PEACE ON EARTH: Maybe Not Such A Good Thing

Introduction

Opposition, resistance, and specifically in recent times (the past few thousand years) warfare, have produced tremendous capability and innovation in the human race, and a necessary drive to develop further and faster. This state of perpetual opposition is vital element in the ability of mankind to progress and without which it would have utterly failed to survive. War is a crucial component of that state of perpetual opposition which effectively and efficiently motivates the human race to advance. In modern times, warfare is a necessary part of human progression. In the absence of war, the world would suffer significant unintended consequences.

The Need to Survive

Mankind is habitually hostile. His hostility stems from his most basic instinct to survive. In many senses his survivalist instinct rivals the most voracious of the animal kingdom. To survive is his utmost quest and he will often, when more rational means have been exhausted, go to the most dire of extremes, including filial cannibalism, in order to assure its accomplishment.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains that the basest needs of mankind, those needs which are most needful for survival such as air, water, and food, are the most critical needs to mankind(1). Clearly, without those needs being met, a living being would quickly die. In order to assure his own survival, it is his basest instinct to insure his access to those needs. No matter the circumstance, disregarding any potential obstacle or any other of the needs within Maslow’s hierarchy whether it be shelter, societal acceptance, or any other, regardless of dangers, discomforts, or physical or psychological pain, a man in severe want of one of those basic needs, facing his own demise if that need is not met, will go to extreme lengths to obtain it, or die in his attempt.

In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin proposed that the system of natural selection in the natural world forces organisms into a cycle of relentless strife for life (2). Those which survive the strife were deemed by him to be fit for life and the propagation of that species. Those which did not survive of course were relegated to the fossil beds. Those species which survived perpetually gained in strength, cunning, subterfuge, and deceit, until they eventually reigned over other species in their ecosystems or developed survival mechanisms by which they could evade the stronger species. Ultimately nature, by its own infinite and universal understanding, selected only the strongest for survival. Only the strongest of those species would eventually reign supreme over all other life.

It is the inherent nature of mankind to strive and struggle, by strength or by cunning, to overcome his surroundings. When the environment was too cold to survive, he built a fire and took the furs of other animals to keep warm. When he was hungry, he made tools for hunting to feed himself. When the hunters and gatherers were doomed by far more physically superior predators, they banded together and destroyed that predator. When the tribe was threatened by another tribe, they built fortifications. When a civilization was threatened by another civilization, they developed more destructive and sophisticated weaponry and contrived strategies to defeat that enemy. Throughout his comparatively short history, mankind has survived because of its struggle to survive rather than merely continuing to exist. Surprisingly, mankind has progressed in his short existence farther and faster than any of his Darwinian kin in the animal kingdom. Not only has he progressed farther and faster, but he has subdued all those and become master over all other forms of life on Earth. It is the struggle that has made him strong.

Struggle Against Opposition

In his book “War of the Worlds,” H. G. Wells wrote, “By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were [they] ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain” (3). The one reason by which “man has bought his birthright of the earth” is that through struggle against insatiable opposition throughout his minuscule existence in time and eternity he has confronted and defeated by his inherent nature those forces which would have overthrown him. His comparatively puny stature would have forfeit his existence to a physically superior predator, but his cunning enabled him to survive. His relatively exposed exterior would have made him defenseless against all manner of environmental dangers, including physical obstacles, weather, infection, and more, but his superior ingenuity and unconquerable genesis made him subjugator and dominator of even nature itself. Mankind has earned his place in the world.

Opposition is of paramount importance in man’s march through time. Not only does his progress depend on opposition, but his ultimate survival. Mankind, in his modern “Homo Sapiens” state of being, has struggled for his survival since his beginning – some experts suggest – 150,000 years ago (4). In that 150,000 years of existence, very liberally speaking, only in the most recent 10,000 years has he made any significant gains in terms of his intellectual progress (5). Perhaps by reason of his progress, it has been within that most recent 10,000 years that cities and civilizations of any significant might have developed. In fact, as recently as 5,500 years ago, it is estimated that only a handful of cities even existed in which there lived more than 10,000 inhabitants (6).

Innovation Through Opposition

In the millions of years of the Earth’s existence, and the 150,000 years of the life of mankind, it seems too coincidental that only when cities and kingdoms of upright man began to develop, did mankind really begin to progress beyond meager subsistence; mass trade ensued and expendable, disposable wealth emerged to empower men over their neighbors; innovations began to develop at a much faster pace than ever before, further enabling man through every conceivable technology; conflict and warfare advanced to complexities never before seen in all of the Earth’s species enabling territorial expansion and material enrichment of kingdoms and subjugation and enslavement of neighboring civilizations. The instinctive nature of mankind to desire power over his fellows, perhaps subconsciously as a means of security, has driven modern man to engage in battle and in warfare, and warfare inherently drives innovation.

