more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
You are waging war? You fear your neighbour? So remove the border markers: then you will have no more neighbours. But you want war: and that's why you set up the border markers in the first place.
Gist of Idea
If you don't want war, remove your borders; but you set up borders because you want war
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 5[1]145)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Joyful Science, and 1881-82 fragments (v 6)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2023], p.180
A Reaction
The only reason to demarcate some territory is to keep other people out of it, which is a first act of gentle hostility. The European Union is trying to gradually dismantle the borders. Nietzsche had a creepy liking for war.
| 23401 | A military victory is not a thing of beauty [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
| 8238 | Seeking peace through war is like looking for fish up a tree [Mengzi (Mencius)] |
| 19783 | A state of war remains after a conquest, if the losers don't accept the winners [Rousseau] |
| 21074 | Some trust in the enemy is needed during wartime, or peace would be impossible [Kant] |
| 24100 | If you don't want war, remove your borders; but you set up borders because you want war [Nietzsche] |
| 23858 | War is perpetuated by its continual preparations [Weil] |
| 23592 | We can only lead war towards peace if we firmly enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
| 23618 | Unconditional surrender can't be demanded, since evil losers still have legitimate conditions [McMahan] |
| 20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |