Julianna Myers-Blog Creator
Julianna was born and raised a small town girl. After high school she went to Brigham Young University where she met her husband Perry Myers in the spring of 2006 and married him late summer of that same year. They both finished their senior years together as newly weds. Julianna graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Exercise Science and Perry graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. It was through her husband that Julianna exprerienced her first real taste of politics and social science. Shortly after graduation from BYU they had their first baby and she is now expecting her forth. Julianna loves everything about being a wife, mother, and homemaker. She wants nothing more than to be a successful mother by raising her children to be good and moral people of society, and she created this blog in the hopes that she can inspire and be inspired in this quest.
McKell Myers-Writer
McKell graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. She currently serves as the Chair of the Utah Federation of College Republicans and previously served as the state’s Executive Director for the organization. This past election year McKell was a field Representative for the College Republican National Committee and was deployed to Las Vegas, Nevada where she recruited and organized the young conservative efforts. During her sophomore year McKell was also a writer for theREBUTTAL.com, a political site wherein she made quite a few enemies, and even a few friends. Born in Valencia, California, she eventually would spend the majority of her youth and teenage years in San Antonio, Texas, loving the southern living and culture. In her spare time McKell loves being outdoors or spending time with family and friends. Miss Myers currently resides in Provo, Utah and works at a Treatment Ranch for troubled teens.
Kaysie Proa-Writer
Showing posts with label McKell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McKell. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Warring for Peace
BY MCKELL MYERS
CAPSTONE
POLITICAL SCIENCE 400
Imagine there’s no heaven-It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, Above us only sky. Imagine all the people Living for today. Imagine there’s no countries-It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill and die for, And no religion too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace. John Lennon, ‘Imagine’
“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born and a time to die…a time to kill and a time to heal…a time to weep and a time laugh… a time to keep silence and a time to speak…a time of war, and a time of peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
The cry for peace has been heard in every land and age. It is the constant yearning for rest, the belief in an Eden, and the longing to be there. We talk of peace. We sing of peace. We sketch it in our pictures and we promise it in our politics. Occasionally, we even fight for peace on fault lines of difference and die for it on fields of disease. But what makes peace so desirable? What gives it noble character and inherent appeal? As the history of men unfolds, there are principles upon which all men glean their existence. The principle of opposition specifically, allows men the ability to choose, to exercise their consciousness and experience the bitter along with the sweet. This principle of opposition is the reality in which peace finds its very definition. Peace; therefore, never stands alone, but rather it is completely dependent upon its counterpart. In experiencing the lack of peace, we come to value it. In defining what peace isn’t we come to know exactly what it is. Therefore; while one pays homage to dear ole’ Peace one must not forget he owes its antonymic companion a fair space in history’s tale: War.
It is the vital season of war that grants this essay purpose. War’s nobility and necessity has, for too long, been dismissed, ignored, and mistaken. We’ve idolized a false peace, and in the process demonized the wrong kinds of war. Opposition certainly must play a role in how we understand the world. To define peace as anything void of pain leaves all sacrifice and all repellence of evil abandoned for a lesser perspective and a more shallow human experience. Therefore; the intent of this essay is not to glorify in physical violence or in the tension between God’s children, but rather its intent is to simply keep God in the picture at all. To protect those very things that society would forfeit for a lesser peace. To protect those human qualities that makes us who we are, and define who we will be. Furthermore in the process of defining war, true war, one can fully define peace… true peace, and true peace is the ultimate goal for all human beings. For in the condition of true peace men are able to fully pursue the happiness they seek.
True violence, true war, has nothing to do with the penetrating of flesh. We only assume it does. Blood’s deep scarlet is certainly hard to ignore, but there are deeper and more permanent stains to consider. True violence has everything to do with penetrating the line of humanity. Humanity is the quality or condition of being human. Therefore; our ability to act, to think, to feel, to live, to love are all part of this human experience. When one penetrates the line of humanity one endangers himself and others from pursuing these human activities. This is true violence. War can certainly be physical violence performed by the formal soldier, but often this is the outward byproduct of some true breach of humanity; some inner war against the very founding of our nature. It is this attack on humanity, this kind of war that man must fear and even repel, even if it means (ironically enough) war in the process.
When one looks at war this way, War is not so much the offender of men, but rather its defender…the defender of opposition, of choice, of freedom. War must exist for the nobility of peace to be preserved. If one reduced peace to the simple lack of violence, society runs a grave risk of losing all value of existence. “Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil.” In order for society to remain moral therefore; good must exist against evil. War, just war, or moral wars, is a fight for the maintaining of good and sustaining its separation from evil.
The Merciful War
The problem of men calling good things evil, and evil things good, is ever so present in reference to war. If one categorizes all war as wrong and all peace as good than history has been written in vain. Society has missed the meaning of life, the honor that accompanies our human heritage. We’ve seen this with the liberal definition society has granted war and peace. In the human cry for peace we’ve taken short cuts. We’ve mistaken peace for the mere absence of traditional war. Somehow all things that hold traditional war at bay have become good and desired. Could peace then perhaps ever be evil? In attempts to be civilized and merciful could we be running a graver course? Mercy is indeed human, civilized, and good. But so is justice. Are we, in the name of good, making room for evil? Are we in the name of mercy making an enemy of justice?
Many times the actual breach on humanity is near impossible to detect. The passivity resonated in John Lennon’s “imagine” for example, teaches society false pretenses about the reality of war. While much of the ideals expressed in his lyrics leave one yearning for unity and world serenity, it comes at a cost no political realist or idealist would be willing to pay. Furthermore, people of the world understand that opposition is the reality, and in that opposition also comes the nobility of the peace they seek. Peace is much more than the settling dust of once riotess streets, or the cooling of gun barrels. It is personal, perhaps even spiritual, and this inner peace is only acquired in the free expressions of the human heart, in the celebrations of individuality, in the existence of national identity, religion, heaven, and even hell…all concepts in which Lennon’s world is void of. In finding purposes worth living for, purposes worth dying for, humanity and history are explained. And perhaps the truest peace is found within the conscience of an individual finding a purpose beyond merely existing, a purpose not only in which they may die to preserve something bigger than self, but a purpose in which they are able to truly live.
In an attempt to not make a robber of mercy, one must recognize the need to fight or set right a wrong. In other words, one must recognize the true definition of peace. Inherently opposition will exist between good and evil, but friction is healthy and needed to secure the good. Therefore, traditional war could be an ally for good. It could be the byproduct of fighting that true violence against humanity. Mercy is more than the lack of physical violence. For in maintaining justice, in maintaining the rights of people, one shows a greater sense of mercy, and the benefactors of this mercy are those who rightfully have claim to it. War allows justice a voice. War allows balance. War grants good and evil to earn their place in society. Will the right always prevail? Perhaps not. But war grants the condition for right to have the chance of victory. And this chance, granted us by war, is far more ennobling than society’s forfeiting definition of peace.
Society has made a mess of mercy. It has made a mess of peace. Society wants forgiveness to replace accountability when no man has the right or power to deny evil of its consequences. Wrong must be challenged, otherwise it prevails, or worse it is mistaken for right. Sometimes challenging wrong requires physical violence. But this physical violence never supersedes the assault that first caused men to take up their swords. It can’t, for it has found justification. It won’t, for it wishes to be moral, and in its moral drive it finds moral bounds. This type of physical violence (often displayed as traditional war) is not only justified or moral, but it is necessary. If wrong is not challenged, evil runs its course leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. Certainly when men allow evil to reign there is little disputation and confrontation but there is also little of anything else. “Where they make a desert they call it peace” (Elshtain 126, 2003).
Defining Just War and the Just Soldier
Once we’ve established the vital need for war another debate consequently ensues. Just when is it justified? What are its boundaries? There are hundreds of philosophers and politicians alike that claim to have the answers. Many have valid points. Many do not. The wise are backed with moral reasoning. The cunning regrettably also appeal to some strand of morality making it near impossible to detect the sincere from the greedy. Yet the opinions of those found safely within the walls of parliament or of a classroom don’t really matter. In all actuality they are not the ones who start and end wars. Declarations are only declarations until someone draws his sword. Therefore, the closest we can get to discovering motives lies within the heart and mind of the soldier. This is the only level that really matters. They are wars real participants. Without them there is no war and with them the boundaries of battle are naturally defined.
In the fallen world in which we live, men are oft times willing to die for much less than an Eden, and the ethical wonder whether that makes their sacrifice more or less noble. Surely men shouldn’t die for just any cause. And yes there have been plenty of petty wars within history’s time. But who defines the petty from the pertinent? Even with moral grounds no man can declare war right or wrong safely from the sidelines. It is certainly easy from the fence to make judgments, but only one in the heat of battle can truly know whether the cause is worth fighting.
To protect the sanctity of life modern political theorist would argue that it is immoral to endanger lives when victory cannot be secured. Therefore the rules of engagement might state that unless one can win the battle, one has no business entering the war. But whose business is it really? Just as the tyrant has no business telling their men what their lives are worth, we shouldn’t attempt to tell men what their lives are not. Yet we do. When a battle suggests defeat, spectators esteem it an unethical pursuit. But in this, they make a grave mistake. Regardless of their good intent, they have assumed that victory was the warrior’s end and only pursuit. Or that victory is simply defined as surviving the battle. But for the moral soldier, there is a larger picture- religious, ethical, or otherwise. They see victory in the principles they die to protect. And they become victorious the instant the loss of those principles becomes their most trembling fear. If the principles are justifiable for a war of sound success, then those same principles would still be just and true in cases of defeat. Perhaps even more true with the shedding and sacrifice of innocent blood. Therefore; even in our ethical attempts to protect the line of humanity, we rescind it.
We minimalize the purposes of war if victory is justifications only ally. The story of Melos confirms that our ends cannot always explain our means. Melos was destined for defeat against Athens. And still, they fought. Let’s not dishonor their bravery by suggesting they thought victory possible. Their numbers were relatively few compared to the thousands of Athenian soldiers. The momentum of Athens alone would have given a less determined people cause to fold. But they didn’t. Surely the people of Melos knew their hours were numbered and it is likely their lives could have been spared if they bowed to Athenian rule. So were they immoral when they stood in front of their homes refusing to consent?
