Fog Of War
We are on the brink of another war. When I read Warhammer novels, sometimes I’m thinking gosh, can they just all stop fighting with each other?
Some writers get the eternal conflict right, and it ends up being an epic story about good and evil.
Graham McNeil does it well: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1063693
Marathi the evil queen of the dark elves, unleashes an insidious spell of fear and distrust upon the high elves, so she can break into their fortress and murder them in battle.
In those novels within the Warhammer universe, it’s dark, gritty, and fictional. It’s more clear who’s evil and who is not. That’s fiction though. And when war is at your doorstep, it’s different.
In our reality, however, the lines of good and evil can get blurry. And even more so when we question hidden agendas of longstanding systems and powers.
My grandfather was called away to the Korean War at the age of 16. As a child, in the 90’s I didn’t fully understand what that meant. To my younger self, it was about tales of bravery or heroic desperation. Like how our soldiers had to piss on their automatic weapons to stop them from overheating because they were firing too many rounds.
As I became older and had a bit more worldly experience, the stories of war hold more context and deeper meanings. The understanding of cause and effect hit harder.
Thinking about my grandparents growing up in rural West Virginia, in poverty, in the mines, and having a young male provider called to war and away from family — it changes things. Fates, lifetimes, and destinies are shifted.
And the ripples of that war flow through my family’s history as generations of alcoholism, addiction, and violence.
Mark Wolynn of The Family Constellation Institute in San Francisco is an expert in inherited family trauma and who focuses on finding ways to heal. His work focuses on recovery, but I must ask, where does it start and how can we prevent these traumatic wounds?
What is war really about? Resources, power, control? Or deeply-rooted and often misguided hatred?
When we look at primates, one common behavior is competitive destruction and annihilation of rival groups to take ownership of the resources. According to Jonathan Webb — Murder Comes Naturally to Chimpanzees.
Is it true that humanity is addicted to war?
Of all the things humanity could focus on and accomplish, we choose war.
Who profits from it? And are their spoils seemingly short-sighted Pyrrhic victories?
And how does this logic work in context with modern cyberattacks, and organized digital terrorism?
What about the marketing companies used by foreign interests to practice psyops on American soil through popular social media platforms?
I can’t help but think of the Buddhist 3 poisons:
- Greed (lobha)
- Hatred (dosa)
- Delusion (moha)
Do the warmongers suffer from these caustic and insidious sins?
And when I think about parallels found in stories from Dune or The Wheel of Time, they talk of schemes and plots planned for centuries.
My grandfather once told me that during the war, American enemies would destroy the United States without firing a single bullet.
How does the world heal when the wounds keep tearing anew? How do we find peace, community, and cooperation when war is so woven into our stories?
Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
-Robert
