A world at war

Throughout recorded history, there have been very few occasions when the whole world was at peace and the same thing holds for the United States. Infowars.com states that America has been at war 93 percent of the time since 1776; 222 out of 239 years. The only time we went 5 years without war was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression. So we are not unlike other cultures and societies; in fact we are just like them.

I've written before about the fight or flee response when we face danger. We either dig in, stand our ground and battle the enemy; sometimes winning, sometimes losing, or we run. If we run, sometimes we get away and sometimes we don't. If we get away, sometimes fleeing becomes a natural part of our makeup and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, instead of fleeing the next time, we stand our ground and fight.

Some experts contend that violence is an instinct all people carry but I don't think there's enough evidence to support that claim. It's almost a chicken vs. the egg question; Which came first? Is our immediate response to fight and defend what we believe to be ours or do we learn to do that by learning and observing from others? We don't know the history of early man because they couldn't read or write so nothing was written down. So we don't know what their first response was to danger. Was is to turn around in fear or to stand their ground? Watching animal behavior gives us clues to the answer of this question because a great number of animals have an aggressive posture when first threatened and yet if that posture is challenged, many will turn and run but some don't. It's the same thing with humans. Some turn and run at first threat, others turn and run if their initial aggressive posture doesn't negate the threat and others won't turn and run at all.

In the Trump Administration, Time magazine alleges that honey badgers are now running the show, similar to what I was referring to in the previous paragraph. Honey badgers, according to the magazine, are "a single-minded beast......who through bee stings, snakebites and other degradations, never stops killing and eating." This is a strategy adopted by Steve Bannon, who is Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor and one of the few who have walk-in privileges for the Oval Office. I believe we surely know by now that Trump doesn't defer or take orders from anyone but Bannon and Trump allegedly have a mind-meld because they tend to see the world through the same pair of lenses. It's almost a shock and awe kind of perspective in which they both contend that traditional politics didn't work and haven't worked for decades so let's carpet bomb the whole process and do it our way. And that's exactly what they're doing.

Many Americans and citizens of the world are fearful that this attitude will lead to more serious and consequential wars than we've had in the past because Bannon and Trump both possess a winner-take-all philosophy and losing is not in their vocabulary. Trump supporters cheer this sharp break from politics as usual and his opponents fear it.

We have four years to find out if it comes to pass and if it does, what the outcome will be. But there's no question that this White House doesn't intend to backtrack or flee at all. It will stand its ground, punch it out with an opponent, regardless of who that opponent is, and let the chips fall where they may.

And we'll either be better off for it as a country or we'll curse the day we decided to go in that direction!