This passage reminded me of a comment from last class.
"War, however, is not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass (total nonresistance would be no war at all) but always the collision of two living forces. The ultimate aim of waging war, as formulated here, must be taken as applying to both sides. Once again, there is interaction. Solon as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me. Thus I am not in contorl: he dictates to me as much as I dictate to him."
-Carl von Clausewitz from On War
This excerpt is from a section of Chapter One titled "The Aim is to Disarm the Enemy." When the author speaks of "living forces" he is referring to opposing armies, however he is also, perhaps unknowingly, characterizing the environment in which war takes place. Is there not interaction between the environment, a living thing, and the armies that march thruogh it. Does the environment not fight back as it takes the brunt of war? Like Bacon said "the subtlety of nature is greater than the subtlety of argument." War, in the abstract, is but an argument which is why the environment gets overlooked as a player in the game. However, it is possibly the most threatening army.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The ecophilosopher Michel Serres has a fascinating essay on how, in a sense, a state of war with the environment would actually be a kind of improvement over the current situation. What he means is that even in war there is a recognition of certain laws and rules that apply to the conduct of the combatants: how to treat prisoners of war, what weapons are lawful to use, how to treat civilians, etc. If we extended those rules to nature, even if we saw ourselves as at war with it, we'd be granting nature certain "rights" that it doesn't have now.
ReplyDelete