World Peace on a Shoe-String Budget
Working for world peace is not something that we men have thought much about. Conquering, dividing and colonizing other civilizations and neighborhoods have kept us mighty busy. And we’re very good at it. In fact, if there weren’t any women on the Olympic committee, pillaging and plundering would be Olympic sports.
But now there is some incentive for men to promote world peace—it seems to be a viable alternative to global economic ruin. They figure that this could be accomplished in only one or two decades for as little as eight gazillion dollars and would not interfere with their golf schedules.
Women, on the other hand, if given the power and authority, could create world peace in one afternoon in between working full-time, phone calls, shopping, changing diapers, and cleaning house. Establishing peace is second nature to them—and costs little, if anything.
Take this simple example: when a child comes home from school and tells her father that someone hit her, the father will take on a second job just to pay for karate classes after telling his child, “Don’t you worry. After six months (and twelve hundred dollars) at the best dojo in town, you’ll be able to kick that kid’s butt.” Despite the fact that he and his child came in last in the community’s Thanksgiving potato sack race, he’ll push the poor kid into a mental state of aggression without realizing that the original “hitting” incident was a result of the other child in question accidentally tripping over a Lego.
If the child approaches his mother about such an episode, she will ferret out the truth, explain what an accident is, and then fix some cookies and milk. In a few minutes, the whole thing is over and forgotten. The price? Two dollars and thirty-eight cents—the cost of a good pair of shoelaces. Compare that with the male alternative of twelve hundred bucks—enough to buy the entire inventory of a shoe store in
Bolivia.
The bombing of
Hiroshima is a perfect large-scale example of the masculine mentality at work. Near the end of the Second World War, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan was given the chance for peace via the Potsdam Declaration which was signed by the U.S., Great Britain and China. The Japanese cabinet was leaning toward accepting these terms but, demonstrating that the fragile ego of the male mind is indeed universal, was busy figuring out how to “save face” in the eyes of their people in such a way that the accord would appear to be their idea in the first place. Their response included the word “mokusatsu,” an ambiguous term which can be translated as either “withholding comment” or “ignoring.” The Japanese news agency, Domei, resorted to the latter translation which, in addition to inaccurately representing the sentiments of Prime Minister Suzuki, infuriated the
U.S. leaders who, with their own porcelain egos to protect, decided to nuke them into submission.
If the world were run by women in this same situation, the U.S. President would send the Potsdam Declaration over to the Japanese Prime Ministress with a bouquet of flowers which would include a note asking Her Eminency to sign the document and RSVP regarding a White House celebrity ball featuring live music from Shakira. The Declaration would be signed immediately, although days would be spent deciding what to wear to the event so as not to upstage the entertainment—and mass destruction and genocide would be completely avoided in the process.
What did the male solution cost? Between constructing bombs, building planes, training pilots and buying $3,000 government approved tool kits similar to the ones sold at WalMart for $8.95, the price we paid was billions of dollars and an obscene amount of human casualties. The cost of the women’s solution? An afternoon shopping spree on the Ginza, a round trip plane ticket to
Washington D.C., and nary a casualty—a shoestring budget by anyone’s standards. So let’s give women the reigns of power for a change. In the process of ushering in an era of peace, I’m sure they will demonstrate they can beat men in both price and efficiency, not to mention style.
October 17, 2006 at 9:02 am
As much as I wish your answer was correct, I think of Margret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth 1, Marie Medici, and countless others and think, “Nope.”
Peace comes from the bottom up, when people are fed up with the fighting that their “betters” tell them to do. Over and over.
Sadly, the LACK of peace can come from the bottom up as well. (Northern Ireland, Kurdistan, Namibia)
This then, is the cleverness of the plan of Baha, that the administration, and the peace can build from the bottom up all over the world, at the same time, striving towards a common goal. It isn’t a feminine, or a masculine imperative, but rather a human one.
February 18, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Hi Matthew. I think it has become fashionable to blast the Allies’ decisions made at the end of World War II. Yes, women were not much involved in the decision-making. But those who made decisions did the best with what they knew. Many things have come to light that were not necessarily known then. I don;t think the men in the U.S. made their decisions from fragile egos. They had just been through years of horrible Japanese aggression that slaughtered and enslaved millions. The belief that the Japanese government intended to “ignore” the peace offering led to the calculation that it was better to detroy two cities than to risk the deaths of millions in an invasion of the home islands. The decisions were made. It is much too easy to critique in hindsight,
February 21, 2007 at 8:01 am
Absolutely hilarious! There may be some who see your description as sexist, but if they look again they will see how cleverly you have shown how the natural traits of both sexes are expressed in life. This piece is an homage to the power women have to see to the core of an issue and respond with grace. I like your mental world.
March 2, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Here I am posting a reply to my own blog. It appears that far too many people, not just those who’ve replied above, think I wass totally serious. I was actually half serious, just as a caricaturist might exagerate a prominent nose–the proportions are all wrong, but the truth remains that the nose IS large to begin with. My intention was to exaggerate a possibility and submit it for the public’s consideration–with tongue slightly in cheek.
January 8, 2009 at 7:32 am
It is as if female-consciousness knows that Heaven is what happens between “now” and “then.” “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or else what’s Heaven for?” Robert Browning In human prehistory there really were no humans that weren’t wise humans, because there has always been female-consciousness.
April 2, 2009 at 9:08 pm
True, funny, and well-written!!! Thanks Matthew!!
June 2, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I would like to believe in world peace as the Bahai faith states is inevitable, but in MY Bible it says the peace you speak about will be brought on by the Antichrist and that the united religion is his not of God. Might I ask if you consider God to be Jesus Christ of Nazareth, or this guy who claims to be God that began your religion? Furthermore, the Lord God of the Bible tells us to have no other God’s before Him, this would include your faith trying to put other gods beside Him as a a part of Him. For the Bahai faith states that all gods are one God, which in the Holy Bible is what the Antichrist will try to deceive people into believing.
September 18, 2009 at 2:25 am
“…the Lord God of the Bible tells us to have no other God’s before Him, this would include your faith trying to put other gods beside Him as a a part of Him.”
Jasper, who is the “Lord God of the Bible” talking to? You use the pronoun “us.” Who does that “us” refer to? Adherents of the religion in question–in this case, Christianity. It doesn’t apply to “your faith trying to put other gods beside Him.” You dismiss everyone else’s gods; you shouldn’t be offended when others do the same.
The fact that you went immediately from world peace to the idea of a dreaded “united religion” is so skewed and ridiculous. I’m an atheist myself, but I grew up with the teaching of Jesus and I’m pretty sure he advocated peaceful resolution of conflict. The fact that you shy away from peace because it might bring about the fulfillment of a prophecy – which, in the paradoxical nature of prophecies, you really can’t avoid because it’s an inevitable ending – is a sorry excuse. The main thing holding us back from peace is people who don’t want peace at all, for whatever wacky reason they cling to.