2510. Warriors often have a code that they try to live by, to a greater or lesser degree. Medieval knights had their Code of Chivalry. Japanese samurai had Bushido, “The Way of the Warrior”. Other warrior groups include Romans, Vikings, American Indians, and Mongols. In fiction, there are the Klingons of Star Trek. Samurai are beautifully portrayed in the movie “The Last Samurai” and in the movie “The Seven Samurai”.
2511. The Warrior’s Code always emphasizes fighting skill, fearlessness of death, indifference to pain, and loyalty. Often it also emphasizes honesty, defense of the weak, and support for moral, spiritual, and esthetic values.
2512. The Warrior’s Code is often accompanied by a belief that after death brave warriors will live happily forever in a place reserved for brave warriors. This is similar to the belief in Type 2 religion that after death those who believe and obey will live happily forever in heaven.
2513. The primary measurement of the status of a warrior is always his fighting skill.
2514. Loyalty is greatly overrated in the Warrior’s Code. This serves the kings and lords by assuring the unquestioning support of their followers regardless of whether the fight is for good or evil. It also serves the fighters themselves by removing any sense of responsibility for knowing who they are killing or why, or for having an opinion about it. They are “just following orders”. They are absolved of all guilt and never need to criticize the ethics of their leaders.
2515. “Honor” in the Warrior’s Code does not mean giving to others what belongs to them. It means loyalty to one’s superiors, fearlessness of death, indifference to pain, and a history of success in battle. This loyalty can be thought of as giving to one’s superiors something that belongs to them, namely one’s loyalty.
2516. “Honor” in the Warrior’s Code also means one’s good reputation. This justifies the warrior in being very easily offended. And this creates many opportunities to fight and to demonstrate one’s fighting skill.
2517. The Warrior’s Code never contains anything which discourages war or which seeks to minimize fighting.
2518. The need for physical force and fighting skill to enforce the Rights to Liberty, Life, Property, and Contract is very great.
2519. Fighting a lot because it is so much fun to fight is self-indulgent in the extreme. This pulls the whole civilization down into a dark age of tyranny, slavery, war, stealing, and poverty. Fighting for fun should be confined to sports like boxing and football.
2520. A man who is big, strong, and skilled in fighting will tend to fight for fun, because he usually wins so he does not suffer very much, and because in fighting successfully he believes that he is demonstrating his superiority over other men. He may become a bully. He may find employment with another man who is happy to pay for fighting skill. Thus he becomes part of someone’s private army.
2521. The spiritual being often desires to fight back against his bondage to his body. Thus it can be a source of great joy to ride and to fight with wild abandon, disdainful of death, and scornful of the suffering of the body. The fighter can also love his brothers, on both sides of the battle, with whom he is playing this reckless, wild, and fearless game, beyond caring about such insignificant matters as the life and death of the body.
2522. Fearlessness of death and indifference to pain are the spiritual being’s way of demonstrating his domination and control over his body.
2523. Fearlessness of death and indifference to pain give the spiritual being freedom from the ordinary requirement that he must ensure the survival and comfort of his body.
2524. The Warrior’s Code gives the spiritual being an abundance of opportunities to fight. It gives him status in proportion to his ability to fight and in proportion to the number of battles in which he has been victorious. This is a great sport. In this way, the Warrior’s Code gives the spiritual being freedom from the ordinary requirement that he must do useful productive work in order to provide for the needs of his body, namely, food, clothing, shelter, sex, and comfort.
2525. The warrior has an aversion to productive work. It is beneath his dignity as a warrior. It is not dramatic enough to be fun. Ordinary work is boring. The warrior is too busy with the important activity of fighting to be involved in ordinary work. The warrior is too important to work.
2526. The warrior is not concerned with death or suffering. But he fears old age, and the weakness that goes with it, and the dependency on the care of others. Old age is undignified. Old age is the extreme of humiliation for the spiritual being in his failure to dominate and control his body. Old age is the extreme for the spiritual being of being dominated and controlled by his body. Old age causes the warrior to lose his fighting skill.
2527. Therefore the warrior believes that it is glorious to die in battle. A good death is a death in battle, fighting fiercely, demonstrating his fighting skill, his fearlessness of death, and his loyalty to his group.
2528. Fearlessness of death sometimes becomes eagerness for death. An honorable death is a shortcut to success measured by the admiration of one’s fellow warriors. This is similar to some Christians in the past who desired martyrdom. They wanted their Christian faith to cause them to be killed, believing that they would thereby quickly gain admission into heaven.