The same question could be asked thousands of years later. Were men of the Alamo immoral to stand against Santa Anna’s innumerable army? They had just received word that no reinforcements were coming. They still had time to escape. And yet there in the Texas sun, William B. Travis drew a line in the sand and asked who of the approximately 200 men would stay to meet the 1500 Mexican Soldiers. It would have been easy to run and maybe some would even argue moral. But instead they stayed. Instead they fought. Instead they died. And many would later cry, “Remember the Alamo.”
In the case of Melos and in the case of the Alamo modern political theory, cannot explain these tragic yet triumphant tales. Were these men blood thirsty? Were they looking to pick a fight? Or again, were there principles at play? Surely it would be the latter and surely American’s in particular can understand this concept. Yet much of modern American Sentiments are hostile towards war. They root their validation in the Weinberger Doctrine that clearly states; “U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed”. Sadly the mentality of winning and winning without cost has become the American way (Schulzinger 273, 2008).
The Powell Doctrine makes progress on the Weinberger Doctrine. Instead of directly assuming victory, a more general question is asks; “Do we have a clear and attainable objective?” This petition seems more reasonable. It leaves room for potential objectives that have nothing to do with conquest and more to do with principle. Sadly public opinion sees no difference in the two and we are left desensitized to a base understanding of war. However, even when policy can’t make the distinction, the soldier can. And even when all else is against the situation, he alone can make any fight noble.
It was principles that caused Patrick Henry to invite death at the cost of liberty. It was principles that made Davy Crockett stand by the Alamo, or the Spartans to hold the Mountain Pass. Convenience was not the path traveled by history’s heroes, although it certainly was an option. And perhaps that is the reason History recalls their efforts and marks their place in time. These men had a truer perspective. They knew there was more to lose in retreat and they feared what would die if they weren’t willing to give their lives.
We must acknowledge those vital times of battle, and the heroic sacrifice of conflict’s participants. While the thirst of a soldier for blood should never be celebrated, there is something to be said about the willing. For “in whom should there be more love of peace than in him who alone can be harmed by war? (Machiavelli 1519, 4)” The soldier, before anyone, understands the risk of war, and yet so often they are the first to step forward when a breech in humanity has been made. The principles that govern, and motivate the moral soldier are inherent and not programmed by society. On the contrary, society is creating a self-serving man. One who is entitled to luxury and who strays far from inconvenience.
Politics and Religion: Allies of Peace
While men may be willing to sacrifice for much less than an Eden, others will continue to wonder the nobility of their fight. Let it be clear, that it is indeed noble and necessary. In a world lost to the passive, obsessed with safety, and devoid of duty, a selfishness ensues much more haunting than the realness of blood and the honesty of death. Acclaimed peace lovers don’t love peace, for in their passive attempts to produce it they eliminate all of its inherent appeal. The song Imagine has falsely diagnosed the absence of peace and made an enemy of countries, religion, heaven, and hell.
In his book “the Concept of the Political,” Carl Schmitt admits that the word Political has been regrettably misused. It has come to encompass too much of what it isn’t: namely; economics, ethics, science, and religion, and has yet to be seen as a legitimate human activity of its own. “Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beauty and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable.” Therefore, “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy” (Schmitt 1996, 26). For Schmitt, the political enemy doesn’t have to be inherently evil, nor ugly and because this is so, politics must have a distinct realm separate from ethics or aesthetics. If we define politics in this way, as a unique and separate sphere of human activity, politics has some claim on what it means to be human. And the elimination of countries and government, as suggested by Lennon, is the elimination of some part of humanity (Schmitt 1996, Forward xv).
For Schmitt, politics is a system that rests on compromise. It is susceptible to change. Its unpredictability could be seen by pacifist as risky, and unnerving. But human nature too, is prone to change. Schmitt’s friend enemy distinction isn’t so much concerned about ‘who is on my side’, but claims that only by means of this distinction does the question of our willingness to take responsibility for our own lives arise. Each participant is [placed] in a position to judge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one’s own form of existence” (Schmitt 1996, xvi). The opposition that accompanies the friend enemy distinction of the political leads men to choices, and the very act of choosing leads humans to being.
The political allows for us to make distinctions separate from ethics or religion. The designating of an adversary, the repulsion, and even fighting Schmitt suggests allows for opposition to survive yet the political simultaneously exists to protect those very other spheres of human activity in which we engage. Without the political, anarchy reigns supreme, and while one might not have enemies, one also has no friends. Likewise, the ugly and beautiful, the good and evil are also there to be distinguished and the political stands as its defense against a numb neutrality. Lennon, in his plea for equality, couldn’t tell a weed from a flower. And in an attempt to rid the potential dangers of the thorn, he would forgo the entirety of the rose.
While government is far from perfect, why was the political established if not to persuade men to moral action and procure harmony? But that too is problematic for Lennon because morality does not exist in his sphere either. The preservation of religion, or at least a metaphoric heaven and hell is also important in maintaining a moral society. Not only does heaven and hell legitimize opposition but for the religious, it legitimizes their purpose in existence. Religion is how many come to understand happiness. It is another part of this human experience that cannot be replaced or forgotten with sky. There are ideals that extend beyond ones mortal frame. The belief in a heaven for example gives men reasons to live, and live well. And oft times if one cannot live well, one may find reasons to die well. For the goal is to secure a life worth living whether here or in the hereafter and ideally in both. This is not uncommon knowledge. Religion has been a part of history and a reason for war since the beginning of time. But somehow we’ve made an enemy of it. Somewhere along the line we’ve come to think its failed us, because blood has been spilled to protect it. We’ve claimed it hypocritical in its doctrine because to proclaim peace the religious have, at times, taken up their swords. We forget Cain and Abel in the beginning of the Bible and all the wars that follow thereafter. We’ve twisted the doctrine, the opposition found within the book’s pages, to give society a diluted form of religion- a more convenient religious experience. Sainthood is now a road traveled by many with very few bumps along the way.
Friction scares us. Rather than embrace the differences, and see religion in its true and intended state, it becomes easier for us to eliminate it, and anything else for that matter that causes a difference of opinion. It may be easy for Lennon, but it is hard to imagine a world without countries or religion. While boundaries and boarders whether physical or spiritual are prone to war, they are better than the alternative. And not just the lesser of two Evil’s but potentially they are the only source of good found within a fallen world. They have been established to protect those very fundamental beliefs, those God given human qualities. Religion particularly is one of our only attempts of escaping the evil and raising our vision. Nations too are the alternative to anarchy-a recipe for war. Religion and National borders are indeed some of the most controversial issues, and yet it is almost that very controversy that justifies they’re needed existence. The wind blows hardest at the tallest peaks.
Furthermore, Lennon has miss read the desires of man. For men’s action speak for what they desire and if one willingly walks into bloody rivers the reasons that compel him are more than “just sky” (Lennon, 1971). We must resist that which would make us numb to the beauty of sacrifice or make us beggars of meaning. We must recognize the purposes of war and the limiting necessity politics grants battle. The distinct spheres of good and evil makes violence an inevitable reality, therefore war is not only needful, but also noble in its attempts to designate the good from the evil and procure a true and lasting peace of soul and state.
The Art and Virtue of Sacrifice
There are worse things than war, if this wasn’t so history wouldn’t be stained with the blood of its writers. But can war ever be good? From the title of his book, Michael Ignatieff suggests that war is “The Lesser Evil,” but still implies war possessing an inherently evil character. Is this so? Is war only the least ugly amid wicked choices? While one must acknowledge the complications associated with the particulars of battle, violence in all its forms has been seen as the ultimate attack on humanity. The spilling of blood and the bruises of body are no doubt offensive to the eye, but do they always, in all its forms betray the heart?
The line of humanity can be breached in a number of ways, unnecessary bloodshed included, but the line is usually forfeited long before the first fallen. Government was designed as a means to protect all things civilized, a way to harness the capabilities of humans and distinguish us from that of other animals. But even government can run the risk of corruption…and a far grosser corruption at that. For in the very halls where men claim to know the will of God on matters of fairness and justice, are other men who seek to use such divinely inspired legislation for their own uses, their own desire for power. This attack on humanity, this definition of true war is often more subtle than the obvious hue of blood. But we must not be deceived. The civilized, while capable of rising above that of animal instinct, has also harbored the advancement of evil. Therefore violence, that true violence that penetrates the line of humanity, can now be tidily typed or elegantly expressed and be eerily mistaken for good.
Walzer claims, “War strips away our civilized adornments and reveals our nakedness.” But Machiavelli would say otherwise, “For all the arts that are ordered in a city for the sake of the common good of men, all the orders made there for living in fear of the law and of God would be in vain if their defenses were not prepared. When these defenses are well ordered, they maintain the arts and orders… [but] good orders without military help are disordered no differently than the rooms of a proud and regal palace when, by being uncovered they have nothing that might defend them against the rain even though they are ornamented with gems and gold” (The Art of War 1519, p. 4). Therefore; according to Machiavelli it is not war that strips us of the civilized adornments, but rather mans inability (or lack of desire) to defend them. No matter what gems and gold are found within a society, without the proper protection such adornments are stripped of their shine and left to tarnish.
The pacifist would make the realist develop justification for the atrocities associated with war’s use. But what excuses can and should be made for the atrocities that first caused men to take up their swords? For surely men wouldn’t choose the inhumane associated with battle if something hadn’t first proved even more base, even more atrocious. The taking away of that which makes us human, is not life itself. Surely men have the unalienable right to life, but they have much more than that. Trees’s live and breathe, dogs too, so there must be something else that makes us Earth’s dominant species. It is that something that we must preserve. Pacifists might say it is battle that makes us like animals. But it is in the heat of battle that men rise from animal instincts of survival and put on that human instinct of sacrifice. Our ability to love, to care more about a less tangible cause is that very something that separates us from all other creatures. No, dying is not our greatest fear.
