Vanity, Vanity, It's All Insanity

(with apologies to Ecclesiastes)

The best definition of "insanity" I've ever seen is "doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting the results to change." Note that this is not a legal construct, nor a medical construct, nor a psychiatric construct--it's a real-world, practical application. And we are all insane in our own ways, about our own issues.

But what's going on in Israel and the Gaza Strip at the moment--and more importantly, the reactions to it--has to be the classic, dictionary illustration of this definition of insanity.

Israel is using military force to try to wipe out Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction legitimately voted into political power in the Gaza Strip. Hamas started the latest round of violence by shooting rockets into Israel and claiming it's all Israel's fault. The rest of the world is doing a lot of hand-wringing . . . and everyone is finding fault with the few serious attempts to broker a truce.

My biggest complaint is that those criticizing the latest negotiation efforts are claiming that we can put the details off till later--we need to stop the fighting now. They say that the negotiations cannot succeed as long as everyone tries to hammer out all the details first.

But getting a cease-fire and waiting till later to resolve the details is the very reason the fighting keeps erupting. This is truly insane. Why not try a different tack? Why not actually address the root issues for once and for all?

OK--it was a rhetorical question. I know why almost no one seriously wants to address the truly core issues. There's no money in it. The arms merchants, the extremists (on both sides), the other major political and military powers in the world--all of them have plenty of reasons to keep the conflict going, with only momentary lulls between the spasms of violence, and no real reason to cheer a true and lasting peace.

Some would lose money; some would lose power; some would lose prestige; some would lose their own raisons d'etre. The only ones who would gain anything are the bystanding victims of the violence, and those of us who think a change in the status quo would actually be a good thing.

As long as those with real power have no serious motivation to change, the violence will never end. Hell, it's been going on for over 5,000 years already. In their calculations, what's a few hundred more so long as they keep making money or holding on to their power?

I don't care what Adam Smith said about greed being a good motivator of economic (and other) behavior because in aggregate, it's filtered through so many diverse interests that it results in value-neutral societal decision-making. The facts of history and of current events plainly demonstrate Smith was wrong, wrong, wrong. We need to find another, a better, way.