2529. For Japanese samurai, eagerness for death became a great enthusiasm for suicide. They would kill themselves at the slightest provocation and consider this an act of great Honor. The rule that the loser in battle must kill himself in order to keep his Honor would motivate a warrior to try hard to win. But someone who kills himself will not be able to fight in the future and will not be able to do anything productive or useful or helpful in the future.
2530. The warrior considers that any activity other than war is beneath his dignity. Thus he is eager for war, for battle, and for any opportunity to fight.
2531. Warriors compete to demonstrate their toughness and their masculinity. “I am more disdainful of death than you are!”.
2532. For a warrior, Honor usually means dying gloriously in battle trying to kill other people who are trying to achieve Honor and glory by killing him. What’s wrong with this picture?
2533. All this senseless killing and being killed is justified by calling it fate and destiny. Thus the warrior denies his own responsibility. He disavows the results of his own actions by calling them fate, destiny, karma, or God’s will.
2534. Buddha himself did not recommend extreme asceticism or intentionally causing the body to suffer as a road to enlightenment. A follower of the Warrior’s Code is clearly not living a life of sensual self-indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh. But all this embracing of pain and death is of doubtful value as a spiritual exercise.
2535. Honor is more important than fighting skill. “Honor” here means the willingness and desire to give to others what belongs to them and to do what is right and good. “Honor” here does not mean mindless obedience to one’s superiors in battle, or self-sacrifice in battle without knowing the purpose of the battle or without knowing that the purpose is right and good and worth fighting for. The philosophy and study and understanding of what is right and good are more important than fighting skill. Fighting skill without guidance to do what is right and good is mindless violence, or worse, it is service to tyranny and slavery.
2536. The warrior thinks that because he does not take things for himself, and because he endures pain and death, and because he sacrifices himself in battle for his leaders, that therefore he has done the right thing and has Honor. This is not true. This is a lie told to him by his leaders for their own benefit, to increase their own wealth and power. This is also a self-deception which justifies his own preoccupation with fighting and warfare for their own sake, without regard to the actual consequences of a life dedicated to killing people at the slightest provocation. He loves his life of warfare not because it is honorable or virtuous or helpful or of service to others. He loves his life of constant fighting because it is so adventurous, so dramatic, and so much fun.
2537. Honor in war does not come from sacrificing yourself in battle for a leader or a cause. That only gives you the Honor, if any, which is deserved by the leader or the cause. If the leader or the cause deserves dishonor, then you get dishonor.
2538. Honor in war comes from asserting or defending the Rights to Liberty, Life, Property, and Contract.
2539. Dishonor in war comes from attacking or suppressing the Rights to Liberty, Life, Property, and Contract.
2540. War is inherently destructive. Therefore fighting for a leader or a cause who brings no change to civilization is dishonorable.
2541. The caste system in ancient India had four castes. From highest to lowest, these were religious, warrior, businessman, and worker. This is the correct order of seniority for these activities. Businessmen direct the activities of workers, so as to accomplish the maximum productivity. Warriors control the use of physical force. Thus it is their role to enforce the Rights to Liberty, Life, Property, and Contract. Warriors make sure that businessmen are honest in all their activities. Religious people care for man as a spiritual being. It is the function of religious people to understand and to be wise and to guide warriors so that their enforcement of Liberty is correct.
2542. It is not more spiritual to kill someone with primitive weapons than to kill him with modern weapons. It is less destructive. It is more fun. It is more sportsmanlike. It is more artistic, more esthetically pleasing. But if you kill someone, the important thing is that you killed him, not that you did it in an artistic manner.
2543. Technical advances in weaponry are very important in the history of warfare. Examples of important technical advances include: the long bow, the gun, the machine gun, the tank, the airplane, and of course, the atomic bomb. If you want to win the war, then you want the most advanced and effective weapons for killing the enemy.
2544. War with advanced weapons is highly destructive. War with nuclear weapons raises the possibility of the extinction of human life on Earth. On a planet like Earth where there is constant warfare, it should have been obvious that nuclear weapons would quickly become available to many nations. Inventing nuclear weapons was a really bad idea. On the other hand, there was a real fear that Hitler would develop nuclear weapons, and that would have been even worse.
2545. Fear and hatred of advanced weapons easily leads to a romantic nostalgia for more primitive times with more primitive weapons.
2546. Modern civilization is more materialistic in its philosophy than earlier centuries. This contributes to the idea that killing with primitive weapons is more spiritual.
2547. Whether you kill a man skillfully with a bow and arrow after a night of prayer and meditation, or whether you kill him drunkenly with a gun after a night of wine, women, and song, he’s just as dead either way.
