By Ty Bell
The war mentality is so ingrained in our thinking that we consider it common sense in the face of any challenge. The formula: name the challenge a ‘problem’ and identify its single linear cause (reductionism); make it the enemy (duality); and then defeat it (control). The assumed binary is you can fight the war and be part of the solution, or don’t fight the war and be part of the problem. These are the dominant and default paradigms of our patriarchal civilization: reductionism, duality and control.
I have witnessed three major socio-political War on Problem campaigns in my lifetime, all appealing primarily to conservatives. There was the War on Immorality in the late 80s/early 90s that came response to things like pornography, gangster rap and death metal. At the same time, the War on Drugs was also raging. This appealed to an even wider audience, though still predominantly conservative. Then came the War on Terror. This perhaps gained the biggest wave of public frenzy but it was still primarily, or at least most vocally, from the Right.
Hanging in Left-leaning circles for most of my life, I rarely encountered anyone that took part in these wars, or even really took them seriously. Instead, they were always criticized. It wasn’t that we were in denial of the problems, or unsympathetic to people suffering from them. That was the caricature – we were just a bunch of drugged out satan worshipping America-haters, and that’s why we weren’t joining these wars. That was the binary setup that many on the Right bought into: you either wave your flag and beat the war drum and support the cops, or you stand with the terrorists and gang members pushing drugs in the streets!
Of course that wasn’t it. It was that none of these problems triggered our insecurities, traumas, and judgements in the same way they did those who were swept up in them. That gave us the ability to observe more objectively, to see that these wars for what they were: ineffective solutions by sincere people, mixed in with cynical traps by insincere people in positions of power. We were not personally threatened by rap music, or drugs, or terrorism, so this gave us a kind of immunity to these campaigns. Our detachment from the fear gave us the ability to see clearly what was happening.
We observed, first, that even when wars are fought sincerely, they don’t work. Because there’s a backlash. Meaning, even if you remove the possibility of any corruption or malicious intent, we can see how all three these wars actually inflamed the problems. And, created more problems as a result of the war tactics that were employed. For those of us who’ve studied esoteric principles, it’s a simple observation: what we resist persists.
We also observed how the people who were buying into these wars were having their insecurities manipulated to support nefarious political agendas. We pointed out that these wars were being waged by powerful people who had no intention of actually resolving the problems, but instead, to use the problem-reaction-solution formula for their own benefit to assert power. This is now no longer ‘conspiracy theory.’ It is documented fact, and now widely accepted by the mainstream. This is one of the main reasons that these wars of the past have lost steam – they’ve all been exposed.
These observations used to only come from the anti-establishment Left, but are now pretty widely recognized. The War on Drugs was used to grow the private prison system and covertly continue the American tradition of race and class oppression after these went out of fashion to promote explicitly. To continue this trajectory, a more covert strategy was needed, so they manipulated people’s fears about drugs to manufacture consent for what amounted to a war on minorities and poor people. The War on Terror manufactured consent for wars in the Middle East, mass surveillance, and extrajudicial justice. Most people on the Left look back to those who supported these wars as enablers of these agendas. Some are so filled with anger (adopting the war mentality themselves) that anyone who supported these wars are labelled as racists, classists and generally terrible people. The more generous and open-minded Lefties would say most are good people who just had their insecurities manipulated by nefarious political actors.
Some of us that lived through all of these have been looking around for the past few years, wondering WTF is going on? I thought we (the Left) were the ones who didn’t buy into these War on Problem campaigns. I thought we were all about freedom, and recognizing that control doesn’t actually bring solutions. I thought that’s what our bumper stickers were saying – NO MORE WAR! I thought we were the ones who were discerning enough not to fall for this, because we saw the war game for what it was. What happened?
It seems like what happened is we now have challenges that appeal to the Left side of the cultural divide, thus making it the side that is now vulnerable to the war mentality. Vulnerable to the same things that used to prey more on the Right: insecurities, traumas and judgements. That’s why everyone feels like something has flipped in 2020. Because it has. Not the core values of the two different sides, that divide is still real and speaks to an ancient polarity. That part hasn’t changed – but what HAS changed is where the focus is now with the problems the media is telling us to go to war with. We have a War on Trump, a War on Social Injustice, a war on a Virus, and a War on Climate Change.
Do you see how this flips the script? The core values haven’t changed, but the mentality has changed. Because when you’re waging a war, you’re in a different state of mind. Up until recently, the Left was not swept up in the war mentality frenzy, so its character and tone were a lot different. This is why people comment now how right-wingers are often times more open minded, willing to listen and less judgmental these days. Because they are in the position that the Left used to be in, when the wars against immorality and drugs and terrorism were raging. Lefties weren’t swept up in these frenzies. We didn’t have our insecurities being activated in ways that made us shut down to information, and see others who disagreed was as the enemy. That’s what they did – so we associated that quality as something that right-wingers do. They act judgmental and aggressive. They dehumanize and belittle. They aren’t willing to listen to other points of view. That was always the stereotype about the Right when I was growing up: less compassionate, less objective, and more authoritarian.
