#via philosophy and religion. to give to people so they would have easy button answers

[askshivanulegacy]

^^^^

This post is so funny, but yeah. It all literally comes down to the fundamental nature of war.

Each side is in the "right" from the standpoint that they wholly believe in their side and their needs and that it's come down to the last resort of bloodshed to achieve it or defend it.

It doesn't matter that you think one side is "obviously" wrong. Hindsight is 20-20, and history is always written by the victors. There isn't a universal measure of morality.

If you're in the misguided hairtrigger camp that, "we condemn wholeheartedly!" and that's your first impulse, then you need to go back to the drawing board because you do NOT understand the situation or circumstances. You have to understand why the opposing sides thought they were right.

Doesn't mean you have to agree. But history also doesn't ask for or require your agreement. You're just one more person with an opinion who wasn't there and had no circumstances at stake.

You can always follow through with an assessment of your modern day values, and even your present circumstances - why was one side winning or losing that war important to where you find yourself today? Are you in a good position or bad position because of it, or can you even tell anymore? What were the consequences of the result?

"Obviously," America winning the Revolution and the North winning the Civil War were "good," but that's because that's the timeline we ended up in. Your assessment of "right/wrong" as applied to history (not a real quality that history needs, btw!), is not as objective as you might think. And on an individual level from individual participants?? There are so many versions of "right" and "wrong" that it'll make your head spin.

And that's even beside the fact that countries typically fight for one thing only, and people fight for something very different.

It's also never as simple as "unwittingly choosing evil." "Evil" by whose definition? Yours because you won? Or yours because you lost? These are different things and "evil" has no single definition. Maybe you even choose "evil" on purpose simply because it's what's necessary.

Don't go out there thinking that "evil" is simply an uninformed "mistake" you can make if you're not careful enough ... or that you can avoid it if you somehow reached an arbitrary level of carefulness. That very sentence presupposes an all-mighty judge, jury, and executioner dictating all things, and that you would have any possible way of knowing what their answer could possibly be. They don't exist.

You are always simply making the best choice you can with the limited pool of information and obligations you have.

When I was in kindergarten I saw a painting of the American Revolutionary War. I asked my mom, “Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys?” And she said, “That’s not really how war works. It’s not like a TV show. Both sides thought they were right, otherwise they wouldn’t have been fighting.” And my seven year old ass went “Oh ok”

Anyway having internalized that fun fact in literally kindergarten? It surprises me how many college-educated adults still don’t seem to know about it.