Innovation, derived necessarily from a need to either kill or be killed on a civilizational scale, produced in conflict with a real and tangible enemy, rather unlike disease, famine, flood or other naturally induced misfortune, is what has driven technological advancement in the most recent five hundred years and propelled without doubt the most intensive period of innovation in man’s short tenure on Earth. In his book International Security, Patrick Morgan states, “In the study of international politics some analysts contend that it was the insecurity and frequent warfare of international politics from 1500 into the twentieth century that drove Western states to develop so much faster and more powerfully than other states and societies, so that the West came to dominate nearly the entire world and continues to do so” (7). It was the constant state of war and warfare in Europe that induced its human inhabitants to develop newer and better means of defending themselves and of defeating their enemies. These innovations often translated into the civilian world in various ways such as transportation, communication, production and mechanical operations, chemistry, physics, navigation, and more.

Warfare Driven Innovation

One example of warfare driving innovation is the telegraph in the American Civil War. Prior to the war, the telegraph had existed but was of very limited use. During the war, as armies were in ever increasing need of reliable communication methods, the government subsidized the expansion of telegraph lines. Throughout the course of the war, the federal government constructed more than 15,000 miles of telegraph lines. Although the telegraph had existed for many years by that time, it only became an integral part of day to day operations for governmental and military organizations during the Civil War. During the war, various command and control elements, including the war department, had begun to utilize the technology for in depth real-time communication. President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, regularly and in person communicated with his generals in the field via the telegraph lines from the war department (8). The unprecedented federally derived expansion of this new electronic communication technology propelled the development and innovation of electronic communication into the future.

Another more recent yet key example of innovation being driven by war is the development of the first atomic weapon. The idea that one could create a nuclear chain reaction powerful enough to cause a catastrophic explosion using radioactive material had been around for some time prior to the establishment of “The Manhattan Project.” It had largely been a civilian endeavor with research and experimentation conducted in universities until the onset of the Second World War. Through academic circles it was known by several scientists in America that the Nazis in Germany were vigorously pursuing such a weapon. A letter was written and endorsed by Leo Szilard, signed by Albert Einstein and sent to President Roosevelt. The contents of the letter explained the tremendous consequences of nuclear weaponry and that the Nazis were aggressively seeking such technology. President Roosevelt soon thereafter established the means by which America would seek and obtain in very short order atomic weapons, of which The Manhattan Project was one (9).

Without this government sponsorship it is highly unlikely that America would have been the first to obtain nuclear weapons. The scientific knowledge which has been developed as a direct result of The Manhattan Project and other related government sponsored nuclear development programs has directly contributed to the nuclear technologies enjoyed today in many fields such as medical research, electrical engineering, naval propulsion, astronomy, physics, and many more. In this example, it was clearly the presence of overwhelming need as a result of war that drove the development of atomic weaponry. It was again the survivalist instinct that compelled this arm of the human race to seek out and develop such innovative and advanced technology.

Many more examples of need driven by war to systematically and rapidly develop new technologies exist. Some of the more obvious examples include, explosives, the man portable musket and subsequently the rifle, various forms of communication technology including the present means of satellite communication and GPS navigation, transportation innovations such as the locomotive, the four wheel drive vehicle, the main battle tank, and more, naval innovations such as the iron clad ship and the submarine, rocketry, optics including an array of developments from telescopes to night vision devices, aeronautic advancements, and many more. Whether by governmental stimulation or by sheer happenstance, innovations of this kind have a way of rapidly advancing the technologies available to man for improving his standard of living and for perpetuating that advancement; for with technological advancement inherently comes further technological advancement.

The Human Being’s Need for Resistance

As H. G. Wells implied, it is the struggle against opposition that makes mankind stronger, smarter, and more capable of victory over that inevitable opposition. It was his many thousand year history of succumbing and eventually overcoming disease, plague, and his natural surroundings that eventually made mankind capable of ultimate survival. Many apparent examples exist of the need for opposition to make one stronger, smarter, and more capable, but none is more illustrative than that of an athlete. A stellar athlete must submit him/herself to opposition and resistance in order to improve. One must arduously train to prepare one’s body for athletic competition. Striving against resistance is critical; a runner must push him/herself to run ever harder and faster; a weight lifter must strive to exert his maximum strength against ever increasing weight; a boxer must push him/herself to the extremes of conditioning and physical pain in order to be completely prepared for each successive bout; without the constant and arduous struggle against resistance, athletes specifically would fail to excel and would eventually digress into mediocrity.