If it wasn’t so, Hitler would have seen no need to change legislation against the Jew or establish the concentration camp. Before he killed the approximately 6 million innocent, he first robbed them of their valuables, their freedoms, and their dignity. He took everything from them that would establish any form of identity or grant them any status of human. All Jews were Sarah’s or Isaacs, and the “rat problem” once associated with the vermin metamorphosed into the Jew. Additionally, many of the prisoners considered dying the escape. The “lucky ones” were those who had been executed at camps initial arrival. A luxury that had been granted the original vermin seemed too good for the Jew. “Exposed -- legally, morally, and psychologically – the Jewish ‘perpetrators’ faced as a community their expulsion combined with demands for the repayment of affronted enjoyments, as well as demands for compensation for supposed injuries. Nazi leaders called upon citizens to take ‘defensive action’ against Jews, ‘the guilty ones’ who ‘live in our midst and day after day misuse the right to hospitality, which the German Volk has granted them.’ Past enjoyments by the Jewish community amounted to more than shelter by the larger community, the punishment more than exile” (Gilchrist 45, 20**).For the Jew, at the time of the Holocaust, the “striping away of civilized adornments,” the “nakedness,” Walzer refers to was a result of the lack of traditional war. Germany was in need of an intervention. If the United States had stepped in earlier much could have been done to prevent the genocide that occurred.
The death and violence associated with war seems far less crippling in comparison to those tidy, subtle acts of legislation like the Nuremberg laws. Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase meaning "For among [times of] arms, the laws fall mute," but perhaps the laws fell mute long before the first cry of a soldier. The Nuremberg laws at the time of Nazi Germany or the Hutu documents during the Rwanda genocide were not the obvious gore and guts a public sees with war. Rather such inhumanity was neatly typed and printed, eloquently addressed and daringly promoted all in the name of national hygiene. In the case of Germany, being a Jew was considered “unclean.” And sanitation was the policy. For the Rwandan, those that married or employed a Tutsi woman were considered “traitors”. This change in language, and eventually change in law, involved no drops of blood and yet fell far below any grave. While the goal is for men to arise above mortalities portion, we also become capable of sinking way below its intended sphere.
In the name of efficiency society has corrupted language and public opinion, limiting the meaning of war and making it only a synonym for evil. But the poet knows better. For the poet; war is the dance of opposition, the crashing of juxtaposed waves, the very designator of good and evil. The famous General Clausewitz has coined war as “the continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz, 1873). If politics maintains its original purpose: to establish peace, to persuade men to the proper, the moral, war is no longer the atrocious animalistic practice modern context has esteemed it, but rather it’s the logical human attempt of survival. Survival not as the animals would define it, but the survival of what it means to be human, the perpetuation of not only a population but of a purpose.
Those who claim the believers of war to lack reverence for humanity have failed in their accusation. In reality those willing to wage war can be among the best believers in humanity. War is only animalistic if physical survival is the goal. In actuality it is those that fear death, and death itself who are the real animals, for their instincts are far from selfless and their reasoning farther from truth. The warrior that can see war as the “art” and “virtú” Machiavelli defines it to be is not concerned with the physical survival of their fleshy frame but the continuance of the civilized (The Prince 1513, p. 41). They fight for continuity of compassion, love, respect, freedom, and belief. “People thought Cesare Borgia was cruel, but that cruelty of his reorganized Romagna, united it, and established it in peace and loyalty. Anyone who views the matter realistically will see that this prince was much more merciful than the people of Florence, who to avoid the reputation of cruelty, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed” (The Prince 1513, p.45).
Not only are men willing to sacrifice their physical selves for war and die for peace but like Cesar Borgia, some men are willing to live for it. No doubt he was hated and his actions questioned, but he sacrificed his reputation for the preservation of his people, the very people that would abuse him and his methods. War therefore doesn’t build character, but it reveals it. The art and virtue of man is discovered in times of battle. Either man rises to the occasion as a leader, soldier or spectator or fails to see the art and virtue in war’s purposes. Some shrink at battles presence others bask in its glory but the wise make the necessary sacrifices and think themselves no more than that of a human being, doing what human beings ought to do.
Warring For Heaven
And thus we see war finds its validation in the gross crimes of evil men. It finds its necessity in the protection of the line of humanity, and it finds its art and virtue in man’s willingness to sacrifice. It is not in the winning that man finds his success, but in his right and willingness to stand for principles. The very warring against evil procures victory. Evil is a reality in this mortal existence, and because of that reality war finds its place. War is not a lesser evil, but is a noble attempt to rise beyond evil, to refute its ever lingering presence. When one is willing to confront evil, to name it as such, and repel its infiltration one has succeeded in his attempts to find meaning, to find purpose, and to find peace.
It is our human nature to desire our own personal Eden’s and while pacifist dream of worlds of just sky, there is something innate in us that yearns for identity and meaning that can only come in the preservation of the political. Religion will continue to be a cause for war, but only because men see its importance above life. And who is to question the necessity of religion if one places it above food and air. Society would do without the friction that accompanies Heaven and Hell, but that friction is our only way to know peace. True peace, the kind found within hearts and minds. Many in today’s world “would bleed just to know [their] alive,” but such a line suggests they were dead long before any loss of blood (Goo Goo Dolls 1998). It is this loss of meaning that threatens our society. This type of violence, this delusional definition of peace is the risk we are taking with the ridding of war.
War is the pulse of the right and the good. It proves good still exists, that we refuse evil’s rein. It proves that men will be missed if they die and will have even more to live for. When we come to understand the hellish experience of war, we come to know a heavenly state of peace. And our willingness to go through hell and back tells us what we think of our heaven. If we wish to find our own individual Eden’s- not just filled with sky, but blooming with purpose and possibilities we must be willing to acknowledge the reality of our mortal state. The opposition of mortality is real. We must be ready for the friction that will inevitable ensue. But even in our friction we will have a peace more real than any piercing of flesh. Therefore; God be thanked for hell if it grants me heaven and God solicit war if provides me peace.
Annotated Bibliography
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1513. The Prince. Edited and translated by Robert M. Adams. 1992. W.W. Norton and Company Inc.: New York.
The Prince shares the same basic argument that war is moral. The welfare of the whole is secured in the sometimes perceived cruel actions of the few. This is the basic argument of my paper. The realist is moral, and perhaps even more moral and selfless because their reputation as well as their very lives are at stake. I specifically cite Machaivelli’s example of Cesare Borgia, and how his ‘cruel” actions lead to a peaceful existence, while the people of Florence, in their self righteous peace allowed Pistoia to be destroyed. Machiavelli is my main source for this paper.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1519. The Art of War. Translated and Edited by Christopher Lynch. 2003. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
This work of Machiavelli’s is a lot more specific to war itself. It shows not only the justification for war but also wars necessity. I use Machiavelli’s metaphor of the palace without a roof to show the security that comes from the capabilities of war. It’s title The Art of War also alludes to the beauty of strategy, and sparked my argument for the poet’s understanding of war. Regardless about RMA (revolutions in military affairs) Machiavelli and I both believe “it is not impossible to bring the military back to its original modes and give it some form of virtue.” p. 4 This is one of my closing arguments.
Clausewitz, Carl Von. 1873. On War. Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham. N. Trubner: London.
I use his famous quote, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” While my paper focuses little on this specific piece of literature, the general ideas and principles are applied.
Walzer, Michael. 2006. Just and Unjust Wars. Basic Books: New York.
This book was one of the primary inspirations for my paper. I argue what Walzer says about the brutality of war, but the questions he poses about what is just and unjust are intriguing. I use his same thought provoking style in a general way and tried to look at war from a new perspective. He briefly addresses examples like the Nuremberg Laws of Germany and the incident in Rwanda, which I use in my paper. Most of my conceptions about these incidents; however, were for the most part already formed.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 2003. Just War Against Terror. Basic Book: New York.
Elshtain was able to give me a female perspective to why war is just. She addresses the uncertainty religion specifically grants security, but she does nothing to suggest its elimination. This gave me hope and allowed me to solidify my argument that Lennon’s suggested “religion free” world was out of the question. She also distinguishes between the Conqueror, Just Warrior, and Pacifist. While she defines the motives and procedures of each, she does little to argue for a specific type of citizen. However; the flaws defined in the conqueror and pacifist, allowed me to make some conclusions that neither type is preferred. I argue they are both morally wrong from inherently different sides of the spectrum. I use her classification, to argue for the Just Warrior, and further my own argument, that pacifism is just as evil as the conqueror. Furthermore; I allude to Hitler being a conqueror type and Lennon being the pacifist.
Ignatieff, Michael. 2004. The Lesser Evil. Penguin Group: Canada.
The title of this book sparked my question if war was always, even in mild forms evil. What he had to say about war’s escalation always leading to nihilism was also an argument I debated. I also looked at Nihilism in depth: its first definition states: “the total rejection of established laws and institutions.” Which in reality is Lennon’s idea of peace (the elimination of politics). In actuality, I turned Ignatieff’s argument around in favor of war.
Gilchrist, Brent. (year). Myth, Magic, and Murder. Unpulished Manuscript: Brigham Young University n.d.
I used this manuscript to site the methods Hitler used against the Jews. This was part of my argument that death is not dehumanizing and that it is rather the law that failed and procured the brutal, unjust results of Nazi Germany. War, in hindsight would have been the saving grace for the Jews.
Schmitt, Carl. 1996. The Concept of the Political. University of Chicago Press: Chicago
This was insightful in regards to defining “politics” and the friend- enemy distinction. The morality of politics is largely based on how politics are initially perceived, and enemy’s don’t have to be inherently evil to be enemies. This I will use to address additional counter arguments. While the book is interesting, it is based on an idea of relativism. I do like; however that one can argue the realist point with the liberal argument. I’m not sure exactly how I will use this book yet, but many of the concepts are related to my theme.
Jarecki, Eugene. Why We Fight (Sundance Film Festival: Sony Pictures, 2005).
This I don’t use specifically as a source. But its general concepts and idea are applied.
