Making Peace In A Time Of Neo-Tribal Wars
HostA168StudyHistoryStudyWarsNowMakePeace
Study History, Study Wars…Now, Make Peace! [I call you to
this vow/service]
This will be brief. I’ll
bring in Creveld, Nisbet, Barzun and Berman. I number 17 statements.
--
One wise teacher writes that to best study American (U. S.)
history, study the wars. 1
Another wise one has organized a course on American Social
History around the re-integration of the veteran into peacetime society. 2
In one way, both of these are threatened by the statement of
the second that ‘we will lose the ability to speak in America’. By that he
means ‘true speech,’ in which one’s life is put behind one’s words. [I see this
as a vow, such as a marriage vow of ‘ ‘til death us do part’. 3
For instance, the Congress of the United States of America
has not formally declared war since World War Two, and yet there are various
wars—against drugs, terror, cancer, etc. 4
Is this progress? Nisbet writes of ‘The History of the Idea
of Progress’. I think it can be recovered. 5
Is this ‘The Rise and Decline of the State,’ this not
declaring wars? Creveld writes that it is lack of justice and lack of sound
money for retirees. 6
Is this decadence? Barzun’s ‘From Dawn to Decadence,’ in the
epilog, if I remember correctly, sees regional ethno-linguistic organizations
bridged by corporations. Later, again if I remember correctly, he sees the
re-learning of reading from monuments (?). 7
Berman, who we will mention again below, fears, in ‘Law and
Revolution,’ that administrative law will be the end of that of which he
writes. 8
Remember, we are aiming at making peace. Peace is the
explicit reconciliation of opposites. Does it require a vow, in a way that
peace treaties ended declared wars? 9
Let us move to Bledsoe’s ‘Metropolitan Manifesto’. This
wonderful book proposes a way for ambassadors of peace (Christians) to attain
the position of advisor to the decision-makers, mayors of cities, and other
powerful persons. It proposes other
things also, and gives examples. 10
We take a detour from the writing above about ‘the state,’
which Creveld defines as the organization without the person (king, etc.?).
Why? We do this because Bledsoe indicates that cities may be the economic
movers of the future. Many in city governments are disenchanted with being
controlled by polities of larger areas. 11
Now, toward peace we go, Lord willing. Can we study the
establishment of peace in a previous era, and adapt that to our time? I say, ‘Yes!,’
and I will proceed. 12
We return to the second teacher mentioned above. He is the
one of ‘the re-integration of the veteran,’ and of ‘losing the ability to speak’.
13 He tells the story of the establishment of peace after the Fall of Rome.
Rome had kept the warring tribes from warring. After Rome fell, forests, for
example, kept tribes apart. But then
came hermits into these impenetrable forests.
After hermits came monasteries, and monks who cleared the forests and
drained the swamps. After this was done,
peasant farmers could move in. The monasteries provided wisdom such as when to
plant, and became rich on rents, so that when the now-penetrable forests
allowed tribes to war, the monasteries could say ‘No fighting during Lent!’.
They got the imperative to say, ‘No fighting from Saturday evening to Monday
morning!’ [I may have some details wrong]. The second teacher, first of the two
chronologically, then relates how, after the land was organized, skills were
organized around equipping the knight, guardian of the greater traffic allowed
by the invention of the horse collar.
Then markets were organized, and I would say, missionary efforts. I attempt at this time to respond to this
narrative, though I will be changed. I pray to be able to help organized peace.
Land. Skills. Markets. Missionaries. Peace. 13
To do this organizing, I return to the themes of cities and
true speech. Again, if I recall
correctly, Berman mentions the Truce of God.
This was an oath-taking peace, and it was an advance from the command of
the monasteries for there to be no fighting during certain periods of time. 14
This Truce of God, and the mutual oath-taking, again, if I
recall correctly, became the basis for the formation of cities in the 12th
century (?). Cities were formed by oaths. 15
Why can we not have a type of oath--if not explicit yet-- at
least in the background for the use of the advisor about which Bledsoe writes
in ‘Metropolitan Manifesto’? This could follow well the narrative of the
establishment of peace between warring tribes that we saw during the almost a
century from the time Rome fell. Remember, early on, there were natural
boundaries to keep warring tribes apart, and at the end, it was true speech,
oaths. 16
Of what would that oath consist, that vow? I propose that it
would resonate with the service of the church. As a third great teacher, to
remain unnamed for the present also, writes: We are Called, we are Cleansed in
authoritative forgiveness after confession, we are Consecrated (by readings and
preaching), we are Communed (eating and drinking), and we are Commissioned
(sent out to tell the good news). The whole here has been a Call that showed
how the Cleansing of peace was attained at one time, that pointed to readings
and applications of them, that pointed to something Communing that we should ‘read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest,’ and that now you have been Called to this
vow/service (‘liturgy’ is from a word for ‘service’ in Greek). There are many
5-point examples of which I have written, but since this follows the second
teacher above, one might do it in the form of
Imperative-Subjective-Narrative-Objective-Planetary Service. This would be godparenting the next era. In that vein, one might see the ceremony for
godparents for eldsters, it’s in a blogspot. You can figure it out! What oath
should these advisors have in mind that, at some appropriate time, could
explicitly reconcile opposites, making peace? Tell us! 17
