A friend of mine once said that if war would bring peace, the human race would have achieved peace long ago. This idea exposes one of the lies about the use of violence to accomplish any kind of so social change, that ends and means can be inconsistent.
It is this incompatibility of methods and goals that has become such a blind spot in western culture today. From influencing a person to change their ways to nations being persuaded into giving up certain ambitions, the west continues to try to heckle, strong arm and bomb the other side into ‘correct’ actions.
I suppose the conventional wisdom is that the use of force is the most ‘rational’ course in many cases. However, how many of the ‘rational’ military adventures in this nation have started out as seeming the right thing to do only to become a quagmire once they are underway. Likewise, how many nonviolent campaigns start by looking like irrational and untenable efforts only to, in the end, bring real sustainable change? See http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/PDF/IS3301_pp007-044_Stephan_Chenoweth.pdf for a hint.
Is it just Western culture that falls into this trap?
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