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Post by connorthompson on May 19, 2016 3:58:02 GMT
In The Psychology of War, the author offers the position that war is a natural part of human existence, one that serves many benefits to society. He talks about elevated testosterone levels, lowered serotonin levels, and the existence of war genes all leading to a natural conclusion of war.
While I don't think this article is biased and unscientific like those concerning conservatives vs. liberals, I think it brings up a lot of points that could be contested.
Some of these points is his arguments for the benefits of war (or rather William James' arguments that he writes about, I'm not sure what the author's position on the matter is). He says that war can foster a sense of identity, heightened levels of bravery and courage. While all of these things are good, I don't think war is a necessary outlet for these attributes. I don't want to seem like another anti-war bleeding heart liberal, but I feel like all of these traits can exist without killing people with billion dollar weapons systems.
So my point of discussion is this, do you think there is a necessity to war? Is war a natural part of the human condition, or can it be overcome through education and tolerance? Is war written in our genetic code, to the point in which we must commit atrocities to satisfy our own existence as humans?
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Post by lilyzhuo on May 19, 2016 21:16:22 GMT
Thomas Hobbes says that the state of nature is every man against every man, which is essentially war. Without a government, a unified code of law that we all submit to, we have our natural right to survival, and therefore are entitled to do whatever necessary for our own self-preservation. Thus, it seems that war is simply a consequence not so much of the human condition, but the simple fact of the existence of other humans, and having to live together with them, because we're naturally selfish. Even now, we have governments, but as Hobbes theorized, since we don't have a common law which supremely governs each country, the law of nature is what governs interactions between independent countries, and this is why we have war. In this sense, war almost seems inevitable, but I do believe that war, since it isn't directly a part of our human condition, can be overcome with education and tolerance. However, it isn't enough for just one nation to be educated in tolerance, but for all nations.
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Post by aroloff on May 19, 2016 21:29:59 GMT
While I essentially agree with you that war is not a human necessity per se, I can also sympathize with the view point of William James; I think the issue really stems from the fact that wars are not waged to intentionally have the "positive side effects" that James talks about. In history, wars always seemed to be fought for some more nefarious reason, or rather, simply a less base reason than fostering bravery, selflessness and inclusion or the like; as the author of the article states, wars always seem to be fought to increase pride, wealth or status for a group, in short for more selfish reasons. So maybe war is a necessity or maybe not; in the past, it has seemed like the easiest or best way of accomplishing certain things (as was aforementioned, increasing some aspect for a group), but going forward, war and fighting seem to be on the decline.
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Post by nicolegreenbaum on May 19, 2016 21:41:25 GMT
I agree with Connor, we can achieve the benefits of war without warfare. Sport is a good example of what William James meant by a "moral equivalent of war". The Olympics, for example, is an activity which satisfies similar psychological needs to war, and has a similar invigorating and socially-binding effect, but does not involve the same degree of violence and devastation. In this podcast Jack O'Brien and Alex Schmidt talk about how people treat sporting events as wonderful expressions of our competitive spirit, but these large-scale contests are how we burn off the energy that would have been used fighting wars. Do competitions and contests on a global scale help us or hurt us? |
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Post by connorthompson on May 19, 2016 21:59:47 GMT
Excellent point @nicolegreenbaum. The article did mention how sport can be a substitute for violence in terms of our necessity for competition and a sense of inclusion. I think the Olympics is an excellent example of using sports as a substitute for war that can ultimately lead to international cooperation. One of the articles we read talked about South Koreas anger after losing in one of the Olympic events (which they regarded as unfair). This anger was a natural expression of nationalism, and ultimately is a good thing for human nature and the country as a whole.
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Post by connorthompson on May 19, 2016 22:09:22 GMT
That's an interesting point lilyzhuo. It's the same argument that a lot of religious people use, saying without religion there would be no morality. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's definitely a point that people tend to bring up when discussing human nature. |
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Post by elipshutz on May 19, 2016 22:13:51 GMT
I think war, or at least fighting is engrained in us as humans. Think about little kids. Even before babies can talk, they still sometimes fight with other babies. This could be because they have possibly witnessed their parents arguing and are mimicking their behavior. However, without observing war, or being spoken to verbally about war is, they have a tendency to argue with others, and show discontent when they aren't happy. Humans have needs and even before being able to fully understand what our needs are, we recognize when we are not satisfied. If someone else has an object we think will bring us joy, we want it. Babies also lack the ability to recognize other people have emotions such as they do. So they might sometimes cause fights without recognizing it will make someone else upset.
Although babies are not partaking in war, I think their little fights show that conflict is something that is natural in human beings.
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dalia
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Post by dalia on May 24, 2016 5:13:16 GMT
I think that the main problem with war is that there are always underlying reasons whether economic, strategic etc... So although we may overcome it by diminishing the psychological part (the need for aggression or innate competitiveness) via substitutes like sports, its hard to completely overcome it. However, I think that through education and addressing this psychological aspect, we can prevent wars; a country is unlikely to go into war if most its citizens are opposed to it. Mainly, if we can diminish the nationalistic component to wars (the concept of "other" or "them" vs "us") which are usually exploited to rally citizen's approval for waging a war, then it'll be hard to fight wars because of the consequent need to be transparent about the reasons behind it.
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