***Content warning***

Because I did a livestream recently commenting on the latest Middle East shitfest, I’ll wait for more information before I comment further. War is the topic I want to discuss today because, when you talk about war these days, people seem to think it’s impossible that war still happens.

But war is the default of mankind.

Wars on the scale we see today, made possible by governments that have the power to print their own money, are an anomaly in the history of man. War used to be confined to a small area in which cousins fought over land or the throne of a kingdom that, with rare exceptions, was rather small. Of course empires existed, and are what is most spoken about when it comes to history, but the small kingdom is what was most common.

Wars have always been brutal. Men die and are maimed. Civilians’ lives are turned upside down, and many are killed. Women suffer rape. Children are massacred. Talking about all this is never easy, but it is mankind’s unfortunate history. And war in the 20th century, from Russia to the Balkans, was no different. It was more mechanized and technologically advanced and the battlefields were slightly different, but the same kind of men with the same instincts as those who lived many millennia ago continued to fight. Saying there has always been war is not an excuse for anything carried out by any of those men; it’s just reality.

When Russia crossed the border into Ukraine in February 2022, many of the comments I saw were from people who couldn’t believe this was happening in our modern, progressive times. How could an actual war be happening when humanity has come so far? Of course, many of these same people were mortified when the US military left Afghanistan because little Afghani girls couldn’t continue their LGBTQlmnop and critical race theory education. But evil Russia engaging in an historic dispute? “I mean, it’s the current year! How could this be happening?”

As I said, the human race is a warring race. Philosophers have tried for years to answer the question as to why and reached their own conclusions. Theologians have their own analysis (I tend to side with them, which is a discussion for another day). But the facts are the facts. As long as humans exist, there will be war. And it will be brutal.

Anyone who tries to sell you the idea that war isn’t in man’s nature and that they have the answers to stop it will be one of the most dangerous individuals you’ll ever encounter. The social engineer typically believes that men are born with a clean slate, and if they become corrupt, it is the fault of their parents and society. The social engineer believes that if they raise your child, they can create the perfect human free from the instincts that eventually leads to war. We all know what this leads to. We see it today whenever someone is accused of racism or anti-Semitism. Social engineers believe society and their parents have failed them; therefore, both need to be re-engineered. This leads to deracinated families and a culture outside the home that is incoherent as it is constantly under assault.

As we witness another war in which images and videos stream live to our phones, we must remember that this isn’t an aberration. This is what humanity is. In the past, people couldn’t see the barbarity of it. They were removed from it. In the past, most people were shielded from the barbarity of war – especially Americans. The battlefields were “over there.” However, technology and propagandists now make everyone a part of the war. Turn on your phone or computer, and you will see a murder or rape happening in real time, but only those performed by the side the media wants you to see because all sides commit atrocities (yes, even yours). You may continue to watch and wonder how this could be happening and what kind of people can do these things. I hate to say this, but your neighbors have the capacity to. Given specific circumstances, they will do these things. You may not believe it’s in those around you, but you’d be wrong. You’d be judging people based on who and what you think you are. Maybe you’d never commit these acts. I guarantee you that every man who has ever participated in what we’d call atrocities felt the same thing at one point in their lives. You may look at your phone or TV screen and think, “Pete, don’t you dare say I’m anything like that savage!” My response is that you are that savage, you’re just not at war at the moment. Again, war is our default, and it will make you even more capable of the same level of savagery. You can’t see this world and mankind for what they are until you accept that.