Turns out, these are not qualities inherent to the Right or the Left. These are qualities that permeate when the war mentality gets switched on. The only options are to defeat or be defeated. We become narrow-minded, logically challenged, and aggressive. Dehumanization of the ‘other’ is not only helpful in winning; it’s actually necessary. Once the war mentality gets switched on, the other side loses its humanity. They become _____ists. Fill in the blank with whatever morally offensive term, and what you now have is a group on the other side that’s less than human. They are not people who believe in ____, or who have some wounds or misunderstandings. They are ____ists. That linguistic difference is significant. This gives soldiers in the war permission to treat the ‘others’ as less than human. Just like the colonizers of old that dehumanized others as ‘savages’ and ‘heathens’ to justify the pursuit of their goals. Same way now in the war against ‘bigots’ ‘racists’ and ‘science-deniers.’ These terms give them a less-than-human status which supports the war mentality against them. They reinforce a lack of empathy and unwillingness to listen or validate their deeper wounds or core needs.
The wars they bait us into are never in our best interest to fight.
They will always be presented as in our best interest, because indeed, there are real challenges we have to face. Fight the war, or support the enemy. That is one of the most destructive thought patterns I think we could have ever dreamed up as a species. It’s made us extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
How is the war on the Self going? Is the personal growth community embracing the war mentality, because it has an awesome track record of producing positive results? Recovery circles use the term ‘white knuckling’ to describe the state of control when an addict is using will-power to stay sober. Every recovering addict will tell you that this is not a sustainable path. Because eventually you’ll lose control. Control cannot be held forever. And the process of keeping yourself controlled restricts the organic flow of life.. So even when control does work, it’s not a joyful way to live. Better to heal so that you aren’t stuck in a duality all the time between fighting the self or giving in to destructive desires. Heal the traumas so control is no longer necessary. Transcend that duality by changing the conditions that gave rise to it in the first place, and experience true freedom.
Healing occurs when we get out of the control loop, and stop fighting a war on our traumas and so-called defects.. Stop making them the enemy, and stop obsessing over control, suppression and domination of these parts of ourselves. We can also observe that when we go to war with the self, we open ourselves up to being manipulated by a subversive power, just like in the political wars. In this case it’s not a shadow government or corporation that’s manipulating the mentality – it’s our own egos! The ego is never wants to relinquish control. So, it sets up a trap: Follow this path of control that I lay out for you as logical and necessary – let me lead you on a fight against this problem – and you will be free. The effect? We never get free from the problem, and we give the ego more and more power, thus, making the problem even harder to solve. If the problem does get resolved (sometimes, indeed, control is effective, for a period of time) it does so at the expense of a now overly inflamed ego that is just going to go create another problem somewhere else.
This is true not only with addictions, but with any behavior pattern we are trying to change.
Moral of the story: War sucks. We need to let this sync in all the way, at a deeper level than just repudiating violence and militarism. War sucks on a level that is so much deeper….these things are just symptoms, outcroppings of the war mentality. If we keep fighting wars with everything we see as a problem, we’ll eventually destroy all life as we know it. That’s the trajectory of war. It not only destroys the enemy – it destroys itself. For in truth, there is no enemy that’s ‘out there.’ There is no such thing as “I win, and you lose.” That’s a delusion. Everyone loses in war. It doesn’t matter what you’re fighting for, how good or noble the cause is. If we’re in a war, we’re inflaming the wound we are seeking to heal, and opening ourselves up to be manipulated by powerful forces who stand to benefit from this vicious cycle and will work to maintain it at all costs. These people do not want healing; they want power. And they know how to manipulate our war mentality so that our own traumas and insecurities are channeled for this end.
With this understanding, I, and many others are saying no, we won’t fight these wars. We won’t be manipulated into this binary. When challenges arise, we will choose healing. Not war. War never heals. In only destroys. If your movement embodies the war mentality, I’m out. I will not join this chorus. And I won’t be manipulated by the false binary that says this means I’m not with you in the cause, that I don’t want to heal the issue you’re calling attention to. In fact, when I’m sympathetic to the issue, I’m even more averse to joining the war, because I have seen war have nothing but counterproductive results. With this understanding, the wars being fought in the name of causes we care about most actually awaken the most offense and aversion. Because they are effectively saying “hey, join this movement that’s going to make what you really care about most even further out of reach, and perpetuate the forces that are keeping what you want from happening Also, as an added bonus, open yourself up to manipulation by powers that stand to benefit from the endless war, and will exert their power in ways so as to ensure its perpetuation.
No, thank you. I stand for healing. Not for wars that perpetuate the wounds.
The Radical Center 