I've actually thought of a better way of stating the question. is world peace a true or false hope? through my perception it is, therefore, should it be driven to the ground?

another thing: how much of ones own desire is it worth to give up for the collective?

example, the are 2 girls and three guys. naturally, each guy wants both girls, so how do they decide? the only acceptable answer would be for 2 of them to team up, and destroy the other one. then when he's destroyed, do you kill the other, or let him live?

is it possible there may have been a fourth unknown man, or even 2 more men who have decided to team up and kill the other two?

World peace: a nice thought, or a possibility?

I feel that world peace could possibly be achievable if all money systems/ statuses of wealth are gone. Will that happen probably not, i will admit that i am slightly greedy and do sometimes envy when a friend gets something better than me.

There will be peace when my enemies are dead. Besides, war is an extremely profitable business. Ya gots ta eat...

Only the dead have seen the end of war.- Plato.

...
Nietzsche begins, in §716-719, by arguing that in the modern world, societies as a whole tell us a great deal more about the nature of mankind (as will to power) than do individuals. States act in ways toward each other for which individuals do not have the strength or courage, because states do not feel responsible for their actions as do individuals. The external behavior of the state is that of conquest and war, acting in accordance with the will to power. The state is able to engage in this behavior by dividing up the labor and executive powers among its individuals, so that no one individual can feel as though one bears significant responsibility for the state's actions. It instills in its people values such as obedience, duty, and patriotism, while it outwardly exudes values such as strength, pride, and revenge. The former values are instilled by the state's overpowering of the individual, so that one is compelled to serve in its interests.

As I understand these passages, individuals do not have the courage or strength to act in violent ways toward one another because of the Judeo-Christian ethical/moral code that has become ingrained in them. In other words, they cannot exert their will to power in the violent ways which they otherwise would naturally. Instead, the will to power can be found in individuals in certain disguised forms, as we will see when the will to power as individual is explicated. Feelings of potential guilt and fear of punishment (whether institutional or in a life beyond) for breaking moral and legal rules prevent them from acting in such a manner. The state, however, is not bound by Judeo-Christian-type moral duties and imperatives, so it is therefore unrestrained in the exertion of its will to power, which comes in the natural forms of violence and conquest. Nietzsche writes in §716:

The whole of 'altruism' reveals itself as the prudence of the private man: societies are not 'altruistic' towards one another--The commandment to love one's neighbor has never yet been extended to include one's actual neighbor.

By "actual neighbor," I take Nietzsche to be referring to bordering states or societies, as the context would indicate. It seems then, that Nietzsche is trying to say that the violence inherent in the way a society exerts its will to power is evidence that the true nature of man is one of violence also. What Nietzsche reveals about the nature of states in these passages is interestingly similar to some of the political views which Noam Chomsky has professed--that states are fundamentally violent institutions and a state's internally espoused values have no bearing whatsoever on its external behavior. This is not to say, however, that Chomsky subscribes to Nietzsche's doctrine of the will to power, but Nietzsche does seem to anticipate Chomsky and others who have said similar such things regarding the nature of states and societies. Other than that, however, their views differ considerably. Nietzsche seems to approve of the violent conquest of others while Noam Chomsky, of course, does not.

What Nietzsche certainly does not approve of, however, is the fact that the state suppresses the natural, violent instincts of the individual to acquire power in an effort to keep one at the level of the herd. This keeping-in-check of the individual is done through the aforementioned values which are instilled and enforced by the overwhelming power of the state (which represents the herd). The herd/state's maintenance of its power over individuals is done out of fear of those who would attempt to act upon their most natural instincts to seek power and 'freedom', wherein freedom, to Nietzsche, means sovereignty--to be at the top of the heap, in other words (see §770, pp. 404). This instinct to fight one's way to the top in search of power and freedom is thus kept in check by the herd through the machinery of the state. Those who do try to act upon these instincts are branded as criminals and are removed from society. Therefore, in this respect, all truly great men, according to Nietzsche, are criminals in some respect, in that they are individuals who are courageous enough to act in a way that goes against the conformity of the herd. Nietzsche expresses this sentiment in §740:

Crime belongs to the concept "revolt against the social order." One does not "punish" a rebel; one suppresses him. A rebel can be a miserable and contemptible man; but there is nothing contemptible in a revolt as such--and to be a rebel in view of contemporary society does not in itself lower the value of a man. There are even cases in which one might have to honor a rebel, because he finds something in our society against which war ought to be waged--he awakens us from our slumber.
...

