Gwynne Dyer: “By becoming soldiers, men agree to die when we tell them too.”

Sums it up, doesn't it? It's in the "history books," isn't it? How many men died in each battle. Nothing to do with "male aggression." It's death that captures the conscience of the king.

Little to do with "individuals" either, or with the motives of individual human beings.

Men "join up" or are forced to join up. Then slaughtered for the sake of some sacred ideal, which comes into being by virtue of knowing how many people were slaughtered in the name of the ideal.

Memorializing the slaughter and pretending it's the most important thing in the world. Massive history books reminding us that "we were here"(Leslie Fiedler).

  Shall we call Timothy Snyder's books tomes or tombs? 

The immortality of slaughter. The history of the human race. How we know we exist.

If we grow weary of the slaughter, will this mark the end of history?

Richard Koenigsberg