What causes wars
Today I was sitting outside a café musing on the causes of war, my thoughts fixed on the following sentences by Herbert Butterfield:
One can hardly fail to recognise the element of tragedy in many conflicts that take place between one half-right [person or group] that is perhaps too willful, and another half-right that is perhaps too proud. It is even possible that great wars should come about because idealists are too egotistical concerning their own plans of salvation for mankind, and because the self-righteous are stiff-necked (Christianity and History. p. 88).
I looked up and saw a late middle-aged man walking past. Well-tanned, sparsely whiskered, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, he carried a back-pack the ‘wrong’ way, so it bulged in front of his chest. I caught his eyes and smiled. He took this as an invitation:
“I never drink at this café,” he bellowed.
Pointing at the sign overhead, “Until they tell me what that crap Exomod [name of café] means, I never drink their coffee. Stupid.”
I said nothing and tried to look pleasant: he had a point about the name Exomod, but I didn’t want to encourage him.
“I have money in
I went back to Butterfield, mindful of my strange object lesson in what causes wars.
Labels: books and writing, miscellaneous
posted by Sauntering Walker at 12:11 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Chris. Interesting story. Who says reading in cafés can leave you detached from reality?
I've often wondered if most arguments aren't sustained by what each side rightly perceives to be wrong in the other. Being proud and willful, I find it a lot easier to focus on where others are truly wrong than on listening for the truth in my opponents words. Arguments become all about ego, with only a pretense of truth-seeking. I think this is why dichotomies are so attractive - as if understanding someone else to be wrong was the same thing as being right.
Hi Dave: yes, great thoughts; I agree entirely.
The tear-down-your-opponent's-argument approach often seems to prevail in academic discourse. I'm always attracted to thinkers who acknowledge the strengths of others' positions (sincerely, and not merely as a precursor to a hatchet job).
I think it was the theologian T. F. Torrance who said - and I'm sure he's not the only one who's said it - that piety and humility necessarily accompany Christian truth. (See the early chapters of The Trinitarian Faith, if you're interested.)
Hi, Im from Melbourne.
Please check out these related references on the origins & consequences of war.
1. www.coteda.com
2. www.ispeace723.org
hey chris,
i read parts of John Dickson's "A Spectator's Guide to World Religions" when i was doing an assignment on Hinduism, and it really struck me how self-consciously generous he was towards the belief systems he was critiquing; he was committed to be honest about the attractiveness and wisdom that can be found in religions other than his own, rather than only focusing on their failings.
he said something along the lines of your quote from T. F. Torrance - basically that he knew if he were to represent Christ and the Christian faith fairly, he had to examine the other faiths in the best light - just as he would want others to do when looking at Christianity. that being his ethical motivation for such an approach, his rational motivation seemed to be that if Christianity is indeed true, the truth of it should shine out obviously without him having to "tear down its opponents".
i was very impressed, i don't know that i would have been capable of giving such an even and fair critique. of course, it's only right that our perspectives are coloured by our beliefs about what is true, but it's so hard to make sure we're still being fair and logical.
have you read any of his books?
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