Quoting Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: > Maybe one of the reasons I appreciate JL more than most of the others on > Lit-Ideas is that he values the meanings of words. If we use a word we > ought to intend something by it and our intention ought to grow out of its > meaning, its tradition, how it has been used in the past. If we don?t > choose to rely upon common or at least previous usage, then we must define > our terms. A philosopher may say "whenever I use the term dasein I mean X > by it." Or if one is Martin Heidegger, he may leave the term poorly defined > so that all you know about it is that whatever it means to Heidegger that > meaning isn?t to be found in a dictionary. --------------> In fairness to philsophers, conceptual/transcendental analysis is not a matter of looking things up in a dictionary, or any other text deemed by some individual or community to have such revelatory powers of truth and definition. Walter O MUN > > Let?s return to the circumstances that set me off, the end of the movie > _Anzio_. Edward Dmytryk has Robert Mitchum, his war correspondent utter > this saw to a Major General: ?Wars never solve anything. History tells us > that.? He uses the word ?solve? not in a philosophical sense but in a > common sense ? at least I saw no hint that he was intending this word to be > taken in some new and unusual fashion. So what does ?solve? mean? > > The following is from the on-line American Heritage dictionary: > > solve (slv, sôlv) > v. solved, solv·ing, solves > v.tr. > 1. To find a solution to. > 2. To work out a correct solution to (a problem). > v.intr. > To solve an equation: Insert the values of the constants and solve for x. > ________________________________________ > [Middle English solven, to loosen, from Latin solvere; see leu- in > Indo-European roots.] > ________________________________________ > solver n. > Synonyms: solve, decipher, resolve, unravel > These verbs mean to clear up or explain something puzzling or > unintelligible: solve a riddle; can't decipher your handwriting; resolve a > problem; unravel a mystery. > > So if these are the things ?solve? might mean, let us look for the ?problem? > that some war-starters expect to ?solve.? Eric, it seems to me goes off in > the wrong direction. He looks for a hidden quibble held or entertained by > ?the losers of a war.? Losers and winners don?t seem to evolve from the > need to solve something. The nation with the problem, the problem requiring > solution, the ?war-starter? is where we must look, it seems to me. Who but > the war-starter would have the ?problem? that requires a ?solution?? I > suppose both nations could have a ?problem? and start a given war > simultaneously, but I doubt it would help to explore that possibility. > Let?s just take Germany. The movie was about a war the German?s started and > Eric seems happy to consider that but he doesn?t stay with the right words. > He moves off to ?position.? How he gets from ?war never solves anything? > to a ?position? mystifies me. It is a veritable problem requiring a > solution, but Eric?s note doesn?t provide it ? although he seems to think > that it does. > > [If it does, Eric, I missed it. Move more slowly from the definition of the > key terms ?solve? and ?problem? to your word ?position? so I can follow the > bouncing ball.] > > I have been reading the _On the Origins of War, and the Preservation of > Peace_ by Donald Kagan. On page 8 he quotes Thucydides to say that people > go to war out of ?honor, fear, and interest.? Kagan, an expert in such > matters, thinks Thucydides is right ? well he doesn?t exactly say ?right.? > He says, ?I have found that trio of motives most illuminating in > understanding the origins of wars throughout history and will refer to them > frequently in this work.? Fair enough, and he does refer to these terms. > In World War One for example, he says all the nations feared something. > Germany feared a two front war. It feared that France and Russia might get > together; so if they could just wipe out one front before the other got > started they would have just a one-front war. Otherwise, they thought, > Germany was doomed. I can understand ?fear? quite well as a motive for the > various participants in WWI. I?ve read several books and almost all the > participants were afraid of something. The only possible exception was the > U.S. They entered late because their parent nation England asked for help. > But even the U.S. could be said to ?fear? something when they formulated the > sentence, ?unless we enter the war, Britain may lose.? > > So there we have a very brief discussion of the motives for a major war and > all of them fit more or less well under the heading ?fear.? None of them > fit under a "problem" requiring a "solution." > > If we move down the line from the "origins" of wars to the tactical > ?problems? related to defeating the enemy in battle, then yes, we can say > the enemies approach represents a ?problem? requiring a tactical ?solution.? > More than that it requires engaging the enemy and defeated him. If the > leadership selected the right ?solution? then the ?problem? presented by the > enemy would have been solved. More importantly he would have been defeated, > but I won?t quibble. ?Problem? and ?solution? do mean something in regard > to tactics. But they don?t mean anything that I can see in regard to the > origins of