In the book of Matthew we read, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” I know most evangelicals read that as a prophesy about the coming apocalypse and rapture, and l suspect the scribes and perhaps even Yeshua himself may have meant it that way, but I’m going to choose an alternate interpretation.
Our species, proud and reckless apes that we are, have been facing wars and rumors of war since that first brother murdered 20% of the human race. We more modern and civilized apes have never come close, tho not for trying. In the global wars of the 20th century we managed a staggering ~100 million slaughtered, nothing compared to Cain’s, but still a whopping 5% of humanity! That’s a high water mark of carnage and dismal stat, worthy of despair, but it also marks another high water mark as the beginning of the most peaceful and productive century or our Sapien’s million year reign. For all that bloodshed, we are also, indeed, Sapien, that is: wise. Every challenge we have faced we have surmounted, we have always used lessons from cataclysms to iterate our priors, and reduce their future likelihood. This is almost the definition of cognition. Stuff happens, we adapt.
George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during WW2, and the principal architect of the allies’ victory, understood that, after WW1, the Treaty of Versailles had been so vindictive and had so humiliated and harmed the German people that it had made a second world war almost inevitable. In a strategy unknown in the long history of human warfare, rather than plunder and collect spoils, Marshall’s plan proposed the reverse: funneling a huge percentage of the victor’s wealth back into the recovery of the vanquished peoples. Vindicating this gamble, Germany and Japan, once our vicious opponents, became our most stalwart allies and two of the most successful economies on earth. Marshall was the first and only military man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and deservedly so – nowhere has positive sum game theory been so powerfully confirmed.
Following the atomic cataclysm that ended that war, in a spasm of warfare many hoped could end all warfare, another paradox arose in the wake of the horror and sorrow, the bizarre framework of Mutually Assured Destruction. However MAD it may be, it has, perhaps miraculously, prevented the global nuclear inferno so many wise analysts feared was probably inevitable in the final years of the 20th century.
Whether our short memories will allow these amazing triumphs to continue through the rest of this century is yet to be seen, but these lessons about global cooperation have managed to inform other realms. I personally witnessed the astonishing feat of hundreds of delegates from every corner of the earth coming together in Paris in 2015 to write and ratify the IPCC’s COP21 treaty, legally binding on virtually every one of the billions of humans residing on this fragile planet. For all the noisy naysayers on every side, a comprehensive global community did come together to mitigate the climate effects of greenhouse gas emissions. However imperfect, it is unquestionably unprecedented. The scale and unity of each of these global agreements dwarfs every cooperative effort ever made by our feckless family.
I know most of you respond to my hopefulness with deep doubt. You see global catastrophe closing in on every front, from AI apocalypse to nuclear holocaust, from global warming to global pandemic, the collapse of democracy to outright civil war. However, we have a deeply instinctual cognitive bias for doomcasting and caution. Hear a rustle in the brush? Could be a tiger, could be a bunny, if you assume the worst and run, you survive, relieved in your close call with being torn to shreds. Assume the best with a “here bunny bunny”, and if you’re wrong, you’re dead. But there are way more bunnies than tigers in the world, so it was much more likely a bunny. This negativity bias may keep us safe in the jungle, but it also tends to fill our spirits with fear and dread of an almost endless list of increasing dire what-ifs, leading so many of our siblings to wallow in despair and denial. Truth is, things have actually never been better. More of us are safer, healthier, and live longer than ever before. By any objective measure, the arc of history bends ever upward.
Despite our recent technological and social innovations’ ability to amplify to deafening levels the rumors of every sort of war, and despite the way political opportunists continue to play the same games of propaganda and power to divide and conquer our spirits to their own selfish ends, I can’t help but agree with Yeshua that such things must happen, but that their end is indeed coming.
My reading of this history is that such ascension of unity and tolerance will likely be key plot points in the next acts of our amazing and melodramatic story. The Next Generation of Galactic Unity is just around the corner, whatever rumors of war may persist.
HOLLY DAYS 