It has been very well documented that the force of gravity on Earth is a necessary and beneficial opposition to the human body in its physical development and overall health. The human body has been documented to react adversarially to the force of gravity by strengthening the muscular and skeletal systems. Astronauts on prolonged missions beyond Earth’s gravitational pull experience muscular and skeletal atrophy. It has been proven that even an astronaut’s bone density will be diminished by as much as one percent per month by extended stays in space (10). The persistent resistance provided by the Earth’s gravitational pull keeps the human body in a perpetual struggle for good health and fitness. The more one exerts against that resistance, the stronger one becomes.

The absolute need for opposition is as applicable to mankind as a race as it is to the single individual. Without persistent and unending resistance and opposition, the human race would atrophy to the point of total stagnation. Like a stream flowing down a hill, it is mankind’s nature to take the path of least resistance. Two hundred years ago, if a father didn’t physically work hard (generally speaking of course) pulling rocks from his field, plowing, sowing, reaping, milking, hauling, harvesting, etc., he and his family would starve. Often avoiding starvation meant every able member of a family had to work hard. Today it is quite different, working hard means sitting long hours in front of a computer, then going home “exhausted” to plop down on the sofa to watch TV; that in conjunction with the readily available supply of high calorie foods means (generally speaking of course) people are much less physically active and are able to eat many more calories in a day than two hundred years ago. As stated, Americans have begun to physically atrophy, to stagnate, because exercise and physical activity for most is voluntary. The skyrocketing rates of obesity demonstrate the point that the human race is prone to take the path of least resistance. There is no immediate and pressing need to commit to physical activity and it is much easier to sit in front of the TV than to walk on a treadmill in front of the TV (11).

The Human Race’s Need for Resistance

In much the same way that Americans have begun to physically atrophy causing an obesity epidemic, if the human race was to experience a prolonged period of peace, all the stimuli for innovation which are consequences of conflict would disappear. Mankind would trend toward the path of least resistance, the easiest means accomplishing his existence, life would become easy and he would therefore prefer the readily available life of ease rather than the completely voluntary life of struggle in order to exercise his ingenuity. If the world was to experience total peace, a total state of utopia, a great many overwhelming needs for new ideas and new technologies would simply disappear, leaving the human race with a choice between a readily available state of atrophy, or a completely voluntary and more difficult state of progress by innovation. If there is no need driving innovation or compelling him to advance, why would mankind, who is so demonstrably prone to taking the path of least resistance, even to desire atrophy over physical exertion, do anything else? He wouldn’t.

Other Means of Opposition

Several other prominent forms of opposition exist including disease and general medical maladies, drought and resultant famine, natural disasters of all kinds, and economic woes to name a few. In the absence of war, these would likely not disappear. Such other resistance to the progress of the human race and potential drivers of innovation and technology, while problematic in their own right, will likely never produce the compulsion in the human race to innovate and advance quite like war has. The reason is basic and simple: When two states go to war against one another, the consequences of that war penetrate the deepest reaches of every corner of both societies; every individual in those states is effected and driven to somehow contribute to the survival of their state, whether the survival is from extinction, or subjugation, or something more basic like access to fresh water or natural resources, ultimately everyone in that society is affected. When the world is at war, as was the case twice in the last century, the same is true; everyone is affected in some adverse way as a result of the war.

In those cases outside of war which may necessarily drive innovation, they are limited to small segments of the respective populations. The presence of medical maladies may propel innovations in the medical world, which like military technological innovations, will trickle into the civilian sector, but medical maladies will likely never drive innovation the way war has because those maladies are by and large limited to small sections of the population. The population as a whole will never feel the need to come together to combat cancer, or diabetes, or schizophrenia. Those ailments are restricted to small numbers of people as compared to the whole. In the case of droughts and famines, the same is true. Droughts and famines may afflict a small geographic area, to which the remaining whole may respond with relief aid, but such an unfortunate incident will never drive innovation; first, because it is localized to a small geographic area; and second, the need for technology and massive innovation in such a scenario is just not present. Other potential cases for the need for voluminous innovation are much the same as these, all significantly lacking the ability to compel the whole of a society to innovate.

Conclusion

Patrick Morgan, in his book International Security, stated, “people frequently feel that up to a point insecurity is good for them. Risk of failure and unemployment keeps companies, businesses, and workers on their toes, to be more alert and more productive. Having to take chances through competition keeps schools, firms and political parties vigorous and efficient” (12). The risk of insecurity and occasional war are productive and necessary aspects of human progression. The need for stimulation to persuade the human race from inactivity and inaction is great, and to a large extent, war is the best motivator in that regard. Morgan further stated, “A part of being human is a willingness to sometimes be unsafe for a while if that is a necessary part of striving hard to achieve something deeply desired” (13). The freedom to act for one’s self in America has produced many (although proportionately quite few) individuals who are willing to risk insecurity to advance their chances of a better future. The risk factor, the potential insecurity, is what has made great individuals out of mediocre ones. Opposition, resistance, and specifically warfare are those components for the human race. Without them, it is quite likely mankind would never have evolved out of the primordial soup from whence many claim he sprang.