CAPSTONE
POLITICAL SCIENCE 400
Imagine there’s no heaven-It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, Above us only sky. Imagine all the people Living for today. Imagine there’s no countries-It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill and die for, And no religion too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace. John Lennon, ‘Imagine’
“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born and a time to die…a time to kill and a time to heal…a time to weep and a time laugh… a time to keep silence and a time to speak…a time of war, and a time of peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
The cry for peace has been heard in every land and age. It is the constant yearning for rest, the belief in an Eden, and the longing to be there. We talk of peace. We sing of peace. We sketch it in our pictures and we promise it in our politics. Occasionally, we even fight for peace on fault lines of difference and die for it on fields of disease. But what makes peace so desirable? What gives it noble character and inherent appeal? As the history of men unfolds, there are principles upon which all men glean their existence. The principle of opposition specifically, allows men the ability to choose, to exercise their consciousness and experience the bitter along with the sweet. This principle of opposition is the reality in which peace finds its very definition. Peace; therefore, never stands alone, but rather it is completely dependent upon its counterpart. In experiencing the lack of peace, we come to value it. In defining what peace isn’t we come to know exactly what it is. Therefore; while one pays homage to dear ole’ Peace one must not forget he owes its antonymic companion a fair space in history’s tale: War.
It is the vital season of war that grants this essay purpose. War’s nobility and necessity has, for too long, been dismissed, ignored, and mistaken. We’ve idolized a false peace, and in the process demonized the wrong kinds of war. Opposition certainly must play a role in how we understand the world. To define peace as anything void of pain leaves all sacrifice and all repellence of evil abandoned for a lesser perspective and a more shallow human experience. Therefore; the intent of this essay is not to glorify in physical violence or in the tension between God’s children, but rather its intent is to simply keep God in the picture at all. To protect those very things that society would forfeit for a lesser peace. To protect those human qualities that makes us who we are, and define who we will be. Furthermore in the process of defining war, true war, one can fully define peace… true peace, and true peace is the ultimate goal for all human beings. For in the condition of true peace men are able to fully pursue the happiness they seek.
True violence, true war, has nothing to do with the penetrating of flesh. We only assume it does. Blood’s deep scarlet is certainly hard to ignore, but there are deeper and more permanent stains to consider. True violence has everything to do with penetrating the line of humanity. Humanity is the quality or condition of being human. Therefore; our ability to act, to think, to feel, to live, to love are all part of this human experience. When one penetrates the line of humanity one endangers himself and others from pursuing these human activities. This is true violence. War can certainly be physical violence performed by the formal soldier, but often this is the outward byproduct of some true breach of humanity; some inner war against the very founding of our nature. It is this attack on humanity, this kind of war that man must fear and even repel, even if it means (ironically enough) war in the process.
When one looks at war this way, War is not so much the offender of men, but rather its defender…the defender of opposition, of choice, of freedom. War must exist for the nobility of peace to be preserved. If one reduced peace to the simple lack of violence, society runs a grave risk of losing all value of existence. “Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil.” In order for society to remain moral therefore; good must exist against evil. War, just war, or moral wars, is a fight for the maintaining of good and sustaining its separation from evil.
The Merciful War
The problem of men calling good things evil, and evil things good, is ever so present in reference to war. If one categorizes all war as wrong and all peace as good than history has been written in vain. Society has missed the meaning of life, the honor that accompanies our human heritage. We’ve seen this with the liberal definition society has granted war and peace. In the human cry for peace we’ve taken short cuts. We’ve mistaken peace for the mere absence of traditional war. Somehow all things that hold traditional war at bay have become good and desired. Could peace then perhaps ever be evil? In attempts to be civilized and merciful could we be running a graver course? Mercy is indeed human, civilized, and good. But so is justice. Are we, in the name of good, making room for evil? Are we in the name of mercy making an enemy of justice?
Many times the actual breach on humanity is near impossible to detect. The passivity resonated in John Lennon’s “imagine” for example, teaches society false pretenses about the reality of war. While much of the ideals expressed in his lyrics leave one yearning for unity and world serenity, it comes at a cost no political realist or idealist would be willing to pay. Furthermore, people of the world understand that opposition is the reality, and in that opposition also comes the nobility of the peace they seek. Peace is much more than the settling dust of once riotess streets, or the cooling of gun barrels. It is personal, perhaps even spiritual, and this inner peace is only acquired in the free expressions of the human heart, in the celebrations of individuality, in the existence of national identity, religion, heaven, and even hell…all concepts in which Lennon’s world is void of. In finding purposes worth living for, purposes worth dying for, humanity and history are explained. And perhaps the truest peace is found within the conscience of an individual finding a purpose beyond merely existing, a purpose not only in which they may die to preserve something bigger than self, but a purpose in which they are able to truly live.
In an attempt to not make a robber of mercy, one must recognize the need to fight or set right a wrong. In other words, one must recognize the true definition of peace. Inherently opposition will exist between good and evil, but friction is healthy and needed to secure the good. Therefore, traditional war could be an ally for good. It could be the byproduct of fighting that true violence against humanity. Mercy is more than the lack of physical violence. For in maintaining justice, in maintaining the rights of people, one shows a greater sense of mercy, and the benefactors of this mercy are those who rightfully have claim to it. War allows justice a voice. War allows balance. War grants good and evil to earn their place in society. Will the right always prevail? Perhaps not. But war grants the condition for right to have the chance of victory. And this chance, granted us by war, is far more ennobling than society’s forfeiting definition of peace.
Society has made a mess of mercy. It has made a mess of peace. Society wants forgiveness to replace accountability when no man has the right or power to deny evil of its consequences. Wrong must be challenged, otherwise it prevails, or worse it is mistaken for right. Sometimes challenging wrong requires physical violence. But this physical violence never supersedes the assault that first caused men to take up their swords. It can’t, for it has found justification. It won’t, for it wishes to be moral, and in its moral drive it finds moral bounds. This type of physical violence (often displayed as traditional war) is not only justified or moral, but it is necessary. If wrong is not challenged, evil runs its course leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. Certainly when men allow evil to reign there is little disputation and confrontation but there is also little of anything else. “Where they make a desert they call it peace” (Elshtain 126, 2003).
Defining Just War and the Just Soldier
Once we’ve established the vital need for war another debate consequently ensues. Just when is it justified? What are its boundaries? There are hundreds of philosophers and politicians alike that claim to have the answers. Many have valid points. Many do not. The wise are backed with moral reasoning. The cunning regrettably also appeal to some strand of morality making it near impossible to detect the sincere from the greedy. Yet the opinions of those found safely within the walls of parliament or of a classroom don’t really matter. In all actuality they are not the ones who start and end wars. Declarations are only declarations until someone draws his sword. Therefore, the closest we can get to discovering motives lies within the heart and mind of the soldier. This is the only level that really matters. They are wars real participants. Without them there is no war and with them the boundaries of battle are naturally defined.
In the fallen world in which we live, men are oft times willing to die for much less than an Eden, and the ethical wonder whether that makes their sacrifice more or less noble. Surely men shouldn’t die for just any cause. And yes there have been plenty of petty wars within history’s time. But who defines the petty from the pertinent? Even with moral grounds no man can declare war right or wrong safely from the sidelines. It is certainly easy from the fence to make judgments, but only one in the heat of battle can truly know whether the cause is worth fighting.
To protect the sanctity of life modern political theorist would argue that it is immoral to endanger lives when victory cannot be secured. Therefore the rules of engagement might state that unless one can win the battle, one has no business entering the war. But whose business is it really? Just as the tyrant has no business telling their men what their lives are worth, we shouldn’t attempt to tell men what their lives are not. Yet we do. When a battle suggests defeat, spectators esteem it an unethical pursuit. But in this, they make a grave mistake. Regardless of their good intent, they have assumed that victory was the warrior’s end and only pursuit. Or that victory is simply defined as surviving the battle. But for the moral soldier, there is a larger picture- religious, ethical, or otherwise. They see victory in the principles they die to protect. And they become victorious the instant the loss of those principles becomes their most trembling fear. If the principles are justifiable for a war of sound success, then those same principles would still be just and true in cases of defeat. Perhaps even more true with the shedding and sacrifice of innocent blood. Therefore; even in our ethical attempts to protect the line of humanity, we rescind it.
We minimalize the purposes of war if victory is justifications only ally. The story of Melos confirms that our ends cannot always explain our means. Melos was destined for defeat against Athens. And still, they fought. Let’s not dishonor their bravery by suggesting they thought victory possible. Their numbers were relatively few compared to the thousands of Athenian soldiers. The momentum of Athens alone would have given a less determined people cause to fold. But they didn’t. Surely the people of Melos knew their hours were numbered and it is likely their lives could have been spared if they bowed to Athenian rule. So were they immoral when they stood in front of their homes refusing to consent?
The same question could be asked thousands of years later. Were men of the Alamo immoral to stand against Santa Anna’s innumerable army? They had just received word that no reinforcements were coming. They still had time to escape. And yet there in the Texas sun, William B. Travis drew a line in the sand and asked who of the approximately 200 men would stay to meet the 1500 Mexican Soldiers. It would have been easy to run and maybe some would even argue moral. But instead they stayed. Instead they fought. Instead they died. And many would later cry, “Remember the Alamo.”
In the case of Melos and in the case of the Alamo modern political theory, cannot explain these tragic yet triumphant tales. Were these men blood thirsty? Were they looking to pick a fight? Or again, were there principles at play? Surely it would be the latter and surely American’s in particular can understand this concept. Yet much of modern American Sentiments are hostile towards war. They root their validation in the Weinberger Doctrine that clearly states; “U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed”. Sadly the mentality of winning and winning without cost has become the American way (Schulzinger 273, 2008).
The Powell Doctrine makes progress on the Weinberger Doctrine. Instead of directly assuming victory, a more general question is asks; “Do we have a clear and attainable objective?” This petition seems more reasonable. It leaves room for potential objectives that have nothing to do with conquest and more to do with principle. Sadly public opinion sees no difference in the two and we are left desensitized to a base understanding of war. However, even when policy can’t make the distinction, the soldier can. And even when all else is against the situation, he alone can make any fight noble.
