‘Report from Iron Mountain’ is supposedly a US government research report from 1963. It basically is concerned with considering the possible outcome of a world without war and ways to achieve this. Regardless of its authenticity, I see it as food for thought at the very least, I have below edited my pick of what I felt to be the more interesting points.
The basic premise of the report is as follows
“In a world of peace, the continuing stability of society will require: 1) an effective substitute for military institutions that can neutralize destabilizing social elements and 2) a credible motivational surrogate for war that can insure social cohesiveness. The first is an essential element of social control; the second is the basic mechanism for adapting individual human drives to the needs of society.”
On War
“War is not, as is widely assumed, primarily an instrument of policy utilized by nations to extend or defend their expressed political values or their economic interests. On the contrary, it is itself the principal basis of organization on which all modern societies are constructed.”
“War has provided both ancient and modern societies with a dependable system for stabilizing and controlling national economies. No alternate method of control has yet been tested in a complex modern economy that has shown itself remotely comparable in scope or effectiveness.”
“The permanent possibility of war is the foundation for stable government; it supplies the basis for general acceptance of political authority. It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has ensured the subordination of the citizen to the state, by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood. No modern political ruling group has successfully controlled its constituency after failing to sustain the continuing credibility of an external threat of war.“
On Creating a Substitute to War
“Credibility is the key. Whether the substitute is ritual in nature or functionally substantive, unless it provides a believable life-and-death threat it will not serve the socially organizing function of war. The existence of an accepted external menace, then, is essential to social cohesiveness as well as to the acceptance of political authority. The menace must be believable, it must be of a magnitude consistent with the complexity of the society threatened, and it must appear, at least, to affect the entire society. However unlikely some of the possible alternate enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found, of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented, rather than developed from unknown conditions.”
On Economic Substitute to War
“An acceptable economic surrogate for the war system will require the expenditure of resources for completely non-productive purposes at a level comparable to that of the military expenditures otherwise demanded by the size and complexity of each society. Such a substitute system of apparent "waste" must be of a nature that will permit it to remain independent of the normal supply-demand economy; it must be subject to arbitrary political control.”
On True Nature of Humanity
“In human societies, those who fight and die in wars for survival are in general its biologically stronger members. This is natural selection in reverse. The disproportionate loss of the biologically stronger remains inherent in traditional warfare. It serves to underscore the fact that survival of the species, rather than its improvement, is the fundamental purpose of natural selection, if it can be said to have a purpose, just as it is the basic premise of this study.”
Art in Relation to War
“Of all the countless dichotomies invented by scholars to account for the major differences in art styles and cycles, only one has been consistently unambiguous in its application to a variety of forms and cultures. However it may be verbalized, the basic distinction is this: Is the work war-oriented or is it not? Art that cannot be classified as war-oriented is usually described as "sterile," "decadent," and so on. Application of the "war standard" to works of art may often leave room for debate in individual cases, but there is no question of its role as the fundamental determinant of cultural values.”
Art in Relation to absence of War
“Many artists and writers are now beginning to express concern over the limited creative options they envisage in the warless world they think, or hope, may be soon upon us. They are currently preparing for this possibility by unprecedented experimentation with meaningless forms; their interest in recent years has been increasingly engaged by the abstract pattern, the gratuitous emotion, the random happening, and the unrelated sequence.”
“The eventual effect of the peace-world philosophy of art would be democratising in the extreme, in the sense that a generally acknowledged subjectivity of artistic standards would equalize their new, content-free "values."What may be expected to happen is that art would be reassigned the role it once played in a few primitive peace-oriented social systems. This was the function of pure decoration, entertainment, or play, entirely free of the burden of expressing the socio-moral values and conflicts of a war-oriented society.”
On Sociological Control
“War as a general social release. This is a psychosocial function, serving the same purpose for a society as do the holiday, the celebration, and the orgy for the individual-- the release and redistribution of undifferentiated tensions. War provides for the periodic necessary readjustment of standards of social behaviour (the"moral climate") and for the dissipation of general boredom, one of the most consistently undervalued and unrecognised of social phenomena.”
On Psychological Control
“War as a generational stabilizer. This psychological function, served by other behaviour patterns in other animals, enables the physically deteriorating older generation to maintain its control of the younger, destroying it if necessary.”
On Population Control
“There is no question but that a universal requirement that procreation be limited to the products of artificial insemination would provide a fully adequate substitute control for population levels. Such a reproductive system would, of course have the added advantage of being susceptible of direct eugenic management. Its predictable further development --conception and embryonic growth taking place wholly under laboratory conditions --would extend these controls to their logical conclusion. The ecological function of war under these circumstances would not only be superseded but surpassed in effectiveness.”
A Life Without Shadow
At our final death, when we do not return to the physical plain through reincarnation, we will go to a spiritual plain. I have my own theories what this might be like but at this point we must we concerned with how we get to that point.
The Buddhist belief that at death during the reincarnation stage we can look back at all our previous lives and perhaps even pick a circumstance to better experience whatever is necessary to leave that physical cycle behind is close to what I’m saying. I presume that it would have to be the persons subconscious, finally being experienced, that is making that judgement call.
That voice/intuition we feel that gives us good advice and makes us do unexpected things that turn out to be great decisions is when we are listening to our subconscious. That final life would therefore surely be a life that was in tune with our subconscious. Our physical and mental life combined at last, both experienced as deeply as the other. A life finally in balance with no chips on shoulders or unnecessary hang-ups; a self-reliance which causes no negative influence for others; a spotless mind, clear in its knowledge of how this balanced life is the way through to the next level of existence. A live a life that is lived in the moment, not planning for a future that will forever be in the distance or longing for a past that can no longer be had; living a centred life, aware that Now is the only time we can ever truly experience. A life experienced without shadow, each detail clear and understood.This is the measure we will judge ourselves with at death and this is how we will ascend beyond it.
Stephen Rennicks
