STUDY WAR NO MORE! Talk by Rel Davis, minister, before the Unitarian Fellowship of South Florida, 1812 Roosevelt Street, Hollywood, Florida, May 30, 1993. People tell me war is inevitable. They say "human nature" is inherently evil. That people will always mistreat other people. The expression, "only human," is justification for almost any cruelty. . "Wars and rumors of wars" are predicted in the Judeo-Christian Bible. So is the inherent evil in human beings. People tell me that humans have always been warlike and violent. Cartoon images of primitive humans --the troglodytes or "cave men" –show them almost bestial, as if our human ancestors were cruel, stupid half-humans. This image is the result of a hundred years of evolutionary anthropology. They're all wrong. Dead wrong. The Bible is a masterpiece of propaganda. It ranks up there with Mein Kampf as a prime example of the Big Lie. Its basic premise is simple: If you want to control people, to enslave them --you first must break their spirit, their will to resist. Make the people think they are inherently evil to begin with, not capable of thinking for themselves. Something like the doctrine of original sin ought to do nicely. Then attribute all goodness and all power to some mythical, male father-figure called God. And lastly, make it impossible for any commoner to approach this deity without going through a mediator called a priest. The next step in our propaganda war of slavery is to make people think that life is not really all that important. The only important thing is life after death. Then you create a heaven and a hell and you scare the bejabbers out of all the children. Then you tell people that the earth and the things of the earth are tainted, and that the only pure and sacred things are things of the spirit (like god and like the priests). By this time, you've created a nation of alienated people - - easily manipulated by the power elite. The next thing you do is you glorify war and the warrior. You make going out and killing people something to look forward to. Have your god demand war and promise life everlasting to anyone killed in a war. By this time, you've got people in a position where they can easily be controlled, killed, turned against one another, and enslaved. Congratulations! You've just invented modern civilization! in the process you've created war, slavery, nationalism, bigotry and existential alienation. The Judeo-Christian Bible did not just describe reality; it helped create the reality it described. The idea of the inherent evil in human beings was an invention of the alienators - - the patriarchal rulers who overthrew civilization four thousand years ago. The image of ancient human beings as being sub-human creatures was created not by religion, however, but by science. Nineteenth century science was heavily imbued with Christian morality. The concept of evolutionary anthropology - - that modern civilization evolved slowly from a series of lesser cultures --fit in well with the inherent prejudices of western religion. As human beings were presumed to be the highest and most advanced form of animal, so it was assumed that modern culture is the highest and most advanced form of civilization. This theory -- which you and I were taught when we were in school, and which is still being taught in the majority of schools today --holds that the earliest civilizations were the most primitive, and that things have gradually gotten better until you reach today's ultimate state of perfection. There are several things wrong with that theory. First, a species as violent as evolutionary anthropology makes us out to be could never have survived as long as we did. Second, the archeological evidence doesn't support the theory. And third, only a fool would consider modern society a "perfect" system. Let's look at each point in a bit more detail. First, anthropologists point out that if the human species were as violent at the beginning as it is today, it could never have maintained its existence as a species. Cooperation, rather than competition, had to have been the primary cultural reality of early Homo sapiens sapiens. When only a few hundred or a few thousand individuals existed, utmost cooperation would have been necessary. The earliest state of humans must have been one of mutual interdependence and trust among individuals. The earliest true humans were not semi-bestial creatures carrying clubs, but were probably caring people concerned for the survival of every member of the human family. Second, the archeological evidence -- far from supporting the concept of a warlike, primitive past --actually discredits the theory completely. Prior to the so-called Bronze Age --about 4000 years ago - -there is no evidence of a military existence at all. Although bronze was known and used before the Bronze Age, there is no archeological evidence of weaponry in the 8000 years prior to the rise of bronze-age warfare. The Iron Age, less than a millennium later, ushered in widespread warfare. But before that time, there is no evidence of war, genocide, slavery or even of class structure. In the archeological findings of Old