The changing geopolitical situation and certain intellectual discoveries I’ve made have led me to think about future violence in the world in general and in my vicinity in particular. I believe that a violent future is likely – that is new, I used to think that people in the rich west had little to worry about and that the Finnish army in particular was more futile than dangerous. What hasn’t changed is that I don’t want to be a soldier in any army.
But that doesn’t mean that I reject the possibility of moral violence, even on my own part. In fact, I can imagine wanting to fight not only for my life or those I immediately care about, but for the society I live in or indeed for another one that urgently requires and deserves protection. Alas, it is notoriously difficult to know that participation in the hell of any war is going towards any sort of good. In almost every situation, a person’s best bet is to do no harm first of all, and to be peacefully productive second of all. Even training and preparing for violence can cause violence by constituting a threat to others.
On the balance I do regret that when the chips are down, as a defender of my own society I am practically useless. If it were overrun I might want to try to protect it, but without preparation I wouldn’t be very effective. It’s a tragedy that armies consist of human robots who are bound by oath to obey (any) orders. I can’t morally allow a government to decide whether or not I should kill another person, and this is really the one big reason I didn’t go into Finnish military service. This would be true regardless of its past, but it’s nevertheless important to note that the last time the Finnish army fought it invaded foreign territory – alongside the Nazi army, no less. It also shot Finnish pacifists.
The only good army would be an army of the people, not of the nation – one that trains together but fights by individual conscience. A volunteer army is what I would call it, although those in power tend to use rather different words.
