Some Desperate Glory

by Emily Tesh

True peace would surely require the elimination of warfare altogether. Utopia—the perfect society—demands what we might call an unenforced peace. But is it possible? Unenforced peace would require an end to all conflict. The question then arises: What causes conflict? Resources, says history, and ideas. So humans seeking this utopian society and its unenforced peace must first settle the question of resources: who has them, who wants them, who needs them. Many approaches have been tried. Unsurprisingly, several of them led to conflicts of the other kind, conflicts of ideas. Should everyone have a fair share—and in that case, who should define fairness? Should everyone be free to pursue the resources they want in whatever way seems best to them? Is there a technology capable of balancing these suggestions? The old imperial standby—to take resources from elsewhere, far more than could possibly be of use, and so create a bountiful surplus in which resource conflict cannot arise—has been successful for some; not, of course, for the inhabitants of history’s various elsewheres. It is this mindset of conquest and colonization which first brought humanity into disagreement with the majoda, with such tragic consequences.