Why War?

Proof of concept

Stephanie Corzo

Name of assignment: Why war?

Date: October 28, 2016

Dear Mr. Einstein and Mr. Freud:

        I admire both of your works, and not only on the areas where you are famously known, but also for taking the time to think and discuss about this topic that concerns us all. Since I was introduced to the term of “war”, I felt great curiosity of it. Let me explain it…

The World War I, World War II, Civil War, a war between neighbors, a war between family members, where does all this war comes from? I, of course, do not have all the scientific, philosophical and psychological knowledge that you have; therefore, my discussion does not have the same deepness as yours. That being said, I believe that the root of the problem is the war with oneself, and the solution is found in oneself as well.

Humans are all different to each other, and even with that uniqueness, we have managed to survive through thousands of years, we have managed to form couples, families, communities, societies and civilizations. War has been on the way; however, it has not completely terminated the future. War has interrupted and affected the path, but it has not triumph over humanity.

On the reasons of why war starts, I believe the intrinsic and most deep reason can be found on the person itself^[a], and this can be exemplified on several ways^[b], but I’m sure you can imagine it. On the most trivial example, two kids wanting the same candy could start a war with each other; however, if one of those kids or both decide to choose another one or just quit to the desire of wanting the candy, the problem would be solved and war would be avoided. The detail with this, is that to solve the problem, both of the kids most think and use their reasoning to evaluate what is worth the most, start a war with the chance of having the candy and also not having the candy, or simply, save the efforts and consciously quit to having the candy.

To be clear and make sure that you understand what I’m trying to express, the thesis that I want to expose is that a war or the war, is caused when humans do not use their human’s capacities and abilities, it is caused by the superficiality of reasoning and thinking what leads us to commit crimes and evil acts.^[c] If indeed, every person used all his or her human capacities, there would be no need of discussing this topic through this letters, because war would not even exist.

Freud discussed that humans have an innate instinct to behave aggressively. Until certain point, I do agree with your point of view. It is not that humans have an innate instinct to behave aggressively, the innate instinct is to protect themselves and what (or whom) they love, and sometimes, the easiest and quickest way they found to do it is by behaving aggressively, because they didn’t put too much thought into it, that’s why it is called an instinct^[d].