There is a Meme.

[merlinofchaos]

It goes something like this:

Someone posts that they want to create a Meme, and that meme would be a wish for peace. And the author requests that everyone link to this post with the phrase "I wish for peace."

There is no message at the link.

No noble rhetoric about what peace means.

No ideology about how to achieve peace.

No honest talk about the horror that is war.

Only the naive and ignorant wish for something as ephemeral as peace alone.

But peace is impossible in human history. There is no peace as long as there is freedom. Because there are always people who succumb to the forces of greed. The desire for money, the desire for power. The debasing, internal need to be better than someone else. And, if they manage that, then the debasing, internal desire to be better than everyone else. To know that I'm right, you're wrong. To know that my ideology is right and your ideology is wrong. For these people, it really is us vs them.

And in times of peace, these people float to the top and destabilize things.

Peace is a noble, important cause. I too wish for peace. But I feel it's important to understand what peace means and what peace costs.

Peace is not cheap. Peace is not easy. Peace is not free. And peace, no matter how hard you wish, will not happen by wishing.

To quote a popular science fiction television show, "Sometimes peace is just another word for surrender."

Comments

[mallen.livejournal.com]

IMO, the reason we do not have peace is because we are not dealing with reasonable men of good faith. To me there is a qualified difference between the absence of armed conflict and peace.

[tyee.livejournal.com]

It's not naive and ignorant to wish for peace in the absence of a plan to preserve it. It would be naive and ignorant to *expect* peace.

Peace is expensive. War is generally more expensive. When things are sufficiently destabilized such that peace is more expensive (morally or monetarily or some combination thereof), war is necessary. Still tragic, still horrifying, but necessary.

I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet. So for now, I wish for peace.

[chrysoula.livejournal.com]

I saw that meme. I thought about wishing for peace. I do wish for peace. But the peace I wish for isn't 'Americans not fighting wars'. It's real peace. It's not something even remotely achievable right now. Even if America sits and does peaceful things instead of fighting... that doesn't mean there's peace in the world. It just means America doesn't have to feel guilty about war.

So I didn't post a wish for peace. Because given the timing, what that meme means is 'I wish America wouldn't go to war.' and I don't think that's the right definition of peace.

So.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

Is a wish an emotion? If so I wonder if it's fair to classify it as ignorant or not. Oh well, ad hominem for spicing the dish to taste. (Of course "ad hominem" is one way to respond to an emotional-yet-content-free argument "in kind" so to speak.)

Anyway, as I said on my page, I responded to the meme, not because it was chock-full of good ideas. It was almost idea-free, so if that gets it classified as naive and ignorant, I'll go along with that I guess. Usually I don't respond well to "Hey let's all link to something for the sake of doing it" for much the same reason I don't respond well to "What kind of ___ are you?" quizzes (which are basically ads). So I completely understand what you are saying here, ad hominem or no. But in this case I chose to go along with the madding crowd because:
1. I strongly believe Bush is a thug
2. I actually went to the time to write my own thoughts a while ago (as I know you did as well) so it's not just a Me Too, I have writing to back it up.
3. Sometimes it just feels good to know that I am not alone in what I am thinking and feeling, and whether this "feels good" aspect is an intellectually "worthy" pursuit is not of great concern to me.

[merlinofchaos]

There are a great number of people who have posted this meme, but have also included their reasons for it.

I respect this.

Part of my problem was that I see entirely too many people jumping on a bandwagon. Bandwagons are bandwagons, whether they are liberal, conservative, or otherwise. The meme itself was starting to bother me, because it felt, to me, that it had no point except to spread ignorance.

I apologize for the ad hominem that was present in the post. I should have found a better way to say what I meant without resorting to a tactic I dislike.

I guess the point is that people who have opinions but don't really understand their opinions are not actually doing anything. And in this era of media saturation, where we are bombarded by the minute with messages with a lot of flash and very little substance, it is even more important for people to look below the surface and see what something really means.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Totally.

I think having an opinion (especially a strong opinion) without being able to articulate it or even understand/observe it is close enough to an emotional reaction as to be equally irresponsible (if acted out). To me there is a difference between expressing a feeling and trying to "convince" or "persuade" others to feel with you... and the meme is borderline.

I guess that is why emotional arguments work so well... because people are basically animals :)