It was principles that caused Patrick Henry to invite death at the cost of liberty. It was principles that made Davy Crockett stand by the Alamo, or the Spartans to hold the Mountain Pass. Convenience was not the path traveled by history’s heroes, although it certainly was an option. And perhaps that is the reason History recalls their efforts and marks their place in time. These men had a truer perspective. They knew there was more to lose in retreat and they feared what would die if they weren’t willing to give their lives.
We must acknowledge those vital times of battle, and the heroic sacrifice of conflict’s participants. While the thirst of a soldier for blood should never be celebrated, there is something to be said about the willing. For “in whom should there be more love of peace than in him who alone can be harmed by war? (Machiavelli 1519, 4)” The soldier, before anyone, understands the risk of war, and yet so often they are the first to step forward when a breech in humanity has been made. The principles that govern, and motivate the moral soldier are inherent and not programmed by society. On the contrary, society is creating a self-serving man. One who is entitled to luxury and who strays far from inconvenience.
Politics and Religion: Allies of Peace
While men may be willing to sacrifice for much less than an Eden, others will continue to wonder the nobility of their fight. Let it be clear, that it is indeed noble and necessary. In a world lost to the passive, obsessed with safety, and devoid of duty, a selfishness ensues much more haunting than the realness of blood and the honesty of death. Acclaimed peace lovers don’t love peace, for in their passive attempts to produce it they eliminate all of its inherent appeal. The song Imagine has falsely diagnosed the absence of peace and made an enemy of countries, religion, heaven, and hell.
In his book “the Concept of the Political,” Carl Schmitt admits that the word Political has been regrettably misused. It has come to encompass too much of what it isn’t: namely; economics, ethics, science, and religion, and has yet to be seen as a legitimate human activity of its own. “Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beauty and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable.” Therefore, “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy” (Schmitt 1996, 26). For Schmitt, the political enemy doesn’t have to be inherently evil, nor ugly and because this is so, politics must have a distinct realm separate from ethics or aesthetics. If we define politics in this way, as a unique and separate sphere of human activity, politics has some claim on what it means to be human. And the elimination of countries and government, as suggested by Lennon, is the elimination of some part of humanity (Schmitt 1996, Forward xv).
For Schmitt, politics is a system that rests on compromise. It is susceptible to change. Its unpredictability could be seen by pacifist as risky, and unnerving. But human nature too, is prone to change. Schmitt’s friend enemy distinction isn’t so much concerned about ‘who is on my side’, but claims that only by means of this distinction does the question of our willingness to take responsibility for our own lives arise. Each participant is [placed] in a position to judge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one’s own form of existence” (Schmitt 1996, xvi). The opposition that accompanies the friend enemy distinction of the political leads men to choices, and the very act of choosing leads humans to being.
The political allows for us to make distinctions separate from ethics or religion. The designating of an adversary, the repulsion, and even fighting Schmitt suggests allows for opposition to survive yet the political simultaneously exists to protect those very other spheres of human activity in which we engage. Without the political, anarchy reigns supreme, and while one might not have enemies, one also has no friends. Likewise, the ugly and beautiful, the good and evil are also there to be distinguished and the political stands as its defense against a numb neutrality. Lennon, in his plea for equality, couldn’t tell a weed from a flower. And in an attempt to rid the potential dangers of the thorn, he would forgo the entirety of the rose.
While government is far from perfect, why was the political established if not to persuade men to moral action and procure harmony? But that too is problematic for Lennon because morality does not exist in his sphere either. The preservation of religion, or at least a metaphoric heaven and hell is also important in maintaining a moral society. Not only does heaven and hell legitimize opposition but for the religious, it legitimizes their purpose in existence. Religion is how many come to understand happiness. It is another part of this human experience that cannot be replaced or forgotten with sky. There are ideals that extend beyond ones mortal frame. The belief in a heaven for example gives men reasons to live, and live well. And oft times if one cannot live well, one may find reasons to die well. For the goal is to secure a life worth living whether here or in the hereafter and ideally in both. This is not uncommon knowledge. Religion has been a part of history and a reason for war since the beginning of time. But somehow we’ve made an enemy of it. Somewhere along the line we’ve come to think its failed us, because blood has been spilled to protect it. We’ve claimed it hypocritical in its doctrine because to proclaim peace the religious have, at times, taken up their swords. We forget Cain and Abel in the beginning of the Bible and all the wars that follow thereafter. We’ve twisted the doctrine, the opposition found within the book’s pages, to give society a diluted form of religion- a more convenient religious experience. Sainthood is now a road traveled by many with very few bumps along the way.
Friction scares us. Rather than embrace the differences, and see religion in its true and intended state, it becomes easier for us to eliminate it, and anything else for that matter that causes a difference of opinion. It may be easy for Lennon, but it is hard to imagine a world without countries or religion. While boundaries and boarders whether physical or spiritual are prone to war, they are better than the alternative. And not just the lesser of two Evil’s but potentially they are the only source of good found within a fallen world. They have been established to protect those very fundamental beliefs, those God given human qualities. Religion particularly is one of our only attempts of escaping the evil and raising our vision. Nations too are the alternative to anarchy-a recipe for war. Religion and National borders are indeed some of the most controversial issues, and yet it is almost that very controversy that justifies they’re needed existence. The wind blows hardest at the tallest peaks.
Furthermore, Lennon has miss read the desires of man. For men’s action speak for what they desire and if one willingly walks into bloody rivers the reasons that compel him are more than “just sky” (Lennon, 1971). We must resist that which would make us numb to the beauty of sacrifice or make us beggars of meaning. We must recognize the purposes of war and the limiting necessity politics grants battle. The distinct spheres of good and evil makes violence an inevitable reality, therefore war is not only needful, but also noble in its attempts to designate the good from the evil and procure a true and lasting peace of soul and state.
The Art and Virtue of Sacrifice
There are worse things than war, if this wasn’t so history wouldn’t be stained with the blood of its writers. But can war ever be good? From the title of his book, Michael Ignatieff suggests that war is “The Lesser Evil,” but still implies war possessing an inherently evil character. Is this so? Is war only the least ugly amid wicked choices? While one must acknowledge the complications associated with the particulars of battle, violence in all its forms has been seen as the ultimate attack on humanity. The spilling of blood and the bruises of body are no doubt offensive to the eye, but do they always, in all its forms betray the heart?
The line of humanity can be breached in a number of ways, unnecessary bloodshed included, but the line is usually forfeited long before the first fallen. Government was designed as a means to protect all things civilized, a way to harness the capabilities of humans and distinguish us from that of other animals. But even government can run the risk of corruption…and a far grosser corruption at that. For in the very halls where men claim to know the will of God on matters of fairness and justice, are other men who seek to use such divinely inspired legislation for their own uses, their own desire for power. This attack on humanity, this definition of true war is often more subtle than the obvious hue of blood. But we must not be deceived. The civilized, while capable of rising above that of animal instinct, has also harbored the advancement of evil. Therefore violence, that true violence that penetrates the line of humanity, can now be tidily typed or elegantly expressed and be eerily mistaken for good.
Walzer claims, “War strips away our civilized adornments and reveals our nakedness.” But Machiavelli would say otherwise, “For all the arts that are ordered in a city for the sake of the common good of men, all the orders made there for living in fear of the law and of God would be in vain if their defenses were not prepared. When these defenses are well ordered, they maintain the arts and orders… [but] good orders without military help are disordered no differently than the rooms of a proud and regal palace when, by being uncovered they have nothing that might defend them against the rain even though they are ornamented with gems and gold” (The Art of War 1519, p. 4). Therefore; according to Machiavelli it is not war that strips us of the civilized adornments, but rather mans inability (or lack of desire) to defend them. No matter what gems and gold are found within a society, without the proper protection such adornments are stripped of their shine and left to tarnish.
The pacifist would make the realist develop justification for the atrocities associated with war’s use. But what excuses can and should be made for the atrocities that first caused men to take up their swords? For surely men wouldn’t choose the inhumane associated with battle if something hadn’t first proved even more base, even more atrocious. The taking away of that which makes us human, is not life itself. Surely men have the unalienable right to life, but they have much more than that. Trees’s live and breathe, dogs too, so there must be something else that makes us Earth’s dominant species. It is that something that we must preserve. Pacifists might say it is battle that makes us like animals. But it is in the heat of battle that men rise from animal instincts of survival and put on that human instinct of sacrifice. Our ability to love, to care more about a less tangible cause is that very something that separates us from all other creatures. No, dying is not our greatest fear.
If it wasn’t so, Hitler would have seen no need to change legislation against the Jew or establish the concentration camp. Before he killed the approximately 6 million innocent, he first robbed them of their valuables, their freedoms, and their dignity. He took everything from them that would establish any form of identity or grant them any status of human. All Jews were Sarah’s or Isaacs, and the “rat problem” once associated with the vermin metamorphosed into the Jew. Additionally, many of the prisoners considered dying the escape. The “lucky ones” were those who had been executed at camps initial arrival. A luxury that had been granted the original vermin seemed too good for the Jew. “Exposed -- legally, morally, and psychologically – the Jewish ‘perpetrators’ faced as a community their expulsion combined with demands for the repayment of affronted enjoyments, as well as demands for compensation for supposed injuries. Nazi leaders called upon citizens to take ‘defensive action’ against Jews, ‘the guilty ones’ who ‘live in our midst and day after day misuse the right to hospitality, which the German Volk has granted them.’ Past enjoyments by the Jewish community amounted to more than shelter by the larger community, the punishment more than exile” (Gilchrist 45, 20**).For the Jew, at the time of the Holocaust, the “striping away of civilized adornments,” the “nakedness,” Walzer refers to was a result of the lack of traditional war. Germany was in need of an intervention. If the United States had stepped in earlier much could have been done to prevent the genocide that occurred.
