They are worried about the bald eagle going extinct. They say it is part of our culture. Well, they want to protect my culture and your culture and her culture, but they are not giving a cent as to protect that noble culture of the Greeks and Romans.
They want to kill off all the mosquitoes. They fight diseases every day. They even want to declare a war on taxes. But the minute we start bickering, everyone panics.
I am alluding to that lovely craft: war. War held the noblest place of all in the time of the ancients, but today it is a lost art. We have ignored it to our peril.
I see all of your sour faces – you are misunderstanding me. That is because you have been deceived. You see, dear friends, if you will give me 500 words, I can show you that war is not all that bad; in fact, it is good and necessary for us. It is a medicine we have refused for far too long.
I know our friend Tim O’Brien thinks war is unspeakable. Battle changes the past and that is ugly. But what we have forgotten is that it changes the future as well. War creates chaos – is there nothing more lovely than that? We must listen to our old friend Heraclitus. Do not fear chaos – embrace it. Without it, how would you ever find anything new under the sun? You would be dried up like that old king, languishing in paradise.
I could go on like this forever, but I see that I am not convincing you. Such is life. But perhaps a new tactic will suffice. I will limit myself to three – that is the number the philosophers recommend – three good reasons to believe in war.
Firstly, war fixes things. Nowadays, the worriers are worrying as they always do. It is because they have nothing real to worry about. Safe in their comfort, they devise worry for the rest of us, claiming we do not spend enough money or make enough new things.
War is helpful on two fronts. It firstly gives those worriers something real to worry about, sparing the rest of us from their endless dirge. Secondly, war actually mends their fears. With war comes new things, and we eat more things and use more things and destroy more things. So leave the worriers to their worrying until they have something substantial to worry about.
On to my second point: How are we to change if we do not break what we already have? To build a new building, does not the mason first need to tear down the shanty old edifice? Does not gold need to be melted down and the structure destroyed before it can be reformed again? Can a tree be used as lumber before it is felled? No! Put away these ludicrous thoughts. Consider our current system; it is not working. Only when what we have breaks can it be rebuilt better. War does the breaking. It does the hard stuff. Then we can rebuild.
Thirdly, war restores virtue. There is nothing more beautiful than resting in the peace of victory. For a peace you have only received is no peace at all. Oh! But Owen you say. Forget Owen. He knew nothing. Remember instead those glories of Odysseus and Telemachus – how much more virtuous were they after war? Or is a Roman more your taste. Aeneas, perhaps? He was a trusting fool until war beat the folly out of him replacing it with tempered virtue.
And so with that I will rest my case. Much more could be said in defense of war and much less in attack of it. But go on if you must, living at peace amongst yourselves, for I hate an audience that does not forget.
In my freshman year, a professor pitched me one of the most biting questions I’ve heard: Does society need a war? In the spirit of Erasmus and his Praise of Folly, I write this ode to war in response to that question. Please know that I am not saying war is infallibly good. But I believe all things can be worked to the good – if I do not believe that I have no hope at all. Finally, I prompt my readers to consider what war is. It is not restricted to blood and guns. It exists in modern politics; it exists in your church; and it might even exist in your very soul.
