Kiyochika Kobayashi: The god of cowardice (1895)


"Only cowards engage in endless wars."

Ares, the Greek God of war, was known for his brutality and cowardice. When discovered to have been conducting an affair with Aphrodite, he and his lover were humiliated before the other Gods. Throughout history, mythical and not, great leaders have been reluctant warriors. They could muster an army but would rather settle differences more peacefully. The inherent cruelty of battle renders it a distasteful choice and always has. Beware leaders who rattle swords, for they disclose the opposite of what their saber-rattling might suppose. They might outwardly appear brave, but they will be quaking beneath their armor. Those who pick fights are rarely the mightiest. They attempt to chase off their opponents by appearing fierce. Once engaged, they're more likely to attack the most vulnerable than the more powerful. They invade schools to entrap parents rather than engage with peers as peers, perhaps because they never feel equal or superior.

Our MAGA maniacs come similarly shackled. They seem to lack strategic focus. They talk a big game, but when engaging, they focus on the most vulnerable first. They might round up undocumented immigrants by sending ICE agents to schools to entrap children, thereby flushing out the parents; none of this with anything like evidence that any of those kids were ever undocumented. The first time through, they separated families and held children in cages, losing the location where they'd incarcerated parents. Some of those families remain separated seven or more years later. I cannot imagine a more cowardly way to enforce immigration law. Can you? Typically, their enforcement seems worse than the crime. The sheer pettiness of it beggars my imagination.

Do those geniuses sit up late at night dreaming up these tactics? I cannot imagine any self-respecting public servant agreeing to participate in such exercises, but apparently, a few misguided or misinformed individuals decide to help. I suspect that many respectfully decline the invitation because cruelty and pettiness look entirely different up close. One might speak in broad and fuzzy terms, but actually acting eventually involves individuals, flesh and blood. People do not perform as expected. Raid a meat packing plant, and someone's likely to be killed in the engagement. Raids turn violent as desperate people attempt to flee. Some of the assaulting armies lose their discipline under such stresses. The later inquiry hears regretful stories. Nobody's adjudged to blame. It was apparently an accident.

Dignity was never a part of any MAGA strategy. They focus their attention more on inflicting humiliation. They might figure that, once humiliated, their opponents will be much more easily subjugated. They dare not respect their opponents' perspectives lest they undermine their own. They remain studiously ignorant of anyone else's actual position, demeaning their understanding as Woke or something. They will not define anything, especially those attributes they fervently ascribe to their enemies. Their opponents are never characterized as fellow citizens but as scum. They exclusively engage as bullies as if to attempt to cloak their inner vulnerabilities. They cannot see that pretty much everybody sees right through their pantomime. They do not seem strong like they proclaim, but cruel. They do not stand up for righteousness, as they insist, but for subjugation. They seek dominion rather than justice. They seek a respect they've never felt. They do not want equality but superiority. They barely manage infamy instead.

They proclaim wars on everything as if elevating an issue to the martial might render it more conquerable. It doesn’t. They thereby spawn many unwinnable engagements, endless efforts, ultimately without discernable purpose, wastes of personnel and treasure. These often feature the strategic nature of crusades, religious conviction deployed against some entrenched feature as if it were a problem and spiritual fervor might somehow change that feature’s nature. Declare a war on Islam. Or drugs. The games such initiatives engage in only win when they secure funding rather than when conquering their imaginary enemy. Ideally, they become infinite pursuits with bottomless funding, undertaken in the name of righteousness. Only cowards engage in endless wars.

We will eventually have to come to terms with our vulnerabilities. We will never conquer them as if they were our enemy and we were somehow noble to engage in battle with them. We only ever engage with ourselves, anyway, however far away and threatening any apparent enemy might have ever seemed. We ultimately determine the terms of engagement for ourselves and also for our enemies. We serve ourselves well when we can see ourselves in the struggles of our opponents, and we seem to undermine even our best intentions when we hold ourselves somehow above the least of those others. Our arrogance ultimately undermines us. Demeaning them ennobles them more than we can perceive. America sure seemed better before these people promising to make it great again came on their current crusade.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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