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qkkl posted:I think evolution caused humans to have a natural instinct to kill other humans who are not part of their tribe. So whenever one tribe felt that they were strong enough to destroy another tribe they would wage war. War has been a constant throughout human history, and the only time there wasn't much war was during times like Pax Romana where the Roman Empire basically defeated all its enemies, so there was no one to wage war against. I don’t really agree that humans are naturally violent. History is obviously violent, but humans themselves are not inherently violent, and I don’t believe we have any “instinct” to kill other humans. I think the opposite is more true. We have to be conditioned over long periods of time to kill other humans, and we have to jump through psychological hoops to dehumanize our enemies before we are comfortable with killing them. There have been and still are many pacifist human tribes and societies throughout the world, but they tend to be very small. Here is a page from the University of Alabama Anthropology Department about some of them: https://cas.uab.edu/peacefulsocieties/ Some of these groups do not even have words for murder or war in their language, and do not have any concept of “bravery”. If they are confronted with violence from another tribe, they immediately run away. If there is any kind of conflict between families or members of the group, they move out. They avoid confrontations at all costs. The problem though, is that these pacifist groups tend to be conquered or destroyed or exploited by those humans who aren’t pacifists. So the world ends up looking like everyone is violent. It can be hard to believe sometimes that humans are not inherently violent, especially living in America in the 21st century. I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but here we are constantly surrounded by violence or the glorification of violence. Outside of an Amish community, we are surrounded every day by violent media, movies and games. The news media reports on violence constantly, and Americans love to jerk themselves off over how cool guns and violence are, and how cool and powerful the US military is. This is just America though, and we tell ourselves these things because we are a nationalistic people and it makes us comfortable living in a globe-spanning empire founded on racism, slavery and genocide. This is not universal human behavior though, and it can be changed. We humans are very adaptable, we can be taught just about anything, and our cultures are extremely diverse. I’ve never been a very optimistic person, and for most of my life I’ve been a depressed misanthrope. Studying anthropology though has made me change my views a bit, and I’m more optimistic than I used to be about what humanity is capable of. We do seem to be progressing as a species, but it is a slow and awful struggle.
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Jul 7, 2018 11:02
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:16 |
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