Antarctica

Once again the world was engulfed in war. For what reasons no one knew, least of which the soldiers, for the reasons had been so contrived and ill supported that they were also soon forgotten. Furthermore, the people of that time were of a feeble-minded nature, dulled by their many addictions and preoccupations, and lulled to sleep by the vapidness of their chosen forms of entertainment. And so when war came upon them it found in them plump and unwitting victims, easily mislead, and easily bled. Like a fire in a "managed" forest, the war spread rapidly and ferociously and was not inclined to listen to those few frightened voices whispering of peace. For man, so easily insulted, and so quick to seek revenge, rapidly descended into what presumably is his natural state of fear and distrust, hatred and pre-emptive genocide. Leaders who had thought to profit from war were instead consumed by it, their stations of power crumbling and crashing to the ground like giant sequoias improbably consumed by the inferno. Thus man was left once again to fend for himself, with no leaders to guide him and no nations to fight for. Only his hunger for glory and his thirst for survival drove him on to slaughter his brothers and rape his sisters because his life depended on it. Not even the tears of the lamenters could put out the fire for the forest floor was covered in layers of combustibles, and the minds of men were lined with the fat of their indulgence and the ignorance of their apathy. It was, after all, a fire that had been building for years, mankind itself multiplying and spreading like sparks in a breeze, causing a slow roasting wherever they fell. The whole Earth had simmered in this heat for centuries as the human genome consumed the available biomass at an ever-increasing pace. Species had gone extinct faster and in greater numbers than ever before in the history of the planet. Mankind, like a super volcano a thousand times the size of Yellowstone had bellowed and bilged the foulest of compounds into the air and the water, heating up the atmosphere from within, until, at last, in a final orgy of destruction, she had erupted!

Yet even in this world, so consumed by fire, children were born, and of necessity, only the hardier and sharper of mind survived into adulthood, along with the few that simply got lucky. So too it was with David, who was said to be of exceptional intelligence, though he had little opportunity to display his talents. Yet those who knew him as a child knew of his penchant for study, and reading of ancient books and stories that did not for the most part interest his contemporaries. David dreamed of restoring the world to its former glory, indeed, to take it beyond its former state of apparent glory, for he was well aware that beneath the technological glitter and prowess of the recent past there had been a deep neglect of the human penchant for death and destruction.

What lay before David was a seemingly hopeless task, for subduing the fire would take generations, and repairing the damage afterwards seemed almost inconceivable. The magnitude of the calamity was unprecedented: entire continents had been sterilized, contaminated with radioactive fall-out, nasty chemicals and horrendous man-made disease vectors so potent that their virulence alone prevented them from exterminating the human race, for they would spread so rapidly through a populace as to wipe out all carriers ere they could spread their deathly burden to the next group. David and his fellows survived only by braving the unbearably cold winters of Antarctica, a continent so forbidding that they could survive only under the protection of a few large Geodesic domes. Established before the start of the conflagration by a small band of a few hundred peace-seekers, the colony had been too small and insignificant to attract the attention of the warring factions. By design, it had attracted the kind of talented, enterprising and peace-loving people that gave hope to the dream of a restoration of human glory. Yet despite its isolation, and despite the cold, even here they were not immune to the fire. And so David found himself a young teacher in one of the last remaining human settlements on Earth that possessed the knowledge and the technology to resurrect human civilization, trying to instill in his students the deep understanding of their troubled heritage that would be necessary for them to accomplish the task.

"Mr. Simmons, are you claiming that war is inevitable?" asked Jawaharlal incredulously.

"Well, Jay, do you believe sex is inevitable?"

The students laughed, uncomfortably, at David’s joke.

"There are, I mean, were monks and priests who lived without having sex," countered Jawaharlal.

"Yes, but they were small in number, and under extreme duress. The point is not that peace is impossible, of course. The point is that it can only be achieved through constant vigilance and preemption. Violence, like sex, is in our nature, and it is there for good reason. In pre-historic times, and again today, except perhaps here in our little refuge on the bottom of the Earth, only the most ruthlessly violent would survive. The rest would be easy prey for the violent. And so violence has been bred into us, like pit bulls, hyenas, or lions!"

