WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-01-06 Time: 07:00:03 Posted By: Jan
I have noticed a theme in many modern writings to the effect that bad always and only results in bad.
I find this hard to believe. My Liberal friend, who loves history, points to the many massive leaps that civilisation took as a result of warfare.
Often, people only grow through hardship. In fact, I believe that it is the ONLY way that people grow. People do NOT grow when life is always good. They get lax, they get lazy. But when times are tough, yes, some suffer, but others innovate and THRIVE.
Take the 1930’s for example. It was back then that in the USA that they built the Hoover dam, the Empire State building and carried out other feats of engineering. In South Africa, most of the important parastatals, from Eskom (electricity) to South African Railways were created then.
In life people often run into conflict with each other. I do not believe in hiding conflict, nor avoiding it. I think, conflict in its own way, is a form of therapy. It is a way of saying: Hey, don’t go there… I don’t like it. In America there is a flag with a snake on it and the flag says: “Don’t tread on me”. When I was in Nevada on a ranch, with one of our volunteers, they have a flag like that on a flag pole in their yard! “Don’t tread on me!” The snake is saying: Don’t come here walking all over me… respect me… or I will bite you!!! That’s the message.
When a dog is growling, he is saying the same. If you mess with me further, I will bite a chunk out of you. You would be astounded how much conflict in the world actually revolves around this same message and notion and that is where entire countries come from: The message is: Respect me, respect who I am, stop shunting me around… give me my space, give me my respect… treat me fairly… or I will bite you!
When people fight and argue, deep down, most of it revolves around personal space and respect and fairness. It leads to verbal arguments… it leads to outright war and slaughter.
There is a notion that all war is bad. But I disgree.
Fights often also result in people respecting boundaries. Boundaries were unclear or untested – then a conflict occurs. Suddenly you know where the boundary is. You overstepped the boundary… someone kicked you in your pants… it hurt you… and now you know, very clearly, where the boundary is. You also know the consequences of walking over that boundary. You are more careful, and you know more accurates, where the line is.
Conflict, often involves a miscalculation on the part of people too. Things are fuzzy. If you study battles where men shot each other you will realise that much of the time, both sides thought they stood a chance of winning. BOTH thought they could win… If one is certain of defeat, they almost always run away except when they are physically trapped and unable to.
All conflict, I think, also involves an element of miscalculation … But we could argue that the miscalculation was always on the part of the loser. The winner did not miscalculate. The winner calculated correctly.
History is full of mis-steps… and people get beaten up. But no matter how bad it was, it also is resolved eventually. Many nations who fought each other many times in the past are now friendly. Even trying to kill each other did not result in eternal hatred.
At a military level, men who set out to kill each other with no holds barred many times have a deep respect for those they tried to kill who matched them or outmatched them on the battlefield. When the British came to destroy the Boers, the British eventually won, at great cost, but they never forgot the rough handling they got and they remembered that these are people you cannot tread on too easily. Out of that came friendships, deep ones, such as between Jan Smuts and Winston Churchill.
Napoleon had the deepest of respect for Frederick the Great who was a Prussian. Military history is full of men who respected the very men they set out to kill. At the end of the day, each respected the other’s message of: “Don’t tread on me”. Each knew that the message did have an accompanying bite.
Also, one learns too that fighting incessantly does not lead to a suitable outcome. Professor Keegan wrote of societies based on war which were destroyed eventually. One example he gave was of the Zulus.
Nobody points out the dangers of eternal peace. I think that eternal peace leads to mediocre progress and even weakness.
I think that to be a realist, one must recognise a balance between war and peace. War is destructive and self-destructive if carried out in the extreme. I agree that society should be at peace mostly, but there comes a time when war is necessary.
I see it a lot like spanking a naughty child. There is a time when even the most loving parent needs to discipline a child and measured violence may be the only way out. You don’t beat the child each day. You beat the child once. The child learns and thereafter you have peace for a long time. And I see war and conflict between people in the same vein. Most of the time you want to live in peace and should strive for peace. But key moments arise when you need to convey a message that is only truly effective if it is followed by some kind of concerted action.
You can tell the child to stop-it many times. But the child won’t listen until the spanking brings home the verbal message.
In life, people talk, and other people don’t listen when you talk. Then sometimes action is needed.
