Original article: https://archive.ph/au7R9
Against Barbarism (Abridged)
By Eliot A. Cohen
Edited by TheStupidPrizeWinner
There is a place for geopolitical and strategic analysis of Israel’s war with Hamas and its allies and associates, but such discussion will miss an essential element of this war, a conflict that is not solely, or even primarily, about politics or desperately conceived purpose. It is about barbarism.
Barbarians fight because they enjoy violence. They do not only kill and maim—the armies of civilized states do that all the time—but go out of their way to inflict pain, to torture, to rape, and above all to humiliate. They exult in their enemies’ suffering.
Occasionally, they seize hold of a whole society, and instill their doctrines in a cowed population, converting some and terrifying others into passivity. Then they are truly dangerous. But underneath the reveling in their power to hurt lies the real secret of barbarians: They are insecure.
Barbarians live for grievance—grievance against those who they believe have wronged them, but also against those who enjoy the good things in life. That is why they enjoy wrecking homes and kidnapping children and raping women. They dream of an unrealizable utopia, in which their nation dominates the Earth, or their religion extirpates all others, or their enemies grovel for a mercy they will never grant.
Civilization is built and protected by many forces—law, religion, habit, philosophy. It is not impregnable, and can be undermined from within. The challenges sometimes take mild forms, like flash mobs looting and burning a luxury store. The challenges can take more violent forms as well, as murderous gang violence motivated by greed or ideology.
Civilization can also be undermined in another way. If you do not believe in civilization or simply are unwilling to fight for it, you construct philosophical systems to appease what remains of your conscience and denigrate those who shame you by their courage. Opportunists in civilized countries flatter barbarians and make deals with them when they look strong. And why not, if you do not believe in the values upon which civilization is built?
The reality is that barbarians have attacked the margins and in some cases—as on 9/11—the core of the civilized world. We need to shake ourselves loose of the notion that these are completely distinct and limited phenomena. They are not. All of us are in the fight of our lives, and it is about time we recognized that, and acted with the vigor and courage the times demand.
TL;DR I took an Atlantic article and cut away much of the excess to turn it into a generalized call to action against "barbarians" (whomever the reader would define as such). I believe this is what some would call "suberverting expectations", but I will leave it to you to judge if "that's a good thing".
There is a simple way to beat barbarism, it's done many times in history and it usually breaks it. Cold, ruthless force.
As mentioned, barbarism works off emotion more specifically humiliation. If they attack you in such a way and you respond by immediately destroying their homeland with superior force, no propaganda, no response just turning their homes to ash that usually breaks them. It makes it seems like myths of old when an arrogant human provokes an old power to cause the destruction of everything they've known.
You make it seem like a force of nature, an automatic response and the force responsible for the attack will be spat on as the cause of their downfall. Ironically, a historical event that comes close to this was the Jewish diaspora under Roman Emperor Hadrian which caused Palestine to exist in the first place.
In other words: Judea Deleda Est
I agree that could ruthless force is the best way forward when dealing with barbarians. The orginal article has a call to arms for the"remains of the civilized world", which I cut as it was pointed directly at the US and other first world nations to sacrifice their manpower and material for the cause, with the not so subtle implication that, to misquote a certain old man, "if you don't help Israel, you ain't civilized." Bluntly put, fuck the original author. The sovereign nations are allowed to sit on their hands if they want. That said, glassing most if not all of the Middle East seems like a very easy, very final way to end this centuries old conflict and prevent any new ones from arising, but I use this moniker for a reason, so have probably missed something.
Your interpretation of barbarism as a force of nature is interesting. In the full article, the author has the following line:
I removed it as I felt it was overly emotional and excessive, especially the nightmares part, but brutality is a part of human nature, and barbarism is brutal.
By historical event, do you mean the Kitos War (115-117) or the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136). Both were during the time of Hadrian, and one led to another, though the ban on Jews in Jerusalem was part of the second.
I was referring to the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Romans were very good at 'salting the earth' tactics...
It's just a war over land, bro. It's not that deep.
It ceases to be "over the years" when it's been fourteen centuries without cease or variance. 1400 years they have been assaulting anything that even vaguely resembles a civilized society across the entire planet. They are less an organized religion than a plague.
It's not about fundamental or not. It's about whether any part of it has merit. It doesn't. It's evil start to finish and it ought to have been wiped out long ago. The sole reason it hasn't is that the miserable sub race that practices islam lives in the least desirable place on the planet that isn't Antarctica.
Get back to me when most of the muslim world denounces the rapes/murders/etc that happen. They never will, because they support it, just not openly.