I guess? But not really. We can say things like: “the United States has been at war for over 240 years of its existence!” Or “only 8% of recorded human history has no documented wars!”
These wouldn’t be lies- though we can split hairs on what we want to call a war or armed conflict- but overall- somewhere, someone, for almost all of history, has been working on killing someone else. Blanket fact. But is the conclusion there that war is more common or more the “norm” than peace? Mmmm… no?
I mean- the combined number of hours spent by humans in history being dead far exceeds the amount of time combined for humans being alive right? And earth is one small planet in a vast universe where- outside of earth- we’ve observed no war. So the “norm” as we can observe universally is not war. Of course it is also not suburbia. The “norm” is… outer space? Of course very few people have ever experienced outer space- so regardless of vast numbers on a spreadsheet- that’s not the norm.
“Ok wise guy- there’s no life on earth so quit playing games. Let’s keep this to the context of where people actually exist!” Well- that’s sort of the point. The conclusion that war is the “norm” is a gamed answer. Wars of the Ancient Roman Empire have no more to do with your “normal” than Mars- you probably will never reach each one personally. A big thing to make clear is that the amount of time spent fighting wars in human history has no direct relationship to how many humans have fought in or lived through armed conflict in their proximity. Mumbai India has over 75,000 people per square mile and in all of human history our recorded evidence suggests no language has been spoken more than languages of the people of China. For some reading this, their “norm” may be that they live in Mumbai and almost everyone they encounter to and everything they read communicates in some form of Chinese language… but most people alive right now… probably not the case.
So all in all- for the majority of people in the majority of history, war is not the norm and just sort of… living and trying to survive isn’t the anomaly. We could say that modern civilization- including war and especially modern warfare are “anomalies” in that they are fairly unprecedented in history, nature, and the larger observed universe. Then again- so too are humans. The entirety of human existence when compared to the recorded history of non human life on earth is a tiny little blip. We know of no truly analogous life forms approaching even our brief existence in terms of time, other than various “human” ancestors if we exclude them as “human.” Of course if you live in Sweden and were born after the last world war- war is probably not your norm. If you live in certain countries like Afghanistan, war is perhaps more common than Sweden. So it’s still relative- but if we take a zoomed out view the conclusions doesn’t pencil out for any particular human in general.
These wouldn’t be lies- though we can split hairs on what we want to call a war or armed conflict- but overall- somewhere, someone, for almost all of history, has been working on killing someone else. Blanket fact. But is the conclusion there that war is more common or more the “norm” than peace? Mmmm… no?
I mean- the combined number of hours spent by humans in history being dead far exceeds the amount of time combined for humans being alive right? And earth is one small planet in a vast universe where- outside of earth- we’ve observed no war. So the “norm” as we can observe universally is not war. Of course it is also not suburbia. The “norm” is… outer space? Of course very few people have ever experienced outer space- so regardless of vast numbers on a spreadsheet- that’s not the norm.