The Will to Power as Individual within Society

Nietzsche takes it to be a fundamental error to place the goal of society in the masses, and not in the individual, as democracy and socialism do. Rather, in Nietzsche's opinion, the masses are the means to an end. He also considers it a mistake to treat sympathy as the most valuable trait in human beings, because, as he clearly states in section seven of The Antichrist, pity asks for the multiplication of suffering (I take Nietzsche to be using pity and sympathy interchangeably enough). Pity makes us weak as individuals, sapping us of our ability to exert our will to power in the natural, instinctive (violent) ways that we normally would. It helps foster the herd, by guilting us into helping to preserve those who would otherwise perish of their weakness and life-denying attitudes. The most redeeming quality of humans is, of course, their instinctive will to power. In §768, Nietzsche writes about this nature of humans in the form of its "ego":

The "ego" subdues and kills: it operates like an organic cell: it is a robber and it is violent. It wants to regenerate itself--pregnancy. It wants to give birth to its god and see all mankind at his feet.

As he says in §769, however, simply using violent force to bring another under one's power, though it is the most natural and instinctive method, is not always the most successful. Bringing other individuals under one's power (subjugating them) is not the same thing as simply causing them physical harm. It takes much more than that:

Every living thing reaches out as far from itself with its force as it can, and overwhelms what is weaker: thus it takes pleasure in itself. The increasing "humanizing" of this tendency consists in this, that there is an ever subtler sense of how hard it is really to incorporate another: while a crude injury done him certainly demonstrates our power over him, it at the same time estranges his will from us even more--and thus makes him less easy to subjugate.

As we have discussed, the Judeo-Christian-type moral imperatives of the herd in democratic and socialist societies prevent the individual from acting upon one's will to power in the normal, instinctive ways. The individual also has this "subtler sense" that physical violence alone will most likely make others resentful and indignant toward us, and may actually drive them farther away from being truly under our power. This keeping of the individual's more violent instincts in check through the state and the "subtler sense" described above does not, however, keep one's will to power in check as a whole. Rather, the ego learns to find other ways to exert its will to power than through the violent or forceful domination of others. No matter what type of situation individuals find themselves in, their will to power comes through in some way or another. Nietzsche calls these different ways the disguised forms of the will to power, meaning that they appear to stem from something else, such as altruism or sympathy, when they really originate in one's instinct to bring someone under one's own power. The first of these disguised forms of the will to power is a desire for freedom, independence, and peace. What this is at bottom, according to Nietzsche, is simply the will toward self-preservation and existence in general. One wants peace and independence so that one is not at risk from the possibly violent actions of others. Also, one does not want to become enslaved or subjugated by others. The second disguised form is that which Nietzsche calls enrollment. This form involves submission to those in power in order acquire a certain aspect of control over them. To achieve this control, one makes oneself indispensable to one's superiors in order to obligate them into gratitude. One simply does what his superior asks and does it to the best of his ability, so much that his superior begins to see him as vital and irreplaceable. This is the kind of power that one feels over one's employer when one is highly skilled and experienced at a certain job position that few others are willing or capable to perform at all, to say nothing of performing as proficiently. Love is also a form of enrollment, according to Nietzsche, in that it is also a way in which one gains control over the other person, while at the same time appearing to be submissive. The way in which Nietzsche talks about love is also one of the many examples of his poor attitude toward women. We are already aware that Nietzsche sees sympathy and pity as weaknesses, but he also lumps love in with this assessment as well. He looks upon women as the epitome of these "weaknesses," and often refers to love and sympathy as "effeminate" virtues. Nietzsche attributes to women exclusively, it seems, this use of love as a cunning way to gain control of others. In §777, he expresses this idea that women have used love as a means to get control of their men:

Love.--Look into it; women's love and sympathy--is there anything more egoistic?--And if they sacrifice themselves, their honor, their reputation, to whom do they sacrifice themselves? To the man? Or is it not rather to an unbridled urge?-- These desires are just as selfish even if they please others and implant gratitude--To what extent this sort of hyperfetation of one valuation can sanctify everything else!!

