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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (92120)	9/13/2001 10:33:05 PM
From: Night Trader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

SB, There's a little known yet quite profound book I’ve just been re-reading, Finite And Infinite Games by James Carse and in the present situation I was struck by the following passage: If a state has no enemies it has no boundaries. To keep its definitions clear it must stimulate danger to itself. Under the constant danger of war the people of a state are far more attentive and obedient to the finite structures of their society. War presents itself as necessary for self-protection when in fact it is necessary for self-identification. It is the impulse of a finite player to go against another nation in war, it is the design of an infinite player to oppose war within any nation or state they happen to reside in. In one way their opposition to war resembles that of finite players: each is opposed to the existence of a state. However their reasons and strategies for doing so are radically different. Finite players go to war against states because they endanger boundaries; infinite players oppose states because they engender boundaries.