War is an ism — nationalism, dogmatism, capitalism — paid for by an is: the living beingness of human beings made a sacrificial offering to an ideology so powerful it has quelled the two things that make us most human: compassion and critical thinking. “Those people who see clearly the necessity of changed thinking must themselves undertake the discipline of thinking in new ways and must persuade others to do so,” the visionary Kathleen Lonsdale wrote in what remains the most lucid and luminous manifesto for how peace becomes possible. Few have seen this more clearly or articulated its cruel absurdity more persuasively than the Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) in one of the meditations included in The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (public library) — the wonderful collection of essays and poems drawn from Gibran’s Arabic writings about the spiritual life, never before available in English.Kahlil GibranAddressing personally and with great tenderness the individual soldier fighting the impersonal war, he writes:You are my brother, and I love you… Why then… do you come to my country and try to subdue me, in order to please leaders who seek glory by exploiting your words and happiness by appropriating the fruits of your labors? Why do you forsake your wife and little ones, following death to a remote land for the sake of commanders who wish to buy high rank with your blood and great honor with the grief of your parents? But is it high honor for a human being to make war on his brother?[…]I have seen those ambitious for prestige attempt to instill in you a love of self-sacrifice, in order to make slaves of your brothers. They say that the desire to survive requires an attack on the rights of others. And I say, “Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”Anchoring the present in the past, evolutionary and cultural, he considers the cost — always the same across the aeons and epochs — of this dangerous delusion:Egotism, my brother, was the origin of blind competition, and competition generated group loyalty, and group loyalty founded political power, which in turn became a motive for strife and enslavement. The soul asserts the rule of wisdom and justice over ignorance and tyranny, and it rejects the authority that extracts from mines knives and blades with which to spread folly and oppression. This is the political power that devastated Babylon, razed Jerusalem to its foundations, and pulled down Rome’s edifices.Questioning why a human being would cede their humanity to serve “the nationalists” who “inaugurated bloodshed and killing,” he adds:What has impelled you, O my brother… to be devoted to the one who harms you? True power is the wisdom that protects the universal, just, natural law. Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?[…]You are my brother, and I love you, and love is justice in the most sublime of its manifestations.Couple with C.S. Lewis, writing in the middle of a world war, on our task in turbulent times, then revisit Gibran on the building blocks of friendship, how to raise children, how to weather the uncertainties of love, and his recipe for our spiritual perfection as a species.donating = lovingFor seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation. Your support makes all the difference.newsletterThe Marginalian has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s most inspiring reading. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.