wars. > > Let?s take another war discussed here recently: The Falklands War. The > Falklands was claimed by the British during their empire days. The people > who live there are British and they don?t want to be free of the British > Empire. They don't want to belong to Argentina. The Falklands are also > claimed by Argentina and one day Argentina occupied the Falklands. What was > their motive? Was it a problem they wanted solved? No, it rankled that the > British claimed this Island when they thought by virtue of proximity or > something else (Perhaps JL can provide a better definition). It ought to > belong to Argentina. > > The British didn?t really need the Falklands but could it afford to abandon > the 1800 people living there? British honour was at stake and so they set > sail. Once they got there then tactics became important. The land, the > disposition of the Argentines, the forces at the disposal of the British, > the three groups made of by the Martial Races the Scots, Welsh and Gurkhas > were set into motion in accordance with the tactical solution developed by > the British leadership. The Battle (War) was fought. The British won. The > Argentines lost. The 1800 Falkland Islanders were happy. > > Eric moves on to the matter of handling conflict, and I strained to relate > this back to ?problems? and ?solutions? and couldn?t manage to arrive there. > So while I couldn?t arrive there, I can go back to the end of Anzio and > listen once again to ?wars never solve anything. History teaches us that.? > No, no, no, Dmytryk! That?s utter nonsense. > > Lawrence Helm > San Jacinto > > > > > From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] > On Behalf Of Eric Dean > Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 7:13 AM > To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [lit-ideas] The things war never solves > > Lawrence Helm defies anyone to say that wars never *decide* anything, by > contrast with the mulishly repeated nonsense that "war never solves > anything", as he characterizes the phrase. > > I don't understand why Lawrence finds that phrase so nonsensical. The > phrase, it seems to me, means that the losers in a war generally do not take > the loss as the reason to give up the position they had previously taken. > > I think that there's a hidden quibble about the meaning of 'taking a > position' at play here. Generally the losers of a war can no longer occupy > the position they previously occupied in the sense of having political > control over a geographic space -- Germany no longer occupied France at the > end of World War II, for example. > > But die-hard Nazis did not give up the 'position' (i.e. the idea) that > Germany *should* occupy France. > > That's the sense in which war never solves anything, as I understand the > phrase. The disputes that lead to war do not go away just because someone > wins the war and someone loses. All that happens is that the winner has a > greater chance of forcing the loser to act like he or she has accepted the > winner's views than he or she had before. Of course the loser might come to > resent the domination... > > And if one understands 'decide' in the same sense as I'm suggesting one > might understand 'solves', then I would be happy to say that wars never > decide anything, other than who happens to have won that war that time. > > One of the things we parents try to teach our children is how to handle > their conflicts without physical fighting, because the physical fight > doesn't really settle what's at issue in a conflict -- unless all that's at > issue is whether Mike or Sue gets to eat the last piece of pie... And while > Mike might get the piece of pie away from Sue by pushing her aside, Sue > might also look for a way to get her own back later, so even that physical > conflict that might be said to decide the question of who gets a particular > physical thing at a particular time does not decide the issue between Mike > and Sue for all time. > > Parents don't succeed in eradicating physical conflict between their kids. > No more should we expect that arguments against war are going to eradicate > violent conflict between large groups of adults. But neither of those > points means we should abandon the effort to reduce the frequency of violent > conflict. One of the techniques in reducing such conflict is to remind > conscious adult human beings that physical conflict does not resolve > non-physical sources of conflict. That's every bit as true and practical a > bit of insight as is the notion that the aggressors in our midst aren't > going to stop because we wish they would. > > Conflict will always be with us. It can actually be constructive and > healthy -- otherwise there wouldn't even be the phrase 'healthy debate'. > The real question is how we handle conflict, what we do with it, not whether > it exists. Physical conflict is destructive -- things get destroyed, people > get wounded, maimed and killed. Is it really such a naive and foolish thing > to look for alternatives for handling conflict that do not result in > physical destruction? Doing so needn't mean we abandon the capacity to > defend ourselves, nor that we inherently reject any argument for war. It > only means that we really do try to find alternatives before firing the > first shot. > > Regards to all, > Eric Dean > Washington DC > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html