Civil War Gave Me New Hope for Humanity

I finally saw "Civil War", the first blockbuster from A24, the hottest studio in Hollywood right now. There hadn't been much worth watching lately, so it felt like sitting down to a good meal after a long time and eating it slowly to make it last.

Here's the rough plot:

1. Civil war breaks out in the United States. California and Texas form the Western Forces, declare independence from the federal government, and rebel. They plan to march on Washington, D.C. and kill the president, and the main characters, a group of war journalists, head to D.C. to capture the president's final moments on camera.

2. Americans point guns at other Americans, and the war keeps escalating. The climax is a huge battle in Washington, D.C., with helicopters, mortars, and tanks.

3. Watching the capital, a city everyone assumes is a fortress, turn into a battlefield is shocking. It's even creepier because the war isn't a foreign invasion. It's the country's own forces fighting each other. A premise this bold can feel unrealistic, but it's hard to say flatly that it could never happen.

I went to school in the U.S., and out of the country's short 250-year history, three events stuck with me most. The first is the Boston Tea Party in 1773, a protest against British taxes that helped spark the Revolutionary War. The second is 1776, when the Declaration of Independence laid the foundation for the new country. The third is the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, fought over slavery between the Union, led by General Ulysses S. Grant (later the 18th president, and the face on the $50 bill), and the Confederacy, led by General Robert E. Lee.

The U.S. went through major conflicts early on, like the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and in modern history it has been at the center of many more: World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Gulf War. There has never been a large-scale war on the mainland, but bloodshed like 9/11 and the LA riots has kept happening.

Zoom out to the rest of the world and civil wars are still going on in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Europe lived through World War I and World War II, the most brutal wars in human history. Japan was one of the main countries driving World War II. Korea went through the tragedy of the Korean War, a civil war, head on.

So war is far more real, and far closer to our lives, than we tend to think. And there's no guarantee, statistically or practically, that war will ever disappear completely.

Sure, the idea of street fighting in an American landmark city like Washington, D.C. is shocking. But I don't think anyone can say for certain it would never happen. Part of me even wondered whether it's really all that shocking.

Nobody wants war. Wars keep happening anyway, and maybe that's just something human societies inevitably do. Even when you win, the cost is enormous. So when a war does break out, you end up asking whether it was unavoidable all along.

Things that make no sense up close might, from a distance, just be chess pieces moving across a board. Sadly, from the point of view of this enormous planet, we're specks of dust.

Seen that way, the fall of America wouldn't be all that surprising. The Holy Roman Empire lasted a thousand years and still faded into history. Great powers that once ruled the world, like Napoleon's France and the British Empire, had their turn at the top and then declined. The U.S. looks likely to stay on top for a while, but history says nothing lasts forever.

A lot of people think global dominance passes from one power to another through a war with an outside force, like a World War III. I think a scenario like "Civil War", where a country declines and collapses because of its own politics, is far more realistic. The Korean War, for example, was a civil war that grew out of political conflict. You can read the clash between communism and liberalism the same way, and even the Crusades. On the surface the Crusades look like a fight between European Christianity and Middle Eastern Islam over religion, but at their core they were a conflict over political ideology.

If there's going to be a war anyway, you might think it's better to fight an outside enemy and at least gain some territory. Fighting among yourselves and ending up with nothing looks even more tragic. But the more I thought about it, the more this kind of situation made me question what a nation even is.

Living on the same land and holding the same passport doesn't necessarily make us all one people. In societies as politically polarized as the U.S. or Korea, I'm not sure it's right to force everyone to stay bound together. That kind of forced unity may cause even bigger conflict. I started to think it might be better for people to go their separate ways peacefully before a civil war breaks out.

Of course, the head of a country will try to hold on to both sides so it doesn't lose land or people. But the future I want is a little different. My utopia, if I compare it to school, is a system where you can transfer freely to a school in another area if it suits you better.

What if the principal says, "If our school can't compete and everyone leaves, what are we supposed to do?" Making students stay for that reason would be the truly dystopian idea.

I don't know if this view falls under some particular political ideology. Personally, I think defining a people and binding them together only by shared language, race, and history is an outdated idea. Above all, I don't think it does anything for individual happiness.

I hope the world builds a system where people can live freely in the society they want. Under that kind of system, countries that can't compete might naturally fall behind or even disappear. And if a country refuses to accept that and takes an extreme "if I go down, you go down with me" approach, I'd want an international body like the UN to step in and resolve it, even by force if necessary. In the end, everyone would be happier.

There might be chaos at first, but I expect everyone would end up living happier and more productive lives in places that fit who they are. Say you were born in Korea but your personality fits Sweden better. You could move to Sweden easily. And someone born in Chile who wants to come to Korea could move there through a legal process. It's a bit like the system the EU runs inside Europe, or like taking the way the U.S. ties 50 states into a federation, where you can move and live freely across state lines, and expanding it to the whole world.

I doubt developed countries would want this. Then again, if it gave them a reason to send unhappy citizens abroad, some countries might see it as a good thing. People with different skin colors and birthplaces who share a country's values and character could come together and create even more synergy. A system like this would offer more than freedom of movement. It could open up better possibilities for both individuals and countries.

Watching "Civil War" made me ask what an ideal social and political system would look like. We believe capitalism and democracy are the best we have, and I'm not sure they are. If a more advanced and effective system exists, it could cut down on the side effects we deal with now and build a safer, more productive society.

Personally, I lean toward the view that human nature is evil. That's exactly why I trust the power of collective intelligence. Humans are instinctively bad and aggressive, but because everyone knows it, we keep each other in check, cooperate to build a safer environment, and create constructive systems. That's why I'm optimistic about humanity's future.

Humanity has gone through countless conflicts and failures, and it has grown through them. Our current system isn't perfect, but we keep improving it and moving in a better direction. Even the chaotic future "Civil War" shows gives me hope that it could be part of humanity's search for a better system.

Watching "Civil War", I imagined America collapsing and capitalism and democracy falling apart. And I realized that even if it actually happened, there'd be no need to worry. Looking back at history, humanity has always grown through chaos and crisis. However rough the road gets, I believe a better system will eventually come along and lift humanity back up.

Originally written in Korean on Brunch, January 19, 2025.