Nietzsche seems to display the attitude that women can find no other way to exert their will to power but by throwing themselves at men. It is strange that he does not attribute love to people in general; rather just women. Based on his conception of love as a way of attaining dominance over another, one might conclude that, in Nietzsche's opinion, men do not love in this way, since they are dominant over women to begin with. Aside from these concerns, however, we could say that Nietzsche's conception of love can be attributed to both men and women, seeing as Nietzsche's attribution of it to women exclusively is merely the result of a bias of the time in which he is writing. Anyhow, a third disguised form of the will to power is that of a sense of duty and conscience in which one feels a type of superiority over those who are really in power. Here one, or rather a group, creates and abides by a new set of values to which they hold even those who are in power accountable. This sort of thing is exactly what Nietzsche claims the Jews did during the occupation of Palestine by Rome. Being the oppressed, they inverted the noble values to make a virtue out of their own condition and an evil out of the standing of their oppressors. In this way, even though they appeared to be subjugated, they got control of the Romans through shaming and guilting them. To understand this idea better, it would be necessary to read Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals, specifically the second essay, in which he describes his theory of how the Jews accomplished this revaluation of the "noble" values. This particular disguised form of the will to power can also be interpreted as a way of mastering oneself, in that one forces oneself to adopt a new system of values and dutifully abide by them as well. In this way, one inflicts one's will to power not only on others, but also on oneself, having a mastery over one's instincts and passions. Yet another disguised form lies in the act of praising others. When a person praises another, he/she appears to be conceding the superiority of the other in the area of whatever has been accomplished by that person. However, as Nietzsche argues in §775, what the person is doing by praising is actually affirming his/her own power in having the aptitude and qualification to assess what the other has done:

What, then is praise? A sort of restoration of balance in respect of benefits received, a giving in return, a demonstration of our power--for those who praise, affirm, judge, evaluate, pass sentence: they claim the right of being able to affirm, of being able to dispense honors. A heightened feeling of happiness and life is also a heightened feeling of power: it is from this that man praises (--from this that he invents and seeks a doer, a "subject"--). Gratitude as virtuous revenge: most strenuously demanded and practiced where equality and pride must both be upheld, where revenge is practiced best.

Therefore, praise seems to be a way of getting back at someone for doing something that makes one feel as though one has been put under another's power by being obligated into gratitude. In effect, it restores one's sense of lost power at the hands of another. To sum up, the aforementioned actions are not what they appear to be on the surface, but rather they are the will to power in disguised form. Individuals are fundamentally egoistic in their pursuits, whether those pursuits look as though they are in the interests of others or not. Altruism is not possible, according to Nietzsche, and therefore neither is morality. For to even have a theory of ethics at all, one must presuppose that a psychological egoism is not essential to human nature. As Nietzsche puts it, the idea of there being selfless actions is a psychological error, out of which the concepts "moral" and "immoral" have arisen. He attributes this error, of course, to the Judeo-Christian priestly type, who professed the sinfulness of man and the accompanying instinctual drives that govern his actions. Since man's actions and drives are egoistic by nature, as Nietzsche believes, the priestly types were compelled to prescribe actions that were selfless and unegoistic, if one wanted to act in a way that would be free from sin. Thus it became moral to act in ways that are outside of one's own interests, and immoral to act self-interestedly. In other words, a profound value had been placed on actions that are absolutely impossible for a human being to perform, vis-à-vis, altruistic actions. Nietzsche, in these passages, is trying to wake us up to the fact that these so-called "selfless" actions have always proceeded from egoistic motives; that is, from the will to power.

I think world peace surely must come and hopefully with it some sort of rational family planning, birth control, stratification or eugenics etc. It is world peace as an effect of economic imperatives at this level.

Once upon a time population control could come with large scale war, but the nuclear deterrent militates against it as far as many populated countries go. Many populated countries are simply untouchable now.

