Is war part of human nature, or an invention?

[Ursa major]

That seems to make sense, including the Clausewitz quote (for if politics is the extension of control - and, perhaps, decision making** - beyond the individual to the group, warfare is the parallel extension of the application of aggression from the individual to the body politic***).


Note that the scenario I mentioned earlier is really about robbery and banditry rather than politics or warfare; it only fitted the definition of warfare on the poor definition ("two or more of one group attacking another group") used in the article.



** - Perhaps only to a small group of advisors, in limited form.

*** - Or, at least, to a subgroup within it, the warrior caste referred to.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Note that the scenario I mentioned earlier is really about robbery and banditry rather than politics or warfare; it only fitted the definition of warfare on the poor definition ("two or more of one group attacking another group") used in the article.

Yes I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the definition, it's a poor one. I for one refuse to believe that aggression between humans has just popped into existence in the past 10,000 years for Homo Sapiens. However calling an encounter between two bullies and one poor target is stretching definitions way past breaking point to it label as warfare (IMO).

That we don't have much in the way of evidence of opportunistic banditry, pre-meditated murder or just extended 'bar brawls' for whatever reasons, could be down to the fact that human density was so low* that such occurences and opportunities were fleeting and very rare. Therefore so is the evidence.

===================================================
*After all, there is speculation that after the Toba eruption 73,000 years ago - the total human population of the Earth was somewhere between 3,000-15,000 individual - or about 1 human per 10,000-50,000 sq km of land.

 

[svalbard]

Maybe the question should be Is violence a part of human nature? If this is the case, which imo it is, then I would put forward that war is the natural evolutionary step. This, and again it is only my opinion, would make war a part of human nature.

 

[Nerds_feather]

"Politics and warfare go together - leaders justify their positions through defence of the groups and the building of defences defines social groups as coporate units."

Just a few takeaways from all that:

It seems to me that they are arguing that a warrior caste could only emerged because of the surplus food that the agrarian societies were producing, but interestingly they were initimately tied up in long-distance trade in prestigous materials. After all they were going long distances over land and sea with the surplus wealth of their communities to obtain valuables and important materials such as metals.

Furthermore, as others have pointed out, it seems to suggest that organised warfare (and related activities, such as building defences) could be seen to emerge from the growing political strategies that chiefs and 'big men' of their societies could employ to increase their power and standing.

Perhaps politics and warfare were born at the same time. (Or as Clausewitz said "War is the continuation of politics by other means".)

Anyway some food for thought

This is sort of where I'm at as well. What's the point of politics when you have nothing to organize? What's the point of raiding when no one owns anything?

I could imagine conflicts arising over use of specific hunting grounds or caves, but I'd also imagine that pre-farming humanity was more concerned with the actual hunting, and since warfare is *usually* over material goods and/or land, that there wasn't all that much utility in warfare. That calculus starts to change once humans began accumulating things of worth, creating permanent settlements and developing political institutions.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Cutting things really down to the bottom line, even if we could prove one way of the other whether violence and wars only began 10,000 years ago; of what relevance is that information?

Fact is we know that for the last 10,000 years humanity has been a violent, warlike species. And it's not like we are moving away from that in modern times. We remain a violent, warlike species and I do not see that changing any time in the foreseeable future.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Cutting things really down to the bottom line, even if we could prove one way of the other whether violence and wars only began 10,000 years ago; of what relevance is that information?

Fact is we know that for the last 10,000 years humanity has been a violent, warlike species. And it's not like we are moving away from that in modern times. We remain a violent, warlike species and I do not see that changing any time in the foreseeable future.

It potentially speaks to why humans are warlike. That seems fairly important to me.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I would definitely recommend a reading of The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. Originally written in the late 1960's it aimed to study the human animal and its origins from a strictly behavioural point of view. While there are assumptions and extrapolations within that book, it does cover a lot of interesting ground regarding our predatory and early social development.

 

[svalbard]

It potentially speaks to why humans are warlike. That seems fairly important to me.

Survival. Whilst the power of our brain is one of the main reasons we ended up the dominant species on the planet, it was the violent application of that brain power which in part enabled us to succeed. How else could a weaker, slower species survive against the likes of the dinosaurs Our intelligence allowed us to organize family units into large hunting parties to bring down bigger prey. All this before we began the agricultural revolution.

It is only a short step from organized hunts against the Mammoth to organized battles against other clans.

 

[Southern Geologist]

The 10,000 year mark is an interesting one, as it's the time when humans switched from hunter-gatherer mode to sedentary farming and larger-scale habitation. The implication would be that warfare is either a function of large-scale social organization or physically organized settlements (or both).

For some reason this information doesn't surprise me in the least. I do think that such a discovery brings up a narrower but more interesting question than "Is it natural or an invention?" which would be, "Is it natural [READ: inevitable] within the context of large-scale social organization?"

Frankly, that seems to be the question that is of most concern to us on a practical level, too. I doubt that people would willingly go back to hunter-gatherer mode en masse if the determination is made that doing that would end war, so we have to find another solution (if we want one).

 

[JoanDrake]

For some reason this information doesn't surprise me in the least. I do think that such a discovery brings up a narrower but more interesting question than "Is it natural or an invention?" which would be, "Is it natural [READ: inevitable] within the context of large-scale social organization?"

Frankly, that seems to be the question that is of most concern to us on a practical level, too. I doubt that people would willingly go back to hunter-gatherer mode en masse if the determination is made that doing that would end war, so we have to find another solution (if we want one).

Jared Diamond comes to just about this conclusion in "The Worst Mistake In the History of the Human Race", and I think you're right. Most people can't help but agree with Diamond's reasoning, and disagree strongly with the conclusion. In my case it's because I like having hot water, nice food, and not being either dead from typhoid or in the belly of some catamount my nearsightedness had me mistake for my mother. Brazilian natives "work" about 2 hours a day and lay around so stoned they giggle about cockroaches running up their noses for the rest. I guess we wouldn't have war if we were all meth addicts.

Then again it's possible we're already beyond war. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, all could have ended in a few minutes with the touch of a button. Instead we sent thousands to die and nearly bankrupted ourselves in what amounted to an elaborate game. Now all that remains is for us to realize the true idiocy of this model.

I could say rotsa ruck on that happening but then I remember what Carl Sagan pointed out. 200 years ago, human slavery was a widely accepted institution that had existed since time began. It still does, and is probably quantitatively bigger than ever before, but that's just because there's so many more people, not because a greater percentage of them are slaves. Slavery is not practiced openly anywhere now, at least in the vast majority of the world.

Might not war go the same way, becoming a criminal enterprise, hidden in the shadows (say, might be a story there)

Or maybe it will transform, become something else. I'm still waiting to hear about the first drone shooting down another

 

[paranoid marvin]

Our biggest mistake? Biting that apple!