Making it socially unacceptable to waste fossil energy is the objective, and every little helps, even if a single incident does not precipitate behavioural change in a single induhvidual.
Does the hypothetical course of action assist or detract from the process of making it socially unacceptable though? By acting as the aggressor and creating insult and offence, are you not cutting out the thinking part of the response and going straight to fight or flight? Flight gains you nothing, as behaviour won't change once they're removed from your presence (and when there's no further room for flight, it becomes fight). Fight won't change anything except to possibly cause damage to one or both sides. Only if fight is adopted as a general solution does fight resolve anything.
I am thinking about the mass bombing raids on german cities here.
More difficult to designate, however the well spring of the particular incident is the fight or flight response to Hitler's attempt to change everyone's stance on the subject of Germany, ie that all countries were in fact Germany, if they thought about it really hard. Lacking evidence, he attempted to carry out tests to establish and for a long time experimentation seemed to support the hypothesis.
Whether or not one side behaved better than the other in the course of the resolution will depend a lot on how backed into a corner one side feels. Have nukes? Running out of your own country? Use 'em. Not like you're going to be around to care if you don't.
The first world war is less clear cut.
From my limited GCSE study, I must applaud the understatement - a lot of what I remember is the semi-childish "I'll stop moving troops if you stop moving troops!" "You stop first!".
My main memory of that education is that in simulations I killed more troops at the Battle of the Somme than the original generals did, and our small corner of rpers playing out the three leaders setting the Treaty of Versailles were still bickering the first point when everyone else in the class had finished the entire treaty.
In both cases though, my stand point would be that the causes could have been prevented by people trying to consider the best method of persuading the other side to their point of view. Oh, I've missed a word. Rationally.
For example, the US is being much more rational about world conquest than 1940's Germany - Ronald McDonald is a more famous figure amongst kids than Jesus, a shining hero to save them from mum's instant meals.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-12-03 01:07 pm (UTC)Does the hypothetical course of action assist or detract from the process of making it socially unacceptable though? By acting as the aggressor and creating insult and offence, are you not cutting out the thinking part of the response and going straight to fight or flight? Flight gains you nothing, as behaviour won't change once they're removed from your presence (and when there's no further room for flight, it becomes fight). Fight won't change anything except to possibly cause damage to one or both sides. Only if fight is adopted as a general solution does fight resolve anything.
I am thinking about the mass bombing raids on german cities here.
More difficult to designate, however the well spring of the particular incident is the fight or flight response to Hitler's attempt to change everyone's stance on the subject of Germany, ie that all countries were in fact Germany, if they thought about it really hard. Lacking evidence, he attempted to carry out tests to establish and for a long time experimentation seemed to support the hypothesis.
Whether or not one side behaved better than the other in the course of the resolution will depend a lot on how backed into a corner one side feels. Have nukes? Running out of your own country? Use 'em. Not like you're going to be around to care if you don't.
The first world war is less clear cut.
From my limited GCSE study, I must applaud the understatement - a lot of what I remember is the semi-childish "I'll stop moving troops if you stop moving troops!" "You stop first!".
My main memory of that education is that in simulations I killed more troops at the Battle of the Somme than the original generals did, and our small corner of rpers playing out the three leaders setting the Treaty of Versailles were still bickering the first point when everyone else in the class had finished the entire treaty.
In both cases though, my stand point would be that the causes could have been prevented by people trying to consider the best method of persuading the other side to their point of view. Oh, I've missed a word. Rationally.
For example, the US is being much more rational about world conquest than 1940's Germany - Ronald McDonald is a more famous figure amongst kids than Jesus, a shining hero to save them from mum's instant meals.