War (n.) is a situation as inevitable and unavoidable as it is senseless. It humiliates humanity and ruins its labours. By the same token, we rebel against war because 'we cannot help doing so' -'we are pacifist' because we are 'obliged to be for organic reasons'.
War (n.) is due to a destructive instinct instinct aimed at returning things to the inanimate state and which can work both inside and outside the body.
War (n.) breeds easy slips: asked what regiment her son was with, a mother answered, “With the 42nd murderers.”
War (n.) encouraged misreading above all parapraxes: a father of two sons at the front read “The Peace of Gorizia” where it said “The Enemy before Gorizia”.
War (n.) tramples blindly on everything in its path, as if no future and no peace among men would follow it.
War (n.) sweeps away our conventional denial of death: people die by the tens of thousands a day, chance gives way to accumulation — and life has become interesting again.
War (n.) strips off civilization's later layers and exposes the primal man in each of us: heroes who cannot believe in their own death, strangers branded as enemies.
War (n.) could not be unleashed by a handful of ambitious men without conscience unless their millions of followers shared their guilt.