Almost as if according to some natural law, in every century there seems to emerge a country with the power, the will, and the intellectual and moral impetus to shape the entire international system in accordance with its own values

Nothing annoyed Roosevelt as much as high-sounding principles backed by neither the power nor the will to implement them. He wrote to a friend: "If I must choose between a policy of blood and iron and one of milk and water ... why I am for the policy of blood and iron. It is better not only for the nation but in the long run for the world."

... Wilson told the Peace Conference on February 14, 1919:


The preservation of peace would no longer spring from the traditional calculus of power but from worldwide consensus backed up by a policing mechanism.

In Roosevelt's estimation, only mystics, dreamers, and intellectuals held the view that peace was man's natural condition and that it could be maintained by disinterested consensus.

Traditional American idealism must combine with a thoughtful assessment of contemporary realities to bring about a usable definition of American interests. In the past, American foreign policy efforts were inspired by utopian visions of some terminal point after which the underlying harmony of the world would simply reassert itself.

Wasn't sure if this belonged in politics or philosophy. here goes nothing

World peace: a nice thought, or a possibility?

I’m sure this will receive some interesting feedback. My personal opinion, is that world peace is only a nice thought. My faith in humans is low and few. The idea that various denominations can deny their grievances with one another is either totally or nearly impossible. In my experience, humans tend toward focus on the self rather than the collective. We on these forums are evidence of that.

This brings up a new question: on this forum, what is the dedication: the individual, or the collective? The fact that it’s a forum, and not some ill founded place run by 40 year old with no life gives this place the appearance of striving toward the collective.

Perhaps I state this in arrogance to a larger picture, and perhaps the tenants of these forums are focused on a collaboration of sorts, but it seems as though for a community to exist in any way what so ever, the individual must make some denial of them self. Please correct my logic if it’s flawed, but this is the conclusion I have come to.

cheers.

Stop being a cry baby. Do you really think that since you pay taxes, they should ask if you agree with what they do with this money? How many missiles do you think they can launch of that which you contribute? A slingshot maybe?

Do you voluntary pay those taxes or do they force you to?

If they force you, you being a "tax-payer" is no argument at all, it gives you no "right" to anything, besides doing what all those unhappy tax-payers do; hang in the pub or online complaining how their tax money is wasted on whatever.

Government means "they govern you".

D.

So the real question is; do we want to be the good guys, or the bad guys? Those that help for "humanitarian" reasons, or those that just observe and wait?

The "we did help you guys" always is great leverage when negotiating desires.

Yes they should ask me, it is called democracy.

I am sure most members of 600Club are aware that the involvement of the West hardly is motivated by the so-called distress of the rebels in Libya.
[...]
I can guarantee as far as Britain is concerned that money has exchanged hands between the Conservatives who rule my nation and oil interests.
[...]
Had the motives for the West to be involved in Libya been authentic then I would have no problems, but the motives are sinister, to there can be no happy ending in Libya.

Last I knew, the Arab league requested the intervention and so did, of course, the rebellion. We, or them, might regret it when the situation changes and all fully realize nothing is ever done for free.

D.

Your naiveté is almost touching.

The Arab League no longer are united over supporting the No Fly Zone. I agree with the critics of No Fly Zone when this zone should be about preventing aircraft from being used against the rebels, but NATO have changed definitions to declaring war on Libya with a war from the air against all of Gaddafi's forces on the ground.

Apparently you don't understand what is going on.

There is a ripple spreading through the Middle East which is caused not by the West, but by those living there. It spreads throughout all the "old" systems.

This doesn't imply you can't have an opinion but being angered about it, is like being angered about the weather.

And if you have a problem with me presenting my views as "facts", tell me where I said they were. As far as I know, you have a problem with you interpreting my views as "facts".

Solve that and bring more to the table than "I don't know" when disagreeing with me.

Of course, and I'm quite sure there wasn't an earthquake in Japan either. It's one of their dirty tricks to gain sympathy and relieve us of our money.

I find your criticism, in my opinion and not really stating a fact with this, quite humorous. I think, you should, in my opinion, again not a fact, quit replying to me with such silly criticism, again my opinion, no fact, and add more substance.

I'm about the nicest guy you'll find here but I greatly dislike mommy-types who wave their little finger and tell me what I should or should not do.

Now piss off.