Europe, for example, all graves are essentially the same --whether male or female, priestess or layperson. Only after the rise of the Mycenaean and other patriarchic cultures do we find a class or sex distinction made in burial customs. And third, the concept of today's culture approaching perfection is probably the most ludicrous of ideas. The beauty of cultural evolution as a tool of propaganda, however, is that every culture, in turn, considers itself the culmination of all human endeavor. The Victorians were convinced that they were the height of humanity's climb toward excellence. Imperialism, child labor, and environmental destruction were all justified in the name of Progress --which is just another word for cultural evolution. We live in a world where one third the population (and one half the children) go to bed hungry every night. We live in a world where violence is glorified in the media, and is a way of life for much of the world's population. We live in a world ruled by warriors, by terrorists, by bullies, and by armed criminals. There are several questions I'd like to approach this morning. How did our world get this way? Are humans inherently evil? And what if anything --can we do about it? How did the world get the way it is? That answer is relatively simple. Karl Jung described the process many years ago. Now, archaeologists such as Riane Eisler, Marija Gimbutas and James Mellaart are providing hard evidence. Human civilization for at least 8000 years was based around two broad principles - - the cooperative aspect of the feminine and respect for the earth and for the whole of nature. This culture -- while not perfect -- was one suited to the advancement of our species on this planet. People cooperated with one another and with the earth herself. Most early civilizations were built around granaries, for the creation of modern wheat made modern agriculture possible, and made cities a reality. Religion was a process of respect for the forces of nature. These forces were given names, but they were never (as far as we can tell) anthropomorphized -- they were not given human form. These early religions are usually called Goddess Worship --for the primary "force" that was honored was the female, procreative force behind the earth and all of nature. Sometime about two or three thousand years before the current era (B.C.E.), either drastic climatic changes or (more likely) unbridled population expansion brought about mass migrations of human population. These changes had begun much earlier, of course, but on a smaller scale. As people moved about in search of food and land, cooperation became less important than competition. As cultures became more competitive, they shifted paradigms. Masculine sky-gods --given human form as ancestors or fathers - - became more important than the older concept of the mother-force within nature. (The word Yahweh is the proto- semitic word for "He was.") The glorification of the masculine also brought about a more warlike culture -- and the perfection of the techniques of war made the newer cultures capable of overwhelming the older, more peaceful civilizations. And this is what happened. All over the world, older Goddess cultures were overrun by patriarchal warrior cults. History was rewritten. Language, long known to Goddess civilizations, was now credited to the later cultures. Religion was re-framed in terms of sky-god ideology. A male god was seen as having "given birth" to the universe, and this male god was given human characteristics jealousy, hatred, revenge, and avarice. Today's insane civilization is the result of four thousand years of domination by competition-oriented, male-dominated, and superstitious culture. Is it any wonder that war is common? That violence is second nature to humans? Which brings up my second question: Are humans inherently evil? Absolutely not. I reject both the patriarchic religious concept of original sin and the evolutionary anthropology idea of a violent human past. Humans are neither inherently evil nor good. We are subject to control, however, by the paradigms of our culture. The human species was able to survive on this earth because the earliest paradigms that controlled its members were paradigms of cooperation and respect for nature. For four millennia we have been controlled by paradigms which require competition and contempt for nature. That the old paradigms have not totally been lost is shown by the activity of ecologists, pacifists and pagans today. The old ways are not dead –but they are definitely quiescent. We must awaken the old memories, the old values, the old paradigms if we are to survive as a species. My third question was: What can we do about it? And that, of course, is the gist of my talk this morning. We can stop studying war! I remember years ago, when I was active in demonstrations and marches against this nation's involvement in the Vietnam War, that many of our so-called supporters were advocating violent action. We took great pains to expel such people from the movement, for any action in support of peace must be peaceful in and of itself. For to study and practice the