2548. In a barbarous society where strong men and rich men compete ruthlessly for power with no regard for the rights of others, life will be a nightmare of slavery and war regardless of the level of technology with which the wars are fought.
2549. What is needed to prevent slavery and war is the same regardless of the level of technology. What is needed is a government which will enforce Liberty for all men, and which will not fall under the control of either strong men or rich men.
2550. What is needed to bring into existence a global government based on honesty and Liberty, not on Conspiracy and war, is knowledge and understanding by a very large number of people of the basic principles of Liberty and of Conspiracy. People need to know how the game works. Then there will be some chance of success.
2551. Sometimes it is hard to teach people something when that new understanding will reveal to them that what they have been doing is wrong, incorrect, or harmful. On the other hand, other people can be taught the same thing and they will be thrilled and joyful and grateful that they now understand what needs to be done that is right, correct, and beneficial.
2552. What is needed to bring freedom and peace to the world is not a bunch of tough guys who think they are better fighters than all the other tough guys. That has not worked in the last ten thousand years and it won’t work in the next ten thousand years. What is needed is a bunch of smart guys who know that deception and Conspiracy are the real enemies, and who can dig it all up and expose the rot and corruption and evil to the light of day.
2553. After thousands of years of competing warlords, the idea of creating a government dedicated to Liberty for all men is a brilliant and stunning advance. The Founding Fathers of America did a great and wonderful thing. What is needed now is to re-establish Liberty and to add the further idea that the Great Enemy of Liberty is Conspiracy by Super Rich men seeking to rule in secret.
2554. People love adventure stories. In a good adventure story, there is a great battle between the good guys and the bad guys, the good guys win, and everyone lives happily ever after. The good guys are remembered as great heroes. In order to win, the good guys have to be great fighters. If the bad guys are more powerful and dangerous, then the story is better, the battle is more dramatic, and the good guys have to be better fighters in order to win.
2555. The fact that people love the heroic good guys in adventure stories leads to the false idea that virtue is measured by fighting skill, that the greatest good, the highest value, is to be a great fighter.
2556. It is not true that spiritual wisdom is measured by fighting skill.
2557. The truth is that if things are being well managed, then there will never be a need for any great battles between good guys and bad guys. But the managers who successfully maintain Liberty without the need for any great battles will probably not be remembered as great heroes. If the great heroes who win the great battles are so good, why did they fail to avoid the need for a great battle?
2558. It is also true that if good management comes to power after a period of bad management, it may be necessary to have a great battle in order to correct the errors and the evils of the past.
2559. If a ruler is ruling with intelligence and Honor, and if he understands the principles of Liberty and of Conspiracy, then there is no need for him personally to be a skilled fighter. His government will be stable and he will have a very sufficient number of skilled fighters working for the government.
2560. Another reason why people love a skilled fighter is that physical strength and agility are very attractive esthetically and sexually.
2561. Physical training, while it emphasizes the body, may also emphasize domination by the spiritual being over the body. This can be very attractive spiritually.
2562. Training as a fighter may involve awareness and use of “life energy” or “chi”, which most people are not aware of.
2563. Training as a fighter may involve mental discipline beyond the ability of most people. This mental discipline is similar to the mental discipline practiced by people seeking spiritual enlightenment, but the purpose is different.
2564. In a ball game, the fun is not in having the ball located in the goal. The fun is in trying to get it there against the opposition of your opponents.
2565. The paradox of any game is that even though you are trying to win, the fun is in playing, not in having won.
2566. The paradox of war is that if you win, the joy of battle is over.
2567. Love for the joy of battle is a major reason why history is an endless series of wars.
2568. In war it is extremely important to distinguish clearly between the joy of battle and the desirability of the result which you are trying to achieve by winning the war.
2569. If the desirability of the result which you are trying to achieve by winning the war is sufficient, and if there is no other way to achieve this desirable result, then it is entirely permissible not only to fight the war but also to enjoy the battle as a brave warrior.
2570. War always involves death, destruction, and suffering. These are bad, wrong, and undesirable. Therefore it is never permissible to fight a war for the sake of the joy of battle.
2571. The joy of battle must be sacrificed in order to have a stable civilization based on Liberty, with freedom, peace, and prosperity, and with the resulting art, science, and philosophy.
* * * * * * *
This article is Chapter 84 in LIBERTY FOR ALL MEN EVERYWHERE – The Theory And Practice Of Freedom by Dale Samson. This book is available at http://www.libfame.com.
© Copyright 2010 Dale Richard Samson. Partial quotations of this chapter are permitted with attribution. Cite source as Dale Samson's LIBERTY FOR ALL MEN EVERYWHERE at http://www.libfame.com.
