For example, when a military leader takes it upon himself to launch an attack and sends a number of men to their deaths, he chooses to do so, and, ultimately, makes that choice alone. Some orders may come from his superiors, but their scope is so broad that he is obliged to interpret them, and it is on his interpretation that the lives of ten, fourteen, or twenty men depend.
Militaries are part of the absurdness of state-level societies. Being a military leader (or a soldier who assents to letting leaders spend my life as they will) is not something I would ever want or choose to be (unless absolutely necessary), but I already understand that there would be hard choices to make in such a situation. THEN anguish could come into the picture.
My anguish is in not being able to escape the absurd that civilization has made and spread and destroyed the world with. I can only fight it. It doesn’t anguish me TO fight it, only to be deprived of a healthy and sustainable way of life and to watch my fellow humans and environmental community be deprived as well. I know what we’re missing… used to have and could have again if we weren’t so far gone. It’s the anguish of a doctor treating a terminal patient, not a general spending lives.
