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One of the most enduring myths in modern civilization is that war is inevitable…that killing is embedded in human nature, and that violence is our default state.
This story is repeated so often that it begins to feel like common sense. Yet when examined honestly—through anthropology, psychology, history, and lived experience—it becomes clear that organized war is not an expression of innate humanity. It is a constructed system, designed and maintained to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few, while the many are trained to die for interests that are not their own.
Human beings are born relational. We are wired for attachment, cooperation, caregiving, and mutual survival. For most of our evolutionary history, survival depended not on domination, but on collaboration…sharing food, caring for the vulnerable, and maintaining social bonds. Violence existed, as it does in all species under threat, but large-scale, organized killing required something more than instinct. It required conditioning.
War does not arise organically from the human heart. It must be taught.
From a young age, soldiers are trained to override their innate resistance to killing. Military conditioning works deliberately to break down empathy, suppress moral hesitation, and replace relational identity with obedience to authority. This alone should tell us something important: if killing were truly natural, such extensive psychological engineering would not be necessary. The fact that it is necessary reveals the truth: most people do not want to kill other people, especially those they do not know.
Those who benefit from war understand this. That is why violence is never sold honestly.
Instead, war is wrapped in myth. It is framed as defense, honor, duty, sacrifice, patriotism, and freedom. The language is emotional and symbolic, carefully chosen to bypass critical thought and activate loyalty. Flags, anthems, uniforms, rituals, and memorials are used not merely to remember the dead, but to sanctify the system that killed them.
The result is the cult of military worship, a social environment in which questioning war is treated as betrayal, and empathy is framed as weakness. Soldiers are elevated as heroes, not to protect them, but to protect the narrative. Their suffering becomes proof of meaning rather than evidence of exploitation.
Yet the uncomfortable reality remains: the people who fight wars are overwhelmingly poor, working-class, and economically coerced. They are promised stability, education, healthcare, or belonging…things that could exist without war, but are instead rationed through it. Meanwhile, those who declare wars do not fight them. Those who profit from wars do not bleed in them.
Wars are not fought for freedom. They are fought for resources, markets, strategic dominance, and corporate profit.
Weapons manufacturing, private military contractors, reconstruction firms, fossil fuel interests, and financial institutions all depend on perpetual conflict. Peace is bad for business. War is lucrative. Every bomb dropped is money made. Every destroyed city is a future contract. Every traumatized veteran is a disposable cost of doing business.
This reality was openly acknowledged decades ago by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who warned of the growing power of the military-industrial complex, a system in which political authority, corporate profit, and military force become inseparably entwined. His warning was not heeded. It was normalized.
To sustain this system, the public must be convinced that violence is not only necessary, but noble. That killing is not a tragedy, but a sacrifice. That obedience is courage. That questioning is treason.
This is propaganda.
True freedom is not secured by endless war. It is eroded by it. War drains public resources, militarizes culture, normalizes surveillance and control, and trains societies to accept violence as a solution to complex human problems. It teaches children that power comes from force rather than cooperation, and that human lives are expendable when framed correctly.
None of this means that soldiers themselves are villains. Most are victims—of economic coercion, cultural indoctrination, and moral injury. Many carry lifelong trauma not because they are broken, but because they are human. The guilt, grief, and psychological suffering experienced by veterans is not a failure of resilience; it is evidence of conscience.
A truly humane society would honor that conscience, not exploit it.
Rejecting the myth that war is natural is not naïve. It is necessary. It allows us to see violence not as fate, but as a choice—one made repeatedly by those insulated from its consequences. It opens the possibility of imagining systems built around care, justice, and shared survival rather than domination.
Peace is not passive. It is an active dismantling of lies.
And the most dangerous lie of all is the one that tells us killing is who we are.
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