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This excerpt, from Nonkonformist magazine from Hungary, gives a perspective which is a bit chilling. What if the war is a function of psychological need? Cultural anthropologist Dr. Ernest Becker explored the psychological nature of violence throughout his career. Please note while you read that I am not answering from a position of favoring the war but rather analyzing it objectively. It might help to read the questions which I answered preceding these in this interview as they gave an overview of Becker's thought. I have posted them on the page dealing with the World Leader's Project.

NONKONFORMIST: Do you think that a war against another country can reestablish Americans psychologically? The 9.11 attacks happened, bringing death to thousands of people, which made Americans think that they are not safe. But to wage war against another country doesn't make the safety any greater in my eyes. Sometimes these responses are just the total perfect examples of the term "violence breeds more violence".

GREG: As to the question about psychological balance due to war, my answer to you unfortunately is a resounding yes, that war absolutely maintains psychological balance, and in most cases, actually sways the balance in favor of the attacker and especially in favor of the eventual victor. At the same time, I will also answer yes to the idea that violence brings more violence. Both are true. Here is a more detailed examination of the issue. Think of it in these terms: what if you and your brother were kids and you were fighting over a piece of candy. He hits you, and what do you do? Do you walk away? No, you hit him back. Then he hits you back, and then you hit him and so on, until you are beating the shit out of each other all over the living room floor. At the end of it all, after you have been separated by your mom (or hit by her, as a means of her regaining her own control!) each of you thinks that you were the upper hand, right? Each brother thinks that he won the fight, and walks away feeling victorious and taunting the other. Sure, it would be more just in my moral view for the original conflict to be resolved after the first punch is thrown by you saying "While I appreciate your anger in regards to our candy disagreement, I truly feel that violence in this case is out of context. May we talk about this further please, before resorting to violence?", I don't think that that would be of any use in 99% of instances. If both parties were willing, this technique could work to solve the problem, but that willingness really is the key. In most cases, both brothers need for the fight to happen and to run its course in order to come out at the other end feeling powerful. This same mentality can be transferred to political situations. We were hit first. Hitting back, right or wrong, maintains our psychological power in the long run. Becker identified that people feel psychologically diminished by an opponent, and are therefore threatened in terms of their immortality striving. Each person, as an autonomous being, has a code of beliefs and values that they feel is most right (or else why would they live the way they do?). When another person challenges those beliefs and actually makes some progress with the challenge, the first person runs the risk of having their world-view collapsing. In the case of the USA, our world-view was threatened, and there is little chance at all that we were going to allow that situation to remain. Our lashing our was a means of survival for us, from the rhetoric to the posturing to the actual bombing. War, unfortunately, was inevitable. Personally, I feel that it is too easy to fall into violent reactions, and much harder to work through things calmly, rationally, and respectfully. On a national level, it is next to impossible. In September 2001, from the instant that second plane hit, the American collective really had no choice but to proceed the way we did.

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