War is outdated

That's what I heard the Pope say

From the latest encyclical:

The normalization of war

189. In 1965, the words of Saint Paul VI resounded powerfully at the UN General Assembly: “Never again war, never again war!” [180] We must acknowledge that, despite the desires and declarations for peace, the past sixty years have been marked by conflicts of astonishing brutality, often affecting civilian populations on a massive scale, leading to the death of innocent victims, mass displacement, social destabilization and long-lasting wounds. Nevertheless, in public discourse, there was a widespread conviction that war should remain a last resort, subject to strict ethical and legal limits, and always oriented toward a political vision of peace. Following developments in the immediate post-First World War period, a turning point occurred after the Second World War: peace was made the focus of the international order, as attested in particular by the United Nations Charter, with the intention to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” [181] Likewise, many national constitutions restricted the use of force to extreme and strictly limited circumstances. Even during the Cold War, despite the existence of serious conflicts, there remained the awareness that a new world war had to be avoided at all costs.

190. Today, however, we are witnessing a real paradigm shift in public discourse and in decisions regarding rearmament, with a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics, while the very ethical principles that had previously limited its use are being eroded. Regional conflicts that drag on over time, escalating tensions and reciprocal threats are becoming almost commonplace, and forms of conflict driven by the desire for territorial expansion that were thought to be overcome are re-emerging. Public opinion is gradually being shaped and conditioned by polarizing media narratives, which are often amplified by algorithms that prioritize conflict and confrontation.

191. We are also witnessing a disconcerting loss of historical memory, as first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and the two World Wars are disappearing. This leads to a selective or distorted rewriting of the past, in a context where fake news and the manipulation of narratives obscure the lessons that have been learned. Without a living memory of the horrors of war, political decisions risk being made on the basis of power alone, without any consideration for the long-term consequences.

192. To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information environments and algorithms that reward conflict can magnify polarization and resentment, increase propaganda and make shared discernment more difficult. Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. [182] Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness. The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.

Even the Pope takes time out of his day for performative social media content.

I’m not a Catholic, but I get the sense encyclicals are a bit more serious than a hot take. This one, Magnifica Humanitas, On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, caught the attention of many because of its AI stance. But I think he buried the lead by overturning the just war theory.

I had talked about this before and even made a nice Nike slogan for it:

Now, I’m sure it’s not hard for the Pope to preach peace, but I think it’s significant that the moral framework for a just war is now outdated. Some people have told me I’m too Catholic for the Pope with my anti-war stance. Well, the Pope just raised that bar. Will the next Pope come in and clarify that Thou shall not kill has the same exceptions as the US tax code? Exceptions are always made for the powerful.

The Catholic Church is of course one of the most powerful global institutions, but I will take a win where I can. Even from a religion with as much blood on its hands as Christianity, I see this as an encouraging step. I can understand the naïveté of peace, but the alternative is our currently reality where nations trade missiles for civilians deaths. Which gives birth to more missiles.

A human birth is celebrated by a family, a village, as this precious moment of continuing life. Perhaps we should celebrate when a missile is birthed by our governments similarly. All that work, all that pain, to give an angel of death its wings.

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I’ve been thinking about how to proceed with my anti-war work. On one hand, it’s quite easy to be anti-something. Just look at American politics today. What do Democrats stand for? How about Republicans? Democrats are anti-Republican and Republicans are anti-Democrat. That is clear. But what is the vision for the future? Neither has an answer.

This is the ultimately the problem of being always against-something.

It’s not that I’m changing my stance on war. In fact, I’m probably more pacifist now than just anti-war. But as I’m learning with the trumpet, excessive blowing in the instrument meets excessive resistance. For each note there is a harmonious balance of air, lips, and flow. The trumpet is “simple.” I just need to find this perfect balance every time I play a note. Pursuing this perfection takes a lifetime of work, which I think is needed to make the most beautiful sounds.

The essay Poems for Peace, puts its like this:

Yet we Americans live in the most powerful country in the world, whose adaptably postmodern empire is marked by what William James calls Pure War, a state in which the real war is the constant preparation for war. Though our poetry has ably represented the traumatic and unmaking operations of war—from the rage of Achilles on to our present day—it has also often unwittingly glorified and perpetuated a culture of war. We have yet to give adequate attention to how our poetry also contains the seeds of other ways of dealing with conflict, oppression, and injustice, and how it may advance our thinking into what a future without war might look like.

How to imagine peace, how to make peace?

This question, might take a lifetime of reflection.

Denise Levertov also took up this question in her poem Making Peace. An inspirational call to poets to do what perhaps poetry is best at:

A voice from the dark called out,
             ‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’