Hermann Göring to Gustave Gilbert

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We live only about 80 years after the end of WWII. In a generation of people who have no sense, what such a war actually means. Moreover, there is no interest in studying how it started and its terrible ending. And then, realizing that talking about it would be possible, but not good. Worst, making comparisons with today’s world could be interpreted as a crime, and so they dismiss anything political. Therefore, I share an interesting assessment from Hermann Göring, one of the primary player in WWII, in an interview with Gustave Gilbert  

Hermann Göring to Gustave Gilbert (April 18, 1946)

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same way in any country.”

— Gustave M. Gilbert, “Nuremberg Diary”, 1947, p. 278.

A lesson I learned from my dad at the age of 10, in 1963: The risk of missing “the point of no return” is to ignore the early signals. They come in steps, and all those steps limit your freedom in a minimal dosage.

1) Media Control

The war instigating group (not necessarily a government) ensures that the media is unified in their aggressive propaganda development, and every publisher and every media outlet says the same story, word by word. Without media control, war would not be possible. Governments would be turned down.

2) War Propaganda

The propaganda textbook must declare one country to be the dangerous and bad party. And when you want to own that country later on and make the people be freed, you make the leaders a dictator, terrorist, or whatever is bad. You constantly hear about that bad guy who started a war, whether he did or not, kills and suppresses people, and whatever else one can come up with. The population needs to fear being attacked (see Göring statement above) to fear being attacked more than being at war. Then war can start.

3) In today’s world

While in today’s world, this is all more complex. Multidimensional information channels find ways to argue over the truth of all the mass media communication. Conspiracy theories explode, and nobody can trust anybody any longer. That’s bad – isn’t it? Well – maybe not. At no time in our civilized society should we have trusted homogeneous information. We didn’t even know what was going on. Only centuries later did historians uncover the truth through forensic research. Don’t trust is not distrust. Just trust what makes total sense to you and research as much as you can. It’s not a waste of time but a great learning experience.

4) Destabilization

Destabilize the country so people feel uncomfortable and look for an end to it. But the number of intelligent people is constantly growing. Also, destabilization is quickly recognized as one of those tricks and can be argued and debated. This is the time when some of the country’s top minds leave.

5) Law changes

So, war propaganda and destabilization are no longer as efficient as they were. War drivers must do more for their countries to get them into war. Changing some of the fundamental laws like property-related insurance, special versions for free speech, and more. At this point, even more of the top minds leave the country. The number of intelligent counterattacks diminishes, and the number of ignorant individuals remaining in the country increases dramatically.

External Support

At this stage, a country is no longer under its own control and can only be saved by a strong third-party country to prevent war. A single country is much easier to save than a nation bound into an alliance that may be externally controlled without knowing.

Art of Peace is out

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It is finally published. The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Hugendubel, and several other bookstores. Like many other authors who are not professional authors with a team, it always takes longer. It was an exciting ride from initial inspiration to finally having a printed version. The problem of war bugged me all my adult life. At business school, I was introduced to “Art of War” by Sun Szu, written around 500 BC as a book that is thought to be one of the first strategy books. That was the inspiration to write an antidote, using the concept of a strategy as a mechanism to achieve a goal.

Unlike “Art of War,” being a strategy to ‘win a war’ or ‘not lose a war,’ “Art of Peace” is a strategy to “be not involved in a war.” It is not a strategy for peace on earth because this would already be another reason for war as it would force behavior on another society or nation. A nation or society must have the right to define its morals and philosophy and practice those morals and philosophies within the borders of its nation. Those borders are a natural mechanism otherwise known as a territory in the animal world.

I describe creating and maintaining peace in Art of Peace as “embracing peace.”  The book is written in a very defining style, “my way or the highway.” I decided to do so for three reasons:
1) A strategy must be a clear path to a specific goal. Otherwise, the risk proliferates to not achieving the goal at all.
2) I wanted this strategy to be clearly understood as an opposing concept to war, written in an equally explicit form.
3) This strategy is meant to be understandable by everybody, with or without military or political education.

I’d love to hear your feedback.

 

Embracing Peace to Further Advance

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HISTORY

Homo sapiens have been conducting war for thousands of years. But for the majority of that time, approx. 360,000 of its 370,000 years, it was all about territorial conflicts, food for survival, and disputes over women. As the strengths of Homo Sapiens grew and competition with other species vanished away, competition with other tribes grew. The strength to win against the much stronger Lions, Hyena, Gorillas, and Wildebeest showed us we could win literally against all animals. With the advancement of weapons, we use them not only to hunt but also to steal, kill, and create an advantage over others. Even though this is not exactly an intelligent way to progress, we are still in the infant stage of our intellectual and social development. Possessing something was more important than advancing our capabilities. Unfortunately, this belief has not changed, mainly because there is no debate about whether one or the other is more important.

Embracing Peace to Further AdvanceFocus on wealth blocks advancement

I didn’t think of this conflict either. Only through seeking answers to the question: What is the value of peace, other than the obvious? It dawned on me that progress was always our biggest asset and our most fascinating capability. Moreover, progress has even accelerated over time. Needless to say, today we know better than we did just a century ago. Yet, we still have not learned to leverage one of the top cognitive abilities: collaboration. Even though collaboration was one ability that helped survive, it’s not really understood how important that ability is. Our primal brain, basal ganglia, is the oldest and deepest part of our brain. It’s responsible for our most basic survival functions, including aggression, dominance, territoriality, and instinctual behaviors. If there is any danger or perceived danger, it kicks in. This is how I came to the conclusion “War is the surrender of the intellect”.

Still today, people choose monetary value over progress. When we look at what advanced us the most, we see collaboration, creativity, curiosity, and other cognitive abilities.

Embracing Peace to Further Advance.

Without this surrender, we continue to innovate. Innovation unfolds the best in times of peace, as we have learned in the past 250 years. One day in the future, we know that our innovative ability is the only way to help biological life sustain the lifespan of our planet. Homo Sapiens, or the next branch of it, is nature’s best bet to transform the relatively dead Universe into a lively place. And since peace is a prerequisite for advancement, advancement is the reason for embracing peace.

Embracing Peace to Further Advance

Note from the Author: The book ART OF PEACE took me forty years to get to the current stage. By far, the biggest challenge was to find a reason for peace other than “having no war” or “not losing lives.” Today, I invite you to comment and share your thoughts. Help make this also a book of and for peace-embracing people. We need to grow up together and reach the state of an adult species – leaving the puberty of humanity behind us. Our childhood of about 270,000 years was a very cool and nature-embedded time. The past 12,000 years were times of awareness of our powers and differences. Now it’s time to realize who we are and what we can achieve. The next couple hundred thousand years will be marked by advancements that we cannot imagine today. And those who don’t care beyond the time of their own lives and maybe their children and grandchildren are no less important in the process of embracing peace for the generations to come. 🙂

COLLABORATION

If you have any suggestions for this book, its content, its tonality, or its way of looking at peace, please raise your voice. Please be so kind as to do not to accuse any nation or any person. This would not help embrace peace, and you most likely don’t know why people do and do what they do. We are not here to judge others for actions we never understand in their full context. And if one does not care because it doesn’t fit in that person’s “culture,” they are equal aggressors to those who embrace war as a way to solve a conflict. We look into a future of embracing peace and the need to leave things behind – however hard it may have been.

Having a reason is only the beginning – but a significant step forward .

Embracing Peace to Further Advance