The death and violence associated with war seems far less crippling in comparison to those tidy, subtle acts of legislation like the Nuremberg laws. Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase meaning "For among [times of] arms, the laws fall mute," but perhaps the laws fell mute long before the first cry of a soldier. The Nuremberg laws at the time of Nazi Germany or the Hutu documents during the Rwanda genocide were not the obvious gore and guts a public sees with war. Rather such inhumanity was neatly typed and printed, eloquently addressed and daringly promoted all in the name of national hygiene. In the case of Germany, being a Jew was considered “unclean.” And sanitation was the policy. For the Rwandan, those that married or employed a Tutsi woman were considered “traitors”. This change in language, and eventually change in law, involved no drops of blood and yet fell far below any grave. While the goal is for men to arise above mortalities portion, we also become capable of sinking way below its intended sphere.
In the name of efficiency society has corrupted language and public opinion, limiting the meaning of war and making it only a synonym for evil. But the poet knows better. For the poet; war is the dance of opposition, the crashing of juxtaposed waves, the very designator of good and evil. The famous General Clausewitz has coined war as “the continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz, 1873). If politics maintains its original purpose: to establish peace, to persuade men to the proper, the moral, war is no longer the atrocious animalistic practice modern context has esteemed it, but rather it’s the logical human attempt of survival. Survival not as the animals would define it, but the survival of what it means to be human, the perpetuation of not only a population but of a purpose.
Those who claim the believers of war to lack reverence for humanity have failed in their accusation. In reality those willing to wage war can be among the best believers in humanity. War is only animalistic if physical survival is the goal. In actuality it is those that fear death, and death itself who are the real animals, for their instincts are far from selfless and their reasoning farther from truth. The warrior that can see war as the “art” and “virtú” Machiavelli defines it to be is not concerned with the physical survival of their fleshy frame but the continuance of the civilized (The Prince 1513, p. 41). They fight for continuity of compassion, love, respect, freedom, and belief. “People thought Cesare Borgia was cruel, but that cruelty of his reorganized Romagna, united it, and established it in peace and loyalty. Anyone who views the matter realistically will see that this prince was much more merciful than the people of Florence, who to avoid the reputation of cruelty, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed” (The Prince 1513, p.45).
Not only are men willing to sacrifice their physical selves for war and die for peace but like Cesar Borgia, some men are willing to live for it. No doubt he was hated and his actions questioned, but he sacrificed his reputation for the preservation of his people, the very people that would abuse him and his methods. War therefore doesn’t build character, but it reveals it. The art and virtue of man is discovered in times of battle. Either man rises to the occasion as a leader, soldier or spectator or fails to see the art and virtue in war’s purposes. Some shrink at battles presence others bask in its glory but the wise make the necessary sacrifices and think themselves no more than that of a human being, doing what human beings ought to do.
Warring For Heaven
And thus we see war finds its validation in the gross crimes of evil men. It finds its necessity in the protection of the line of humanity, and it finds its art and virtue in man’s willingness to sacrifice. It is not in the winning that man finds his success, but in his right and willingness to stand for principles. The very warring against evil procures victory. Evil is a reality in this mortal existence, and because of that reality war finds its place. War is not a lesser evil, but is a noble attempt to rise beyond evil, to refute its ever lingering presence. When one is willing to confront evil, to name it as such, and repel its infiltration one has succeeded in his attempts to find meaning, to find purpose, and to find peace.
It is our human nature to desire our own personal Eden’s and while pacifist dream of worlds of just sky, there is something innate in us that yearns for identity and meaning that can only come in the preservation of the political. Religion will continue to be a cause for war, but only because men see its importance above life. And who is to question the necessity of religion if one places it above food and air. Society would do without the friction that accompanies Heaven and Hell, but that friction is our only way to know peace. True peace, the kind found within hearts and minds. Many in today’s world “would bleed just to know [their] alive,” but such a line suggests they were dead long before any loss of blood (Goo Goo Dolls 1998). It is this loss of meaning that threatens our society. This type of violence, this delusional definition of peace is the risk we are taking with the ridding of war.
War is the pulse of the right and the good. It proves good still exists, that we refuse evil’s rein. It proves that men will be missed if they die and will have even more to live for. When we come to understand the hellish experience of war, we come to know a heavenly state of peace. And our willingness to go through hell and back tells us what we think of our heaven. If we wish to find our own individual Eden’s- not just filled with sky, but blooming with purpose and possibilities we must be willing to acknowledge the reality of our mortal state. The opposition of mortality is real. We must be ready for the friction that will inevitable ensue. But even in our friction we will have a peace more real than any piercing of flesh. Therefore; God be thanked for hell if it grants me heaven and God solicit war if provides me peace.
Annotated Bibliography
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1513. The Prince. Edited and translated by Robert M. Adams. 1992. W.W. Norton and Company Inc.: New York.
The Prince shares the same basic argument that war is moral. The welfare of the whole is secured in the sometimes perceived cruel actions of the few. This is the basic argument of my paper. The realist is moral, and perhaps even more moral and selfless because their reputation as well as their very lives are at stake. I specifically cite Machaivelli’s example of Cesare Borgia, and how his ‘cruel” actions lead to a peaceful existence, while the people of Florence, in their self righteous peace allowed Pistoia to be destroyed. Machiavelli is my main source for this paper.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1519. The Art of War. Translated and Edited by Christopher Lynch. 2003. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
This work of Machiavelli’s is a lot more specific to war itself. It shows not only the justification for war but also wars necessity. I use Machiavelli’s metaphor of the palace without a roof to show the security that comes from the capabilities of war. It’s title The Art of War also alludes to the beauty of strategy, and sparked my argument for the poet’s understanding of war. Regardless about RMA (revolutions in military affairs) Machiavelli and I both believe “it is not impossible to bring the military back to its original modes and give it some form of virtue.” p. 4 This is one of my closing arguments.
Clausewitz, Carl Von. 1873. On War. Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham. N. Trubner: London.
I use his famous quote, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” While my paper focuses little on this specific piece of literature, the general ideas and principles are applied.
Walzer, Michael. 2006. Just and Unjust Wars. Basic Books: New York.
This book was one of the primary inspirations for my paper. I argue what Walzer says about the brutality of war, but the questions he poses about what is just and unjust are intriguing. I use his same thought provoking style in a general way and tried to look at war from a new perspective. He briefly addresses examples like the Nuremberg Laws of Germany and the incident in Rwanda, which I use in my paper. Most of my conceptions about these incidents; however, were for the most part already formed.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 2003. Just War Against Terror. Basic Book: New York.
Elshtain was able to give me a female perspective to why war is just. She addresses the uncertainty religion specifically grants security, but she does nothing to suggest its elimination. This gave me hope and allowed me to solidify my argument that Lennon’s suggested “religion free” world was out of the question. She also distinguishes between the Conqueror, Just Warrior, and Pacifist. While she defines the motives and procedures of each, she does little to argue for a specific type of citizen. However; the flaws defined in the conqueror and pacifist, allowed me to make some conclusions that neither type is preferred. I argue they are both morally wrong from inherently different sides of the spectrum. I use her classification, to argue for the Just Warrior, and further my own argument, that pacifism is just as evil as the conqueror. Furthermore; I allude to Hitler being a conqueror type and Lennon being the pacifist.
Ignatieff, Michael. 2004. The Lesser Evil. Penguin Group: Canada.
The title of this book sparked my question if war was always, even in mild forms evil. What he had to say about war’s escalation always leading to nihilism was also an argument I debated. I also looked at Nihilism in depth: its first definition states: “the total rejection of established laws and institutions.” Which in reality is Lennon’s idea of peace (the elimination of politics). In actuality, I turned Ignatieff’s argument around in favor of war.
Gilchrist, Brent. (year). Myth, Magic, and Murder. Unpulished Manuscript: Brigham Young University n.d.
I used this manuscript to site the methods Hitler used against the Jews. This was part of my argument that death is not dehumanizing and that it is rather the law that failed and procured the brutal, unjust results of Nazi Germany. War, in hindsight would have been the saving grace for the Jews.
Schmitt, Carl. 1996. The Concept of the Political. University of Chicago Press: Chicago
This was insightful in regards to defining “politics” and the friend- enemy distinction. The morality of politics is largely based on how politics are initially perceived, and enemy’s don’t have to be inherently evil to be enemies. This I will use to address additional counter arguments. While the book is interesting, it is based on an idea of relativism. I do like; however that one can argue the realist point with the liberal argument. I’m not sure exactly how I will use this book yet, but many of the concepts are related to my theme.
Jarecki, Eugene. Why We Fight (Sundance Film Festival: Sony Pictures, 2005).
This I don’t use specifically as a source. But its general concepts and idea are applied.
The Traitors of our Hearts
By: McKell Myers
This morning I woke up. I got dressed and looked in the mirror. I wish I could say that I had liked what I had seen, but instead of the glamour…the beauty…the look of “unstoppable” written on a thin vibrant face, I saw me. The me that was there yesterday and that will no doubt be there tomorrow. The me that I regularly fought with and cried with. The me that had looked in that mirror on several occasions and had thought the words: ugly, fat, scared, dumb, unwanted. In that moment, I realized the enemy of my gender, the enemy of my soul, my happiness and success, was that same face looking back at me in the mirror. I was the villain and the victim, and my life would always foster that irony if I continued to let it.
Might I make a suggestion? Before we blame the kings and principalities, the tyrants and terrors of the world for the invisibility of God’s daughters, might we first consider the girl looking in the mirror? The girl allowing doubt and the frustrations of her time to weigh on her countenance and potential. The girl thinking that a choice had to be made between her dreams and goals. The girl knowing “her place” and feeling guilty for being unhappy with the cards her female heritage had dealt her. In essence, the girl that had forgotten who she was.
As I have pondered my own great destiny I have been conflicted with this idea of “choosing”; choosing between my life’s goal of creating and making a difference in society by way of some profession or another, and my eternal goals of having a family, of being a wife and mother. This struggle has weighed heavily on my mind, and beaten on my heart for several years now. In light of humbling events, personal prayer, and the words of a dear teacher I have come to some realizations. First, it wasn’t Mormon culture that made me want to be a mother. That desire was the most natural of instincts and most undisputable of decisions I have ever made. It was something that had been decided in me long before “beehives” and “miamaids”. Second, my desires to create and give the world some form of joy or truth by way of a profession wasn’t the influence of societal feminism but rather, also instinctive… dare I say, even God given.
