We (the World) have been at peace only 8% of the time over the last 3500 years.*
That is an average of 8 years of every century. Of course, an average is the overall number, in this case 3500 divided by the number of year the human race went without war – or is it the other way around? I get confused.
The bottom line is that to stay with the average every century would need to have 8 years of peace. Do you think the 20th Century has a total of 8 years of no wars? I doubt it.
What about the 19th Century with our Civil War and the War of 1812 plus England and France at each other’s throats, which was sort of a carry over from the previous century. Highly doubtful.
And the 17th Century was no better – there were new lands and worlds to fight to gain control of.
With the average of 8 peace years of every century and it looks like the most recent centuries were chocked full of wars, then the much earlier centuries, in keeping with the overall average, each century would have much more than 8 years of peace.
What did those earlier centuries have to keep peace than the latter centuries do not have?
Nothing. That is it! Nothing! They had no technology! They had fewer projectile things designed to kill people; no TV to keep citizens tempers pumped up; and no electronic communications.
Progress.
But there may be hope. The whole world has been looking at China for the past two weeks and the Chinese welcomed us with opened arms and fireworks.
International Capitalism and lead painted toys might be the world peace savior of this century.
*Uncle John’s Page-a-Day Almanac, Thursday, July 24, 2008.
Agree that wars are fewer and the statistic is misleading. I tend to think of world wars or major powers wars. Things like 100 Year Wars, Thirty Year Wars, Seven Year Wars. I consider WWII to be the last war. Of course, to all the poor folks killed, maimed, displaced, etc. by the other more regional wars, it is still a war. But WWII was half a century ago.
ReplyDeleteSi,
ReplyDeleteI think a war could be a war if only two little tiny countries were fighting over rights to a couple acres of land to put up a pig farm. If people are killed and one group would gain... " a rose is a rose..."
Right you are, ET. But if you count them this way, the numbers are still declining. Back in the good old days, when I was in Henry VIII's court, we had lots and lots of those wars.
ReplyDeleteSi,
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of one year on vacation we were in Philadelphia on July the 4th and was at a celebration at Liberty Hall (that is the name of it I hope) and one of the speakers were Jimmy Carter... wait! He was there alright, but as typing I just remember, what I was going to point out was not what he said in his speech at Liberty Hall, but in a local TV station's interview with him that morning... he said, at that every minutue, something like 233 wars were ongoing. Back to statistics: That means more than likely there were at least 466 countries involved.... I didn't know there were that many countries existed... now, what was my point? I forgot.
Some could be like our U.S. of A. We are conducting two wars at the same time! Now there is something to be proud of.
ReplyDeleteWe were talking about about .... Elvis, wasn't it?
Si,
ReplyDeleteer - Elvis? I believe so!