Armistice Day

“A Very Short Story”

Ernest Hemingway

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Armistice Day: War is over, if we want it. As European civilization is committing suicide in 1916, Russell proffers gleaming insight into why war happens and delineates clearly how international war can be abolished. In this continuing age of nuclear weaponry, abolishing war ought be our first political priority, before addressing even ecological existential threats; at this moment, the gun is still to our heads: we could, all of us, die today, in a war that would last fifteen minutes, and is prepared to launch right now. Allowing war to persist as a societal institution is insanity, the courting of humanity’s self-inflicted, sudden end. -The Voice before the Void

“War as an Institution”

from Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel

Bertrand Russell