War

For a quarter of a century I have been trying to understand and deconstruct the warfare system. Traditional approaches to war and peace fail because human beings are bio-mythic animals and the habit of war and the possibility of justice is rooted in our socially narratives and myths not in our genes. The complex warfare system can only be replaced by an equally complex system designed to create harmony and justice. Herewith are some of the elements of this complex system on which I have worked to date.

Faces of the Enemy, the book and the PBS documentary, takes a close look at the archetypal images of the hostile imagination that are used by nations when they wish to dehumanize and justify the killing of their enemies. In warfare we first kill The Enemy in our minds before we do so on the battlefield. Both of these works make use of hundreds of political posters and cartoons to illustrate the dark art of enemy making.

Recently I have been studying and lecturing on a matched pair of subjects– The Hidden Appeals of War and The Moral and Erotic Alternatives to War. We say we hate war but in fact we have a clandestine romance with violence. Before we can deconstruct the warfare system we must unmask its hidden satisfactions and values and create alternatives. This will involve a paradigm shift, a new organizing narrative, a redefinition of community, patriotism, heroism, duty, honor, sacrifice, reverence, service, and power.  At present both of these lecture presentations exist as Power Point presentations with text that will give an idea of the argument I am making.

The U.S. verses Iran.  In preparation for a recent trip to Iran I collected over a hundred political cartoons and posters illustrating the propaganda used by both countries. These are currently on a Power Point document.

Lecture: The Mythology and Economics of War and Peace. The economic cost of war is obscure because it is systematically and cynically wrapped in ideology, mis-information, propaganda and downright lies. Honest economic calculation is subverted by the military-industrial-governmental complex. To date we also have no serious study of the economic of peace because notion of peace as the absence of conflict is vacuous. We would do much better to stop meaningless speculation about the cost of peace and concentrate on the more concrete idea of the economics of justice.