Logic and realism

If everybody subscribed to this philosophy the Dalai Lama would be right, but shit ain’t like that:

"Peace is not just the mere absence of violence. . . . Genuine peace is genuine restraint," he said.
The Dalai Lama pointed to former United States president George W. Bush, a man he called a "straightforward" and "nice" person.
But he said the "violent methods" used in Iraq and Afghanistan only give way to "violent consequences."
Only compassion and dialogue can solve differences, the Tibetan leader urged.
"Peace through compassion is logical," he said. "External, long-lasting general peace must come through inner peace."

In the absence of jerkwads wielding sticks, the carrot is indeed all you need. For the longest time I always wondered why the “good guys” are so frequently getting their butts kicked. We don’t always lose, but if good intentions are enough we should be doing better.

We’ll start with Israel. Which side of the good guy/bad guy fence they’re on is a matter of opinion, but on balance I’d say they’re “us” as opposed to “them”. When they show “compassion” (weakness) by pulling out of some contested area (South Lebanon, Gaza) this is not responded to with dialogue and understanding, but with rockets, mortars and attacks on outposts.

“Peace through compassion” is internally logical, but it is patently obvious to any rational person that if Israel ever totally drops its guard, it’s boned. The actual as opposed to theoretical logic of the situation is closer to “kill or be killed”. Restraint just encourages the terrorists and gives them time and opportunity to re-arm and reorganize. In fact, the restraint that they do show (not bulldozing Gaza and everyone in it into the Mediterranean) very palpably imperils Israel’s security.

“They make a desert and call it peace”. That, my dear exiled holy man, is as logical as it gets. If there are no people, there will be no conflict. Even if there are relatively homogenous groups there is relatively little conflict. People are NOT logical; logic is an overlay on our thought processes, and is a cultural artefact. If the Dalai Lama was correct, he wouldn’t be exiled, for example…

Bad guys will always have the advantage of having no interest in restraint. This can burn them in a couple of ways; people will turn against them and/or the other side will drop the gloves. The logic of these situations is also simple, and based on self-interest. Ideology starts wars and keeps them going, but people end them when they’ve had more than they can take. Most people like stability, which is a close analogue of peace, and will back whatever gives them the best prospect to achieve that. If the Taliban for example provide services where the government doesn’t, people will tend to back them even if they don’t like them.

As long as there are guys that are willing to commit atrocities to get what they want there is a completely different logic that applies. The Dalai Lama’s version is utopian, and the word “utopia” is Greek, from ou “no” and topos “place”. As long as we’re here and not there, war most certainly can be logical. Some people just need to die; it’s the only way to stop them since they don’t care about compassion or restraint.

How much restraint we should show in doing that is debatable, but I’ll put it out there that the last war our side won unequivocally was WW2, and then we used literally all the force that we could bring to bear. In modern conflicts you certainly have to at least be prepared to use more than the other side; if you kill them all, they can’t stop your development programs, again logical. Somehow I don’t think this is the logic the DL had in mind, but it’s simpler and makes no assumptions. Simple can be ugly, but it’s generally effective.