There is a basic principle involved in war. Clausewitz[1] said war is an extension of politics by other means. I don’t see how that is useful. Practically, war occurs when you have conflict that doesn’t resolve with communication. Politics can come into play, but that doesn’t change the basic principle just stated.
Artist rendering of Carl von Clausewitz
Conflicts, like problems that don’t resolve, have lies in them. Rather than fight, both sides should examine their reasoning and look for false data. Once found, they need to trace it back to its source.
Let me give you an example of how this applies by looking at a current national issue—gender dysphoria[2]. Despite the current controversy about the subject, it’s not a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong—not really. Gender dysphoria becomes an issue because people believe that the condition, the confusion, can’t be changed. If the parents, the teachers, the schools and so on believed that the child’s interest in the same sex is a passing phase and he or she will outgrow it, they would treat it routinely, without the controversial treatments currently being employed and hidden. When you enter in some expert’s opinion about this from outside the family, it creates a different situation. Parents who believe what these outside experts are saying, that there is nothing to be done for the child except to go along with him or her, are then accepting the condition as unchanging. And therein is the usual lie.
In this situation parents with no other solution are then all about making the world right for their kid and this unfortunate condition. They support the authorities themselves; they support reassignment and all the related new issues that arise, like sports, bathrooms, hiding children’s pronouns from parents and so on, all in a very understandable effort to protect their children. Then there are parents who believe the condition can be handled, and that supporting gender reassignment steps that are permanently damaging to their kids is wrong. Both sides believe they are doing the right thing. Both sides believe the other is trying to hurt the kids, and there you have the necessary condition for war. Both sides are opposed to each other. Bystanders jump in on both sides, as it is now a matter of belief, though not religious belief, as that too has been undermined. Still, it is a religious war of sorts—a war of opposing beliefs—an unresolving conflict. As explained earlier, with unresolving conflicts and unresolving problems, there is always a lie involved. In these types of situations what you really have is an inability to spot the source of a problem. Each side mounts its offensive and the conflict escalates. Eventually it’s political and each party is targeting the other; it seems more and more like a life or death issue.
So, what is the lie? It’s the assertion that the condition can’t be handled in any other way. Who are the ultimate “authorities” on this line? The answer is the psychologist. In 1879 Professor Wundt declared man is an animal and has no soul. At that moment psychology betrayed mankind—a treasonous act if ever there was one. Based on Wundt’s proclamation, the body is it. We are all meat, and there is nothing else. Thus, the psychologist[3] considers the body as the sole source of body troubles. It doesn’t accept or acknowledge that the person himself, the soul or spirit, has any say, influence or effect on the body. Just like one may inherit bad traits genetically, in the case of Wundt’s betrayal, now Medicine inherits the problem. There is nothing greater than the body, it says; no soul, so if the body is sick it is obvious you cut or drug it to fix it! Another betrayal.
Father of “modern psychology” Wilhelm Wundt
When the soul is taken out of the equation, you end up with not much of a future, and what future you have concerns pleasures of the flesh, instant gratification, or “you only live once, so get what you are due!” Not strangely, twice in our history newspapers have shut down in two different towns at two different times, and the crime rate in each dropped to zero. Not being inundated by the media with its “no future” message produces less crime! Conversely, peddle the “no future” message and crime increases.
Today our kids are being taught these things in school. Especially, they are not taught to think, but rather to “think” with the thoughts of others, the authorities, which means less and less future—to what end?
Our political parties are in a heating up cold war. To what end? The enforcement of one’s beliefs on others is why we have separation of Church and State. That thinking should also extend to these non-religious beliefs. The government should pull back and get out of the personal lives of people. The originator of the lie, that these conditions can’t be handled, is another problem. Realizing the basic untruth of such lies is a start. Continuing to look for real answers is the answer.
This paper is not a treatment of the gender dysphoria situation. I’m using it only as an example of how a lie can cause an unresolving conflict that could lead to war. Whether war between parents; between professions; between anything, including countries, it’s the same mechanics. The only answer is to be certain of your facts. Gender dysphoria is a recent term, today being applied more broadly than when first created back in 2010. By labeling it, the psychiatric field has established a market for what is a normal growing pain, which for years has resolved itself without so much as a “by your leave.” Now we have it on “good authority” that there are medical/psychiatric fixes for this “disease/condition,” the simple basic untruth of which now has the US further divided and fighting itself.
Copyright © 2024
by Roger Westlin
All Rights Reserved
[1] Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the “moral” (in modern terms meaning psychological) and political aspects of waging war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (“On War”), though unfinished at his death, is considered a seminal treatise on military strategy and science
[2] The word “dysphoria” means a state of feeling very uneasy, unhappy and dissatisfied. Gender dysphoria is defined as the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5.
[3] “Psychology” as a word derives from the Greek words “psychē” meaning literally “soul or spirit,” and “logia,” meaning “science or study.” Thus, what should be the study of the spirit today has become something else entirely.