest" that violence
exist on a small scale. It is most often a matter of lack of
self-restraint. Nowadays with an astronomical number of people with
ADD, how can self-control even be expected in a community? How can
violence related to lack of self-restraint be expected not to exist in
communities that adore watching giant beasts devour the gory bodies of
fallen men or a psychotic serial killer slowly toying with his prey
before moving in for the kill? Society has become a shrine in tribute
to the gods of war, for it has become ritual even for children to come
home after school and enter a virtual reality in which they slaughter
countless lives with all sorts of neat contraptions.
Murder and death have always been glorified, celebrated, and then
later grieved; yet this is the way of man. Man will always kill, be
killed, and kill in return in a vicious circle; a vicious circle where
all build up defenses so high, and weapons so efficient, that the push
of a button can destroy the world in a giant mushroom cloud. One might
look back in history and wish, that the first sword was never yielded,
that the first caveman didn't club his friend to death, so that mankind
can be spared of its own evil creations, and learn the ways of peace,
without horrible devastation.
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