At the same time, I recognize that off the battlefield, we use the words "fight" and "war" for many purposes other than to capture, kill or conquer. We say that we're fighting for women's rights or are waging a war on opioids.
Words rarely denote just one thing. Why not validate our efforts to affect change, to influence others' opinions, to legislate, to have one's voice be heard by using power words like fight and war? I mean, why the heck not?
I admit that my love of language and good usage has me sounding to some like "the word police," although those readers who know me personally know that I'm no cop. I've spent especially the past decade listening to and reading carefully how we express ourselves and how these trends change over time. In particular, I'm interested in raising my own (and maybe a reader's) consciousness about the effect of unconscious word and phrase usage on our perception and attitudes.
If the German sniper's bullet was aimed a few inches higher, I wouldn't exist today. My pacifism is immaterial to the reality that men and women put their lives on the line to fight a war for what they believed. As horrifying as I find this human truth, over eons we humans have fought and killed and been killed for a country, a tribe or a leader. My deepest longings for peace do not change this stark reality.
So please bear with me. And Bear's with you. How is it not devaluing this terrible human reality when we are so often using fight and kill and war for actions whose manner and purpose have so little to do with combat and trauma, death and battlefields? War is armed combat whose goal it is to subdue, conquer, extinguish.
When you urge others to fight for human rights, aren't you talking about demonstrating, writing letters, voting, debating, and supporting a good cause? How would fighting help you meet your goals?
Twenty years after my dear Dad was shot down somewhere in southwestern Germany, he became one of the primary architects on the Kennedy-then-Johnson Administration's War on Poverty. This huge mobilization to reduce human suffering did good things and made plenty of mistakes. One of the few times I ever heard my father express regret was when he commented, "I just wish we hadn't called it a War."
In my view the currently observed divisions in our country, between Left and Right, Liberals and Conservatives, religious and non-religious, rich and poor, winners and losers, are exacerbated by our martial vocabulary.
Really, how does one fight against or wage a war on a concept or belief? Whom or what are you trying to kill or capture? How will you know when you've won? And when does one become a veteran of all this fighting and war-waging?
Yes, we must work. We must struggle. We must strive. We do this by increasing communication, listening, understanding and, yes, loving.
We don't need to turn every challenge into a fight, nor change every opponent into an enemy. Significant and lasting change for the better comes through joining together rather than by fighting. Let us abolish war, not initiate it.
Thank you for 'listening'.