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On every measurable scale, no matter which side you are sympathetic toward, The Shortest War In History adds to the long list of Unjust wars plaguing history.
In keeping with my theme of researching the Justness of odd and absurd wars, the Anglo-Zanzibar War makes the list as it is regarded as the shortest war in history. Fierce debates have risen over the actual length of the war; Zanzibar sympathizers insisting that the conflict lasted for at least 45 minutes, while British historians claim it was a mere 38 minutes. Let’s just call it an even 40.
Like most dumb wars, Great Britain was a belligerent and its main cause was ensuring that the sun never sets on the British flag. Zanzibar, on the other hand, simply didn’t believe that Great Britain had the stones to fire on them. They were wrong. With a scene straight out of The Simpsons—Bart playing the role of Zanzibar and Lisa playing the role of Great Britain—ultimatums were levied with the attitude that if Zanzibar didn’t comply, it would be their own fault. What more justification for war could O’Brien need?
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Knowledge is not an edifice built upon a foundation of indubitable facts, but an interpretative web of mutually supporting beliefs and desires being rewoven.
Friedrich Nietzsche sees the self as a multiplicity of social structure, perception, and the nature of being. One’s perception is not a simple perspective but a complex construct of physiological, psychological, and intellectual functions (Cox, 1). Sensations one experiences is not a direct reflection of the world but an interpretation of phenomena combined with dispositions, value judgements, and personal history that affect conclusions and rational. There is no single phenomena that is universally interpreted the same way; each individual’s understanding can be unique and equally as “good” or “correct” as another’s.
I particularly found Nietzsche’s perspective of knowledge interesting; it is “not an edifice built upon a foundation of indubitable facts, but an interpretative web of mutually supporting beliefs and desires being rewoven. Interpretation is the essence of life and each interpretation opens up a horizon of meaning and value” (Cox, 1, 2). I have put this same sentiment in my own words many times as explaining knowledge as glass ceilings; there is no complete knowledge of particular or universal objects or subjects, only levels of perspective. The more perspectives understood, i.e. ceilings shattered, the richer one’s understanding becomes—to the point of superb functionalism—however, complete knowledge or truth is unobtainable. For instance, a Christian may believe he fully knows God—and he’s not wrong from that standpoint; however, until he understands God from a Hindu, Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, (etc. etc.) perspective, he has a very narrow and incomplete conception of the Almighty.
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Looking back throughout history most wars are pretty dumb, but can a dumb war be morally Just?
There are five qualifications Just War Theorists use to evaluate wars, in this article I'll break down the Pastry War between France and Mexico in 1838.
In full disclosure, I chose the Pastry War because of its superficial absurdity. I wanted to find the dumbest full-fledged conflict that I could, put it through the grinders of Justice, and see what our war ethicist buddy O’Brien comes up with. Let me tell you, there’s plenty of dumb wars out there, but I needed something with more substance than, say, the folklore surrounding the War of the Bucket (Bologna and Modena, 1325). According to historians, the Pastry War has enough significance to be somewhat documented and made just about everyone’s list of dumb—and so began my investigation.
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From Altair to Bayek, AC Origins is a homerun when the franchise needed it the most.
I’ve been avid AC player for over a decade—I’ve played all major releases as they came out since its inception. I’ve even read a few of the books, watched the cinematic shorts, and went to the theater to see the movie. I love the story and idea that is Assassin’s Creed.
However, in recent years, the game has strayed drastically from its compelling roots and existential undertones–which was the entire reason I forced myself to play through the clunky hair-pulling controls and egregious repetitiveness that was Altair in the first couple installments. Originally, the story was so good that I was willing to suffer through its god-awful playability. However, as the playability got better, the story became much worse.
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If God does not exist, man, therefore, is only beholden to man–and in turn, all is permissible.
The quintessential existentialist claim of “existence prior to essence” traverses in the opposite direction of thousands of years of thought and the commonly held subscription that the Western world has been raised on–“essence prior to existence.” Granted, those making such existentialist claims prior to the Enlightenment were burned at the stake; being branded a heretic silenced many forms of thought–existentialism being the antithesis.
Regardless, the crux of the debate centralizes around the idea of intelligent design and if man is a creation of God; further, and if so, then each of us are imprinted with a sense of meaning, destiny, essence, and / or soul prior to being born. Existentialist reject this position and believe that man is a construct of nature and the creator of his own life. As Sartre puts it, man “appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself… Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after being thrust toward existence” (Sartre, 15). This concept requires that each man becomes aware of what he truly is and that he takes responsibility for his existence (Sartre, 16).
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