Now that I grabbed you attention with those excellent tagliatelle, back on topic.
To answer this question, I like to quote a poem by the Italian Salvatore Quasimodo, studied back in school... at the time, you don't fully appreciate its meaning, as you still have the naivety and "good" vision of the world, but as an adult, you understand its full significance.
Man of My Time (1946)
You are still the one of the stone and the sling,
man of my time.
With your exact science persuaded to extermination.
Millennia have passed, but man, in his depths, in his instincts, in his psychology, has not changed: he has only made killing more technological.
Man continues to wage war because he has not changed at his core, he is still the same brutal and violent being of prehistory... As Quasimodo says, the modern man is still "the one of the stone and the sling": the instinct for violence has not disappeared, it has only changed in how it is exercised. Instead of clubs, there are modern weapons; instead of tribal hatred, there are nationalisms, religions, or economic interests that justify war.
We have become "smarter" than our prehistoric ancestors with all the scientific, technological progress, and cognitive abilities, but nothing has changed morally; consciousness has not evolved in step. In fact, one might even say that there has been a moral regression as technology has advanced: violence is more efficient and impersonal, we kill with drones, with ballistic missiles... deception is achieved through propaganda and manipulation. Quasimodo speaks of an "exact science persuaded to extermination," and his words remain relevant even today, in 2026.
Quasimodo wrote this poem after World War II to denounce the tragic horrors he witnessed, including Auschwitz and Hiroshima... both were born from hatred and dehumanization fueled by leaders, against the Jews, who were blamed for all of Germany’s problems in the first case, and against the Japanese, toward whom there was hatred and a desire for revenge after Pearl Harbor... Thus, it becomes easier to do harm (and to make the collective accept it) without feeling guilty.
And then, if you think about it, most conflicts arise from the fact that man is never satisfied; it is pure selfishness. He always wants more: more money, more power, more control over others. And to obtain them, war and domination are acceptable.
Those with less try to take more; those who already have, seek to consolidate their position by crushing those in front of them, so they won’t be crushed by someone else. It’s a mechanism that has been repeating for millennia... on a small scale, one man kills another to steal something, on a larger scale, a leader declares war on another nation... the weapons, laws, and names of wars change, but the desire for domination remains the same.
It is also true that to wage a war, soldiers are needed, and ordinary people don’t have much desire to die, but as Goering said at the Nuremberg Trials:
Naturally the people don’t want war. […] But, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That’s easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
This quote should be printed and hung in every home! There’s nothing truer than what he says, and it’s relevant even today, successfully applied (and here we tie back to Quasimodo, we’ve never changed)! Russia-Ukraine, Venezuela-USA, Iran-Israel, etc... are the latest examples of this logic. But most people are lobotomized and don’t even realize it...
As long as we fail to see the other as a fellow human and not an enemy, breaking the madness of the "enlightened" leaders, history will continue to repeat itself, changing only weapons and names of wars.
Post in response to @galenkp Weekend-Engagement topics: WEEK291