The conflict that's always in the background is flaring up again. War remains a staple of the human condition, and there is no atrocity or any number of them that convinces enough of us about war being an optional development and not an intrinsic feature of the human animal. One could argue the animal, with the broadest degree of optionality, has the longest rope, which we do not use to climb and explore ever higher moral and ethical peaks and landscapes, but we use instead to hang our neighbour and ourselves.