I will give you an example. One night I visited a friend, a very dear friend and her husband. Her friends were there and they were very pushy. They wanted me to drink certain liquor which I did not want to drink. My father was an alcoholic and his drunken habits brought nothing but suffering and terrible shame to our family, most especially to my mother. None of us kids took to drinking. We knew, lots of drink is not a good thing. But, I do drink a minimal amount for the sake of being social. However, I have my limitations. So my friend’s friends were all pushing me to drink hard liquor that I did not want to drink. I said to them, quietly, “no”. I said it more than once. They were pushy. (My dear friend was also a little drunk herself at the time!). Then, suddenly, I had enough. I said to her quietly, “I would like to leave now”. Until then, through peer pressure they were all pushing me and hoping that if enough of them jointly pushed me, that I would give in. They were expecting it. Instead, I asked quietly to leave. Only then, did my message hit home. Talking quietly and respectfully got me nothing. I was talking, but everyone was ignoring my message. It was only when I asked to leave that the firmness of my decision actually came home to them. Then my friend was sad – and quite drunk I might add. She was sad and drunk, and I felt really sorry for her. Later that night, I made everything right. She apologised and I told her no need to apologise, how could I expect you to know? I should have told you of my aversion to drink. So all ended well, and I told her I would love to meet her friends again, but I needed to make it clear to her.
I also gave her another bit of advice: With me, do NOT try peer pressure. It does not work. I never give in to peer pressure alone. Don’t try it. So we are friends and I am happy and we understand each other better.
I had this same argument endlessly with a democrat in the USA when I was visiting JoAn. For about 2 days, for hours on end, we argued over the necessity for war/conflict. I explained to him that talking things out all the time IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE. There are times when you need to send a message.
Scientists have discovered through experimentation that 70% of human communication is non-verbal. So what does that tell you? It means that talking alone, only makes up 30% of any message we convey. It means that the other 70% of the message HAS TO BE BACKED UP BY PHYSICAL ACTION. It has to be backed up by the look on your face; your eyes; your posture. If you do NOT do that… you will not get your message across fully.
I will tell you another psychological fact, from Transactional Analysis. If you communicate with people, you communicate verbally and non-verbally and even within the verbal communications can lie an “ulterior message”. Now here’s the psychological fact: Most of the time, the person receiving the message will perceive the ULTERIOR MESSAGE and the ulterior message will carry more weight than the overt message.
It may not be what you say as how you say it. How you say it might be more important and might be far more effective.
So I see conflict as part of a dialogue – a dialogue gone wrong, but a dialogue that may convey messages that would otherwise never be conveyed successfully.
The ANC based all its politics on the above facts. It would say things, but it always followed them up with strikes, with violence, with terrorism, with murder, with beatings or even torture. The ANC could not make progress through peace alone. But they could make progress when they used violence. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe learned the same lesson and still uses it to this day.
This is not abnormal. This is all normal. This is life, this is history.
I think Shakespeare even wrote that the path to true love is a winding one. I assume he means that the path to love is attained not through smoothe sailing but through ups and downs.
I think a lot of the analysis of human relations, except for military history, tries to focus only on the “good” and deliberately ignores a lot of other aspects. I have noticed this in certain psychology that I have read. It is not that there is only good. There are definitely two sides to every story, and in psychology, there are very, very nasty aspects to it – but this is deliberately self-censored and removed because of the dangerous stuff it could lead to. So psychologists study people but only emphasise the positive and the spiritual and the cute… The truly nasty stuff, and the nasty possibilities are ignored.
However, terrorists and criminals pick up on this stuff anyway. But I am sure, in military terms there are departments who deal with this type of stuff.
I often found in my life that good arguments with people MOSTLY, led to deeper friendships. Not always. I would say I have about a 30% failure rate where we part company and never speak. But more often than not, an argument would lead to a better result, IF done within the right context. You have to be careful the context within which you do it.
I think misunderstanding and argument is just a normal part of life, and it brings with it certain lessons and understandings, and sometimes even a deeper trust, that often can’t be achieved any other way. And if there is one thing I do like a lot, it is deep friendships.
Recently, I actually surprised some of my American friends when I got rid of someone in our circle of friends. Nobody could grasp it. What I did not tell them was that I thought this man took play more seriously than the things which are serious. I saw it more than once, and I observed it closely and I decided that this man had his priorities backwards. I decided that I did not need that type of person in my circle of friends. If play things and social events were more important to him than specific requests I made quietly, and which I wanted honoured, then I would cut him out of my circle of friends. I did so quite ruthlessly in fact, and nobody understood why.
Many times in my life, I make the mistake of talking quietly and asking nicely and then people ignore what I say. Then I find I have to kick up a fuss and then they start listening more intently. Unfortunately, I find it to be something of a recurring pattern whereever I go. I do ask, and I do ask nicely, but when I talk, I am ignored. I do not like that. So I kick up a fuss, until someone listens. Then, once they’ve listened and we’ve sorted out the issue, all is well and they know to listen a little more closely the next time I ask quietly. Perhaps I just need to learn to ask more forcefully at the outset. But I have a feeling that I am not the only person who experiences this problem and that it occurs in many places at many levels to many people.