War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.........

 There's a phrase that as time passes has come to bewilder me.

The phrase is ''lived experience''.

Especially when it's used in sentences as: How could you

possibly know if that's not part of your lived experience?

I get that the phrase for many of us probably

means that without a first-hand involvement or a direct

 experience of something/an event/situation, it can be

difficult for us to really know another person's experience.

(Perhaps we may be able to understand, but not really know?)

The bewildering part of that phrase for me is that even

a lived experience is still ''knowledge'' based on a person's

perspective, interpretation, personal identity and history.

Alas, may it not be subjected to different kinds of bias

and so subjective rather than objective knowledge?

This leads me to ponder if it may not be possible that

perhaps some people with a ''lively imagination''

may be able to utilize their imagination and ''know''

something with the use of an ''imagined experience''? 

Although, I suppose, even an imagined experience would

probably be subjected to bias.

Hmm. Tricky.

(I have no lived experience of war, but in my family

there are, and there were (now passed away) people who do and did.

If my grand-parents had not left Germany when they did,

I probably would not have been born and thus able to write this.)

Why do nations go to war?

Some say that nations go to war if the advantages are

deemed to outweigh the disadvantages and a mutually

agreeable solution cannot be found.

Which makes me wonder: Says who? Those who are

actually going to fight it, putting their lives at risk or those

 who strategize behind secure and safe confines?

''The most shocking fact about war is that its victims

and its instrument are individual human beings,

and that these individual beings are condemned by

the monstrous conventions of politics to murder

or be murdered in quarrels not their own.''

(Aldous Huxley)

War always brings destruction. Destruction of homes

and habitats. Destruction of infrastructures. Destruction

of historical/cultural/ancestral and religious assets.

Destruction of resources and livelihoods.

Destruction of relationships and 

communities, and much much more.

But perhaps worst and most destructive of all,

…even when over, 

for those with a lived experience of war,

whether as part of any of the armed forces or as civilians,

… it may never cease to be destructive

in one way or another.

  In all honesty, as far as I can ascertain, 

nothing good comes with war,

because regardless of outcome, 

… a lot of innocent people die.

Although I have no lived experience of war,

my imagined experience tells me that

no matter ''who'' wins or loses a war -

- the aftermath of war brings sorrow and heartache 

to all who experienced it.

''War does not determine who is right - only who is left.''

(Bertrand Russell)

''War does not decide the justice of any question.

It only determines which party is the most

ferocious and savage.''

 (George Nicholson)

about the image: Ink on paper, edited in Elements