For so long I thought these choices were waging war on one another; that I had one foot in God’s kingdom and one still in Babylon. Somewhere along the line I had forgotten that both desires had room in my heart and plan. One life pursuit wasn’t authored by the Church, and another authored by the world. Rather they were both written for me by a loving Heavenly Father who through a righteous Patriarch had made them known. The Holy Ghost was also my friend in confirming the goodness of these desires, and distilling the peace necessary to see the harmony of my future public and private life. These desires are both of eternal significance and are a part of my plan…the plan the Lord has specifically designed for me.
When daughters of God solely wish to do the Lord’s bidding there is no balancing act. There is no choosing, picking sides, or inner conflict. All her desires are good, and perhaps in performing one, she will be able to better fulfill the other. There is no room for apology, or justification. The Lord has spoken and that is enough. We will always be invisible to the rest of the world, if we first don’t wish to see ourselves. If we don’t let the guilt procured by our culture go, and fear the heavier guilt and Godly sorry that comes from living below our potential. How dare I wish for the girl in the mirror to disappear, to even consider getting back in bed and taking the easy road of life? How dare I believe that my Father in Heaven would instill in me desires and goals of which were conflicting in means and divulging in ends? Why would He give me personal commandments if He was not to aid my efforts and make it possible for me to accomplish them?
If our intent is to further the Lords work and prove ourselves, not to the world, not to men, but to Him…women have every reason to participate in the professional realm. If our desires are His, and our ambitions of a worthy cause, we have the right to look in the mirror and say as Moses did: “Get thee hence, Satan, deceive me not; for God said unto me; Thou art made after the similitude of mine Only begotten. And he also gave me commandments when he called unto me,” and I have every intention of delivering his people out of bondage. (Moses 1:16-17).
The freedom of a nation was contingent on Moses realizing who he was. In modern times we have dictators just as evil as the pharos of Egypt. Additionally, injustices against women specifically include Human Trafficking, Child Brides and young pregnancy, Female Genital Mutilation, the killing of new born daughters, and the educational oppression and torture of women. The children corresponding to such issues are also in need of deliverance. I recognize that this oppression and fallen patriarchy is oft times sickening and dark. Yet to do nothing would be to betray our sisters across the globe that do not have the luxury of turning from these realities and sharing in our ignorance.
LDS women are among the most qualified to see the needs of these damaged spirits. In light of the restored gospel not only do we spread the message of peace and goodwill through the raising of our children, but in the public spheres we qualify ourselves to enter. While culture may say: stay home, the title of Relief Society alone contradicts that message. The purity associated with women does not exist on account of pretending such realities don’t exist, but rather such purity is based in our knowledge and application of the Atonement… in our ability to see ourselves in the similitude of the Savior; to be His hands and voice for the hungry, naked, and afflicted (Matt 25:35-40). By turning our backs and covering the eyes of our children we betray them and the lessons we’ve tried to teach them. Hypocrisy clouds our divinely female heirship and covenants we made to bear one another’s burdens are broken (Mosiah 18: 8-10).
As I mentioned in my initial paper; women ought to interfere in political matters if only to make themselves visible to the governments of which they belong to. How? By taking their female instincts and looking outward. In this perspective, resume building has never been so selfless. Getting an education also becomes vital. How are we to help in matters of grave importance if we can’t recognize a wound or diagnose the damsel? However, it doesn’t end with a degree; for “intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings” (Burton, 2009). Therefore, women ought to participate in the public and professional world. While spheres of influence will be specific for each woman, and the degree of involvement between them and the Lord, city councils, national governments, ambassadors, teachers, and doctors need to consist of both men and women, their needs as well as contributions will forever remain invisible if they don’t take their place alongside men in these pursuits.
The injustices that have for so long plagued Egypt and the world at large are dependent on God’s chosen to be who they were meant to be. The Lord prepared Moses before He withdrew, and I believe the Lord did the same with us. He reminded us again and again who we were before we came to earth. While Satan would have us forget, or distract us from our real mission, we must remember and echo the Lord’s loving voice to His other children. The fallen patriarchy the world has known, the pride, vanity, and degradation of women is simply the voice of Satan. He is belittling God’s daughters by making God’s sons after his own unglorified image, and having them speak the same fallen admonition of “worship me”(Moses 1:12). “Indeed, what Satan substitutes is a patriarchy based on fallen values of power and control and pride” (Hudson 2004, 165).
The cultural traditions that twist eternal truths and prohibit women from fulfilling their personal admonitions from the Lord are authored by the Father of Lies. “Therefore; wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto him that crieth: all is well! (2 Nephi 28: 24-25). The perversions of which we witness aren’t from the patriarchal blessing we receive from the hands and voices of the Lords anointed, but rather from the wolves in sheep’s clothing that have intentionally or unintentionally adopted Satan’s role in the story found in Moses 1. While the priesthood will be held accountable for any practices of Fallen Patriarchy, women of the Church will also answer before the Lord for the “discharge of their obligations” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World).
Talents and abilities are unique in each woman, because each woman has a part to play in God’s plan. The bearing and raising of children is the most noble and rewarding role we may fulfill but our stewardship and contributions do not end there. They are the stepping stones for which we are able to nurture and care for all of God’s children. This covenant we also made and must keep for Exaltation. As I have pondered on the abilities the Lord has given me, I have been tempted at times to silence the voice in my head that says: “this is good, but there is more to be done.” How easy it is to hide behind cultural traditions and claim them as gospel principles; to wish for only a marriage out of my BYU experience rather than a degree and potentially demanding profession. However, the more I learn of my Savior and the more I become like Him, the more I want to help carry His heavy load. Becoming aware of the bondage my gender specifically experiences awakens me to action.
I will have a profession. Not for temporal gains, or recognition from the men in my life that said I couldn’t, but because the Lord has asked me to. I’m at peace with this because the Lord and I both know I want to be a mother above all else. I think He knows that He can trust me with other pursuits because I will never be deterred from my most fundamental female desire.
I looked in the mirror this morning, and had my doubts and disappointments, but then I got dressed, I got in the car and headed to Salt Lake for a conference meeting, a meeting consisting of all men with the exception of myself. This was a meeting for an organization in which I serve as the Executive Director of the Utah Federation of College Republicans. Not only did I identify my feminine qualities with needs the organization lacked, but I made notes as to how my gender would best support and aid in future political involvement. More importantly, the girl in the mirror realized that mirrors were overrated.
I am uncertain as to the specific profession the Lord has in store for me. But I am no longer afraid to consider the possibilities and desires found within my heart. Perhaps we can have everything, did not God promise us all that He has? I’m pretty sure that includes children as well as opportunities to create, lead, inspire, and be known to the world. The visibility of women begins in the mirror. It begins in the hearts of women who sustain the Lord’s Patriarchal Order and accepts the reflection of the Savior found in their countenances. As we are educated and exposed to the cruelties of a fallen world we will better be able to succor the needs of God’s children and fight against the injustices.
The value of each woman goes beyond the bearing and raising of children. If my mother’s primary mission was to help me in developing, I have to believe that the meaning of my life and the meaning of my mother’s efforts were for a grandeur purpose than the simple perpetuation of a population. Motherhood is the perpetuating of all things human, beautiful, and good. We know the Lord loves us, not just because He grants us air to breath and food to eat, but because He also planted flowers and painted sunsets. In Him becoming all that He is, we have the opportunity to do likewise. Mothers pack those Cheerio snacks and tuck your children into bed, for our souls are saved in these very acts. But when your children dream, and they will, let it be because they had mothers who showed them how.
William Shakespeare once said: “our doubts make us traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” The Lord wants us arriving at His judgment bar with worn hands and bloody knees, minds full of wisdom and experiences, and hearts overflowing with love and compassion. In order for the homemaker to understand her potential as a maker of worlds she must no doubt step from the safety of her kitchen, garden, or sewing room and walk among her brothers as an equal and a contributor. Women of faith aren’t fearful in attempting greatness or doing great things, in fact they seek such opportunities…but only to glory in their God.
While the realities of oppression are all around us and the world will no doubt have to answer for such crimes, women must become their own best advocates. Hatred against women is too often harbored in the female heart. The limitations and weakness the world associates with femininity tempts us to despise and betray those very qualities within us that would set us free. Through education, resume building, and preparing for professions, we make ourselves accessible to the Lord for his work and glory. While much of the qualifications and hoops we jump through are of a mortal making, doing so will demand the attention necessary to be influential as a representative of our gender. We must forgo the cookie cutter mother syndrome. We must trade in the perfectly manicured nails and trips to the mall for some heavy lifting and demanding work. Mothers who are at ease in Zion may hide behind the crafts or pot luck dinners but women of faith hear the cries of all God’s children. In their fearless attempts to dry the eyes of nations, to perpetuate love not just life, they become the kind of mothers the Lord intended them to be.
REFERENCES
Burton, David H.2009.These are the Times. Devotional given on December 1 at Brigham Young University.
Hudson, Valerie, and Alma Don Sorensen. 2004. Women in eternity women of Zion. Cedar Fort Inc.
The Family: a Proclamation to the World. 1995. The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Moses 1
Matthew 25: 35-40
Mosiah 18: 8-10
2 Nephi 28: 24-25
This morning I woke up. I got dressed and looked in the mirror. I wish I could say that I had liked what I had seen, but instead of the glamour…the beauty…the look of “unstoppable” written on a thin vibrant face, I saw me. The me that was there yesterday and that will no doubt be there tomorrow. The me that I regularly fought with and cried with. The me that had looked in that mirror on several occasions and had thought the words: ugly, fat, scared, dumb, unwanted. In that moment, I realized the enemy of my gender, the enemy of my soul, my happiness and success, was that same face looking back at me in the mirror. I was the villain and the victim, and my life would always foster that irony if I continued to let it.
Might I make a suggestion? Before we blame the kings and principalities, the tyrants and terrors of the world for the invisibility of God’s daughters, might we first consider the girl looking in the mirror? The girl allowing doubt and the frustrations of her time to weigh on her countenance and potential. The girl thinking that a choice had to be made between her dreams and goals. The girl knowing “her place” and feeling guilty for being unhappy with the cards her female heritage had dealt her. In essence, the girl that had forgotten who she was.
