Reply #13: Interesting , thought provoking article on the subject... [View All]

This writer's take of war as being ingrained in our nature, written a couple of years ago will be a good read regarding the origins of war and whether or not we can ever contain it.


The Human Hell and the Demons of War (parts 1 and 2)

10/14/03 "ICH" -- The pages of history, those monuments to humankind’s brief rule over the planet, are replete with violence, death and destruction. Indeed, it can be argued successfully that war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and human violence against each other have defined humanity’s tumultuous existence on Earth. We are inseparable from death and destruction, suffering and violence, having become creatures addicted to the malice inherent in human evil. Turning the pages of the little we know of our own past, one thing becomes quite apparent: Throughout time, in all corners of the world, mankind has lived side by side with war, destruction and death. We have defined our existence through the self-inflicted violence we unleash upon ourselves. What is it about the human condition that espouses in us a propensity to grossly annihilate ourselves, inflicting horrendous misery onto our kind and never learning from the devastation unleashed by us onto us?

Violence and humanity were born conjoined twins out of the thick canopy of our ancestral home in the Eastern African jungles. Even in the ape-like appearance and behavior of our primate selves could our violent genes be discerned. Competition forced upon us the will to survive through the defeat of competitor groups. Wars waged high in the canopy became the first symptoms of our disease. Group versus group, competitor versus competitor, the violence ingrained in us manifested itself in the primitive battles and hollowed screams of our long-gone ancestors.

Branch to branch, foot by foot, with nail and teeth the prelude to modern warfare was born. This reality can today be seen in modern mammals of today. In time we fell off our comfortable branches high above the canopy, now bipedal and stepping forward in evolutionary exigencies, ready to take the next leap forward. As we made the savannah our new ecosystem competition once more reared its ugly head. New predators arose, new rivalries emerged. Survival of the fittest never seemed so important. Those born aggressive survived, those less fortunate perished.

Struggling over territory we fought interlopers; competing for finite resources we waged battles. Our drive to procreate pitted male versus male in animalistic bouts of combat that killed, wounded or banished. The winner of such fights controlled fertile females, claiming new forested territory as a result, thus becoming the new procreator of genetic bonds, killing off genetic competitor’s offspring if he had to. Survival of the fittest ensured that only our most able ancestors succeeded and passed on their seed to future generations. Our story mirrors that of so many diverse mammals. We are similar to them in so many ways, living, breathing and surviving in nature much the same as they have for hundreds of thousands of years. Species have come and gone, yet mammals we all remain, birthing, eating, parenting, sleeping, defending, surviving, thriving and dying in very similar ways. Behaviors and social structures, hierarchy and competition are, if studied carefully, similar in many species, including our own. We were once part of the animal world as much as the animal world was once part of us.

Read the rest: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7079.htm