Bibliography

Aeragon. “The U.S. Civil War, the First Modern War: The Beginnings of Modern Military Technology and the Sources of Design.” http://www.aeragon.com/03/ (accessed March 15, 2010).

Cell Press. "DNA Evidence Tells 'Global Story' of Human History." Science Daily, 24 February 2010. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100222121618.htm (accessed March 12, 2010).

Darwin, Charles. “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” Fifth Edition. London: John Murray, 1869. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F387&pageseq=101 (accessed March 11, 2010).

Fergusson, Mark. “Obesity Epidemic: Overeating is to Blame.” Down to Earth, May 16, 2009. http://www.downtoearth.org/blogs/2009-05/health/obesity-epidemic-overeating-to-blame (accessed March 20, 2010).

Modelski, George. “Cities of the Ancient World: An Inventory.” Seattle: University of Washington, July 10, 1997. https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/WCITI2.html (accessed March 13, 2010).

Morgan, Patrick M. “International Security: Problems and Solutions.” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Weak in the Knees: The Quest for a Cure.” http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGeneralArchives/weakKnees.htm (accessed March 20, 2010).

Oakridge Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. “Important Faces of the Manhattan Project.” 2007. http://oakridgevisitor.com/history/pdf/importantfaces.pdf (accessed March 16, 2010).

O’Neil, Dennis. “Early Modern Homo Sapiens.” Palomar College, June 29, 2009. http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm (accessed March 13, 2010).

Poston, Bob. “An Exercise in Personal Exploration: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Association of Surgical Technologists, August 8, 2009. http://www.astd2007.ast.org/publications/Journal%20Archive/2009/8_August_2009/CE.pdf (accessed March 12, 2010).

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Feb 27, 2008. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/ (accessed March 12, 2010).

Wallace, A. R. “Letter to Charles Darwin” July 2, 1866. http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-5140#back-mark-5140.f5 (accessed March 11, 2010).

Wells, H. G. “War of the Worlds.” Originally published in book form: London: William Heinemann, 1898. http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/warworlds/25/ (accessed March 16, 2010).





[1] Poston, Bob, “An Exercise in Personal Exploration: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” Association of Surgical Technologists, August 8, 2009, http://www.astd2007.ast.org/publications/Journal%20Archive/2009/8_August_2009/CE.pdf (accessed March 12, 2010).

[2] Darwin, Charles, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” Fifth Edition, London: John Murray, 1869, http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F387&pageseq=101 (accessed March 11, 2010).

[3] Wells, H. G., “War of the Worlds,” Originally published in book form: London: William Heinemann, 1898, ch. 25, http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/warworlds/25/ (accessed March 16, 2010).

[4] Cell Press, "DNA Evidence Tells 'Global Story' of Human History," Science Daily, 24 February 2010, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100222121618.htm (accessed March 12, 2010).

[5] O’Neil, Dennis, “Early Modern Homo Sapiens,” Palomar College, June 29, 2009, http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm (accessed March 13, 2010).

[6] Modelski, George, “Cities of the Ancient World: An Inventory,” Seattle: University of Washington, July 10, 1997, https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/WCITI2.html (accessed March 13, 2010).

[7] Morgan, Patrick M, “International Security: Problems and Solutions,” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006, p. 14.

[8] Aeragon, “The U.S. Civil War, the First Modern War: The Beginnings of Modern Military Technology and the Sources of Design,” http://www.aeragon.com/03/ (accessed March 15, 2010).

[9] Oakridge Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, “Important Faces of the Manhattan Project,” 2007, http://oakridgevisitor.com/history/pdf/importantfaces.pdf (accessed March 16, 2010).

[10] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Weak in the Knees: The Quest for a Cure,” http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGeneralArchives/weakKnees.htm (accessed March 20, 2010).

[11] Fergusson, Mark, “Obesity Epidemic: Overeating is to Blame,” Down to Earth, May 16, 2009, http://www.downtoearth.org/blogs/2009-05/health/obesity-epidemic-overeating-to-blame (accessed March 20, 2010).

[12] Morgan, Patrick M, “International Security: Problems and Solutions,” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006, p. 14.

[13] Morgan, Patrick M, “International Security: Problems and Solutions,” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006, p. 14.