David walked over to Jay and shoved him with all his might in the chest. Jay staggered backwards, anger and hurt flashing across his face.

"What the..." he blurted as he slammed into the wall. The class fell silent.

"How did that make you feel Jay?" David asked, calmly.

"You have no right to do that to me?" Jay stammered, still shocked by the sudden assault.

"You’re right. I don’t. Or do I? Am I not the leader? I’m the alpha dog! What are you going to do about it? Challenge my authority?
Fight me? Kill me perhaps, because I humiliated you in front of your peers?" David knew he was playing with fire. But if they didn’t see the flames, how could they learn to be afraid? Tears were welling up in Jay’s eyes. He was clearly deeply wounded emotionally by the attack. He was David’s favorite student.

"Look at you Jay! You’re burning up, aren’t you? You can’t believe I just did that to you. Your muscles are tense, your heart rate is through the roof, and your brain is drowning in adrenaline. And all I did was push you around a little. What if I had just murdered your whole family? Would you be able to control yourself then?"

It began to dawn on Jay that he was being had, but he simply didn’t know how to respond.

"Class? Anyone have an answer for me? For Jay? Should we square off and see who is top dog? We won’t, because Jay still trusts me. And he’s smart enough to realize now that I used him to make a point. He may not forgive me, but I know he won’t try to kill me. So we can shake it off and go on with our lives pretending nothing happened.
But in fact what I just showed you is how easy it is to provoke, and be provoked. Someone with less self control than Jay, or less trusting of me than Jay would undoubtedly have responded in kind. You watch movies, you play video games, and you wrestle each other. You live and breathe violence just as you live and breathe sex and food! And like those, it can kill you."

Jay was beginning to regain his composure. There was even the hint of a smile across his face. "Very clever Mr. Simmons, but the truth is you failed to provoke me. In fact your demonstration showed that humans are quite capable of controlling our violent instincts."

"Very good Jay, you are right. But the key is that we have those instincts. And while it may take more than a shove to the chest to provoke you, you are certainly not un-provokable! And when provoked you are undoubtedly as lethal as any other man or woman hell bent on revenge and destruction."

"Fine, so what are you saying? That when provoked we should just lie down and die? By your own explanation we would be doing humanity a disservice, because we would allow the more violent and evil people to dominate and out-breed us!"

"A good retort Jay, but fatally flawed, because if you respond in kind, and if you are successful, then you are indeed the more violent one. And while you may justify your violence and thereby absolve yourself from evil, you will have unleashed a terror beyond your control. America during World War II was by all accounts not the aggressor. The
Americans saved the day, bringing Germany to its knees, and utterly crushing Japan. Yet in doing so they also developed the worlds biggest nuclear arsenal, as well as a militaristic approach to foreign policy that ultimately destroyed the world."

"So would it have been better to let the Germans and the Japanese win then?"

"That, Jay, is not the right question. The question is: would we be living in Antarctica today if the American leadership had found a way to use their newfound power and influence in the world to bring about more peace and less war during almost a century of world dominance? Could they have been so wise and careful as to accomplish that? By all accounts, certainly theirs, America was a peaceful nation. Yet the reality shows otherwise. Wars were induced, instigated or condoned. And ultimately, it was war that consumed them and the rest of us."

"So what’s the use then? You’re saying we’re doomed. We can’t win, because if we win we only set the stage for more violence, yet if we refuse to fight, someone else will do the same after defeating us!"

"I didn’t say I had any easy answers for you Jay! You have stated the problem correctly. You and your generation are charged with finding a way, somehow, of solving it. Because if you don’t, our species will go extinct! We have over the centuries learned to tame nature, from the wolves bred into harmless pets, to finding cures for the most destructive diseases. Yet you claim that we cannot find a way to tame ourselves? I refuse to believe that is true, and even if it is, I’d gladly die trying! Because the alternative is far worse; by admitting defeat we would surrender ourselves knowingly to extinction. And that, to me, would be the greatest tragedy of all. Class dismissed!"