When you make your insight about theory and actuality, although I generally agree, I would argue it doesn't necessarily apply to this situation. In my opinion, it's more of a question of definition. If peace is the opposite of war, then war is not balance, and any sort of major dispute. For example; two girls who spin debilitating rumors against each other, as well as harmful/offensive pranks, would be engaged in war. However, war is usually thought of as nations using weapons of destructions against each other, and claiming thousands of lives. In this case, war is synonymous with destruction, where creation WOULD be the obvious opposite.
As for your 'third option', that is a great idea, but it seems to me, a 'war' of who can create better would only be effective if all parties were creating. What I mean is, if all the countries are competing by trying to create the better institution, wouldn't that one selfish country that chooses destruction as its weapon undermine the efforts of all the others? There may be a way to make it work, but unfortunately, I doubt that something like this could happen in our society. I don't have enough faith in humanity. "
This was a dialectic between war and creation done by Anna. She provided explanation why it was war and creation, and not war and peace, because of their relative practical and theoretical values (respectively). She also presented a synthesis of the two, eliminating the horrors of war, by having war more of a competition of builders, of which nation had the best social/economic/political (etc) structure.
Nirali, Alot of the questions asked are very culturally important only to America; you wouldn't expect an immigrant to know who the founding fathers were, the saying 'rivalry is everywhere', etc. Each culture/nation has its own 'important' facts. Knowledge of these facts doesn't pose a direct link to intelligence, or wisdom, as knowing some arbitrary facts doesn't necessarily imply that. However, I agree with you that not knowing these things exemplifies ineffectiveness of the American public school system. Part of the problem is people don't want to make an effort just to be smarter. Stuff to buy you saw in a commercial and watching stupid TV shows is much less work intensive than actually doing work. If our society emphasized the importance of hard-work and intelligence, instead of telling us to buy the latest iPod and designer shoes, we might be in a better off intellectually.
Nirali posted a blog post showing a clip of Jay Leno interviewing pedestrians about random facts that the average American should know, but, unfortunately, doesn't. She commented on it that it shows that the American school system is to blame partially, and it should be everyone's incentive to better themselves if the schools can't.
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