Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?
Albert Einstein & Sigmund Freud: “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”
Reflections on peace, violence, and conflict in human society are often complex and challenging. This course discusses various types of human violence: civil and interstate wars, conflicts motivated by ethnicity or religion, political revolutions, and military insurgencies.
“Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”
This question has been derived from the epistolary debate between Albert Einstein & Sigmund Freud on “How to Make the World Free from War” in 1931-1932. What would be your answer to this critical question at the beginning of this course? Please, write an essay up to 800 words and explain your vision on this matter.
My goal is to focus your attention on the main theories that explain the causes and consequences of conflict in human society and what makes peace possible or even lasting.
Overconfidence about the global decline of war may lead states to underestimate how dangerously and quickly any clashes can escalate, with potentially disastrous consequences, write Tanisha Fazal and Paul Poast. (Links to an external site.) The renowned historian and archaeologist Ian Morris in the book “War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots” takes the provocative position (Links to an external site.) that, over time, the value of war, despite its horrors, has been to make humanity both safer and richer. He tells that in the Stone Age, people lived in small, feuding societies and stood a one-in-ten or even one-in-five chance of dying violently. By contrast, in the twentieth century, despite two world wars, Hiroshima and the Holocaust — fewer than one person in a hundred died violently. He argues that war and war alone creates bigger, more complex societies ruled by governments that have stamped out internal violence. Strangely enough, the killing has made the world safer, and the safety it has produced has allowed people to make the world richer too.
Please think about this vision of war, writing your essay on the theme, “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”
Outstanding, insightful work. Goes beyond requirements of the task to develop a response, which is thoughtful, reflective, considers alternative views and makes connections among ideas and information from different sources or fromdifferent aspects of the course. Well researched and documented . Displays creativity and originality.
