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Why Is World War 1 Inevitable

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Humans are not inherently violent. Yet, much of human history contains many instances of horribly violent acts. World War I, was one of these periods. World War I was fought for many reasons. Assassinations, alliances, imperialism, nationalism and militarism were all major factors that brought the whole world together in a conflict that ended with causalities in the tens of millions. It may be proposed that if the people of the world powers of the time had been more well versed in peace building customs that the war might have been avoided. However, the war seems to stem from a root of greed, which eventually manifested itself in a violent outburst, rather than stemming from a root of ignorance of peaceful practices.
The war itself boils down …show more content…

Freud in his response to a letter sent to him by Albert Einstein said that war is an appropriate response method for achieving peace (Freud 177). He says this meaning that eventually there will be created, through wars, powerful government force that will help keep the peace (Freud 177). Others like Gandhi pose a much different view. He says that a thief will stop stealing out of fear of punishment, but that is the only reason he will stop stealing. If the fear of punishment were to go away, he would resume stealing (Gandhi 277-278). Looking at this in light of Freud’s idea it would seem that he proposes more of a false peace. This theory, in this instance at least, puts to rest more or less that war or force is a valid method of achieving peace. Real peace stems from understanding and communication, not from rules, force and craving power. The next idea to come into play is another Gandhian idea. Gandhi proposes the theory that history is only the record of dispute and conflict between people and groups, in other words wars (Gandhi 281). Following this path, it can be reasoned that humans are not naturally warlike. If history is simply a record of dispute it means that when there are no disputes humans are living peacefully, which would seem to indicate that that natural state of living is a peaceful one (Gandhi 281). Assuming this is true that would mean that the major powers of the world in the early twentieth century did not go to war because they were ignorant of peaceful practices because by Gandhian philosophy peace is the norm. This would then mean that whatever drove the societies of the world to war during this time was something foreign from the norm. It would have been something learned at a base level of society. This can be backed up by using the analogy of a tree. The tree does not fall over when its top most branches are rotten, the tree falls

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