As I have pondered my own great destiny I have been conflicted with this idea of “choosing”; choosing between my life’s goal of creating and making a difference in society by way of some profession or another, and my eternal goals of having a family, of being a wife and mother. This struggle has weighed heavily on my mind, and beaten on my heart for several years now. In light of humbling events, personal prayer, and the words of a dear teacher I have come to some realizations. First, it wasn’t Mormon culture that made me want to be a mother. That desire was the most natural of instincts and most undisputable of decisions I have ever made. It was something that had been decided in me long before “beehives” and “miamaids”. Second, my desires to create and give the world some form of joy or truth by way of a profession wasn’t the influence of societal feminism but rather, also instinctive… dare I say, even God given.
For so long I thought these choices were waging war on one another; that I had one foot in God’s kingdom and one still in Babylon. Somewhere along the line I had forgotten that both desires had room in my heart and plan. One life pursuit wasn’t authored by the Church, and another authored by the world. Rather they were both written for me by a loving Heavenly Father who through a righteous Patriarch had made them known. The Holy Ghost was also my friend in confirming the goodness of these desires, and distilling the peace necessary to see the harmony of my future public and private life. These desires are both of eternal significance and are a part of my plan…the plan the Lord has specifically designed for me.
When daughters of God solely wish to do the Lord’s bidding there is no balancing act. There is no choosing, picking sides, or inner conflict. All her desires are good, and perhaps in performing one, she will be able to better fulfill the other. There is no room for apology, or justification. The Lord has spoken and that is enough. We will always be invisible to the rest of the world, if we first don’t wish to see ourselves. If we don’t let the guilt procured by our culture go, and fear the heavier guilt and Godly sorry that comes from living below our potential. How dare I wish for the girl in the mirror to disappear, to even consider getting back in bed and taking the easy road of life? How dare I believe that my Father in Heaven would instill in me desires and goals of which were conflicting in means and divulging in ends? Why would He give me personal commandments if He was not to aid my efforts and make it possible for me to accomplish them?
If our intent is to further the Lords work and prove ourselves, not to the world, not to men, but to Him…women have every reason to participate in the professional realm. If our desires are His, and our ambitions of a worthy cause, we have the right to look in the mirror and say as Moses did: “Get thee hence, Satan, deceive me not; for God said unto me; Thou art made after the similitude of mine Only begotten. And he also gave me commandments when he called unto me,” and I have every intention of delivering his people out of bondage. (Moses 1:16-17).
The freedom of a nation was contingent on Moses realizing who he was. In modern times we have dictators just as evil as the pharos of Egypt. Additionally, injustices against women specifically include Human Trafficking, Child Brides and young pregnancy, Female Genital Mutilation, the killing of new born daughters, and the educational oppression and torture of women. The children corresponding to such issues are also in need of deliverance. I recognize that this oppression and fallen patriarchy is oft times sickening and dark. Yet to do nothing would be to betray our sisters across the globe that do not have the luxury of turning from these realities and sharing in our ignorance.
LDS women are among the most qualified to see the needs of these damaged spirits. In light of the restored gospel not only do we spread the message of peace and goodwill through the raising of our children, but in the public spheres we qualify ourselves to enter. While culture may say: stay home, the title of Relief Society alone contradicts that message. The purity associated with women does not exist on account of pretending such realities don’t exist, but rather such purity is based in our knowledge and application of the Atonement… in our ability to see ourselves in the similitude of the Savior; to be His hands and voice for the hungry, naked, and afflicted (Matt 25:35-40). By turning our backs and covering the eyes of our children we betray them and the lessons we’ve tried to teach them. Hypocrisy clouds our divinely female heirship and covenants we made to bear one another’s burdens are broken (Mosiah 18: 8-10).
As I mentioned in my initial paper; women ought to interfere in political matters if only to make themselves visible to the governments of which they belong to. How? By taking their female instincts and looking outward. In this perspective, resume building has never been so selfless. Getting an education also becomes vital. How are we to help in matters of grave importance if we can’t recognize a wound or diagnose the damsel? However, it doesn’t end with a degree; for “intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings” (Burton, 2009). Therefore, women ought to participate in the public and professional world. While spheres of influence will be specific for each woman, and the degree of involvement between them and the Lord, city councils, national governments, ambassadors, teachers, and doctors need to consist of both men and women, their needs as well as contributions will forever remain invisible if they don’t take their place alongside men in these pursuits.
The injustices that have for so long plagued Egypt and the world at large are dependent on God’s chosen to be who they were meant to be. The Lord prepared Moses before He withdrew, and I believe the Lord did the same with us. He reminded us again and again who we were before we came to earth. While Satan would have us forget, or distract us from our real mission, we must remember and echo the Lord’s loving voice to His other children. The fallen patriarchy the world has known, the pride, vanity, and degradation of women is simply the voice of Satan. He is belittling God’s daughters by making God’s sons after his own unglorified image, and having them speak the same fallen admonition of “worship me”(Moses 1:12). “Indeed, what Satan substitutes is a patriarchy based on fallen values of power and control and pride” (Hudson 2004, 165).
The cultural traditions that twist eternal truths and prohibit women from fulfilling their personal admonitions from the Lord are authored by the Father of Lies. “Therefore; wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto him that crieth: all is well! (2 Nephi 28: 24-25). The perversions of which we witness aren’t from the patriarchal blessing we receive from the hands and voices of the Lords anointed, but rather from the wolves in sheep’s clothing that have intentionally or unintentionally adopted Satan’s role in the story found in Moses 1. While the priesthood will be held accountable for any practices of Fallen Patriarchy, women of the Church will also answer before the Lord for the “discharge of their obligations” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World).
Talents and abilities are unique in each woman, because each woman has a part to play in God’s plan. The bearing and raising of children is the most noble and rewarding role we may fulfill but our stewardship and contributions do not end there. They are the stepping stones for which we are able to nurture and care for all of God’s children. This covenant we also made and must keep for Exaltation. As I have pondered on the abilities the Lord has given me, I have been tempted at times to silence the voice in my head that says: “this is good, but there is more to be done.” How easy it is to hide behind cultural traditions and claim them as gospel principles; to wish for only a marriage out of my BYU experience rather than a degree and potentially demanding profession. However, the more I learn of my Savior and the more I become like Him, the more I want to help carry His heavy load. Becoming aware of the bondage my gender specifically experiences awakens me to action.
I will have a profession. Not for temporal gains, or recognition from the men in my life that said I couldn’t, but because the Lord has asked me to. I’m at peace with this because the Lord and I both know I want to be a mother above all else. I think He knows that He can trust me with other pursuits because I will never be deterred from my most fundamental female desire.
I looked in the mirror this morning, and had my doubts and disappointments, but then I got dressed, I got in the car and headed to Salt Lake for a conference meeting, a meeting consisting of all men with the exception of myself. This was a meeting for an organization in which I serve as the Executive Director of the Utah Federation of College Republicans. Not only did I identify my feminine qualities with needs the organization lacked, but I made notes as to how my gender would best support and aid in future political involvement. More importantly, the girl in the mirror realized that mirrors were overrated.
I am uncertain as to the specific profession the Lord has in store for me. But I am no longer afraid to consider the possibilities and desires found within my heart. Perhaps we can have everything, did not God promise us all that He has? I’m pretty sure that includes children as well as opportunities to create, lead, inspire, and be known to the world. The visibility of women begins in the mirror. It begins in the hearts of women who sustain the Lord’s Patriarchal Order and accepts the reflection of the Savior found in their countenances. As we are educated and exposed to the cruelties of a fallen world we will better be able to succor the needs of God’s children and fight against the injustices.
The value of each woman goes beyond the bearing and raising of children. If my mother’s primary mission was to help me in developing, I have to believe that the meaning of my life and the meaning of my mother’s efforts were for a grandeur purpose than the simple perpetuation of a population. Motherhood is the perpetuating of all things human, beautiful, and good. We know the Lord loves us, not just because He grants us air to breath and food to eat, but because He also planted flowers and painted sunsets. In Him becoming all that He is, we have the opportunity to do likewise. Mothers pack those Cheerio snacks and tuck your children into bed, for our souls are saved in these very acts. But when your children dream, and they will, let it be because they had mothers who showed them how.
William Shakespeare once said: “our doubts make us traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” The Lord wants us arriving at His judgment bar with worn hands and bloody knees, minds full of wisdom and experiences, and hearts overflowing with love and compassion. In order for the homemaker to understand her potential as a maker of worlds she must no doubt step from the safety of her kitchen, garden, or sewing room and walk among her brothers as an equal and a contributor. Women of faith aren’t fearful in attempting greatness or doing great things, in fact they seek such opportunities…but only to glory in their God.
While the realities of oppression are all around us and the world will no doubt have to answer for such crimes, women must become their own best advocates. Hatred against women is too often harbored in the female heart. The limitations and weakness the world associates with femininity tempts us to despise and betray those very qualities within us that would set us free. Through education, resume building, and preparing for professions, we make ourselves accessible to the Lord for his work and glory. While much of the qualifications and hoops we jump through are of a mortal making, doing so will demand the attention necessary to be influential as a representative of our gender. We must forgo the cookie cutter mother syndrome. We must trade in the perfectly manicured nails and trips to the mall for some heavy lifting and demanding work. Mothers who are at ease in Zion may hide behind the crafts or pot luck dinners but women of faith hear the cries of all God’s children. In their fearless attempts to dry the eyes of nations, to perpetuate love not just life, they become the kind of mothers the Lord intended them to be.
REFERENCES
Burton, David H.2009.These are the Times. Devotional given on December 1 at Brigham Young University.
Hudson, Valerie, and Alma Don Sorensen. 2004. Women in eternity women of Zion. Cedar Fort Inc.
The Family: a Proclamation to the World. 1995. The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Moses 1
Matthew 25: 35-40
Mosiah 18: 8-10
2 Nephi 28: 24-25
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