arts of war is to support and create the condition we seek to replace! We had a joke in the anti-war movement, about the guy who said: "Anyone who doesn't believe in peace should be shot." Violent revolution only creates another repressive regime. I have been a pacifist for many years. I was forced to serve in the U.S. armed forces because, at the time, our nation's courts had ruled that in order to be a conscientious objector one had to believe in a male super-deity. My friends urged me to lie and claim a belief where none existed, but I refused. I ended up being court-martialed for refusing to carry a weapon, and eventually was discharged (with an almost audible sigh of relief by the National Guard.) My basic paradigms have always been out of sync with our society, and for many years I felt out of sync from most people around me. Today, I am finding more and more people accepting the basic concepts of cooperation and respect for nature that I have felt for years. What can we do about it? We must begin to foster new paradigms, new ways of thinking about the world around us. We must begin to live these paradigms --not just talk about them, for failure to live up to one's own beliefs is hypocrisy, and our society has enough hypocrites without our adding to its burden. Very briefly, let me outline some of the paradigms of a world without war. Cooperation. The old Religion was a culture built around the circle. A circle is unlike most other geometric forms in that it has no corners and it has no point. There are no leaders in a society built around a circle. All members are equal and all are important. We must learn to think and act that way. Respect for every other member of the circle is required. Competition is deadly in a peaceful society. Competition is costly in any society, of course. Recent research has shown that companies which foster competition among employees or between departments tend to be much less efficient than those firms which emphasize cooperation. We must learn new ways of looking at ourselves in relation to others. Rather than seeing others as potential rivals, we must seen each other as potential family. That is the circle way. Inclusion. The ego is the alienating element within each human being. The patriarchal cultures glorify the individual ego and make individualism and personal independence the desired goal. (This is understandable, of course, for as long as the masses are alienated from each other, the ruler can maintain control.) We are a society of individualists. And as long as we remain so, war and violence will continue. We must remember that each of us is but a part of the vast inter-connected web of existence that makes up this universe. We need each other. We must stop seeing ourselves as Strangers in a Strange World, as islands in a sea of rivalry. We must begin to recognize that the needs of the community transcend the ego needs of the individual. Exclusion is the natural result of patriarchy. Inclusion is the way of the old religion. Earth -centeredness. We need to get away from the alienating paradigms of the "spirit -flesh" dichotomy. You and I are a part of the earth herself --cells in the body of Gaia, and the earth and the body are all sacred. This has a number of implications. We must respect the earth by restricting our consumption of resources and our pollution of the biosphere. To learn to study war no more is to learn how to become an ecological activist. Every one of us must begin to take responsibility for the portion of the planet over which we walk. We must also learn to respect our own bodies. And this means not only to be concerned for what we eat and drink, but also to learn to treat all our bodies' needs as sacred. If we are to stop being controlled by the patriarchy's paradigms, we must realize that eating, dancing and even sex are sacred acts -- as long as they are done in consideration for others and for nature. Non-violence. Non-violence as a way of life requires more than just a dislike for war. We must practice being pacifist in all our relationships. Children must be treated with respect. Our friends must be honored and their sensitivities respected. Our language must be controlled and must mirror our desire for peace. So-called pacifists who oppose national wars but who live lives of violence and turmoil are nothing but hypocrites. We once had a speaker at the Fellowship, talking on the topic of "love," who spent most of her talk screaming at the congregation for not listening to her! She couldn't understand why we didn't invite her back to speak again. Learn to practice non-violence in everything you do. War is the result of a cultural pattern of paradigms which support competition, contempt for the earth and for the body, and class structures which elevate some elements (men, kings, whites etc.) above other elements of society. Peace will come when we stop studying the ways of war. That is, when we learn to live cooperatively with one another, when we learn respect for the earth and for our bodies, and when we learn to live the circle way - - with all of us equal, worthy members of a loving community. Blessed Be!