Most human beings lived in a time before there were “laws” against “murder”. Did they go beserk killing each other all the time? No…but there certainly was a lot more violence than we modern human experience…even when you factor in modern genocide and warfare. There were more humans alive at the end of WWII than there were at the start, despite the large numbers of people killed in the war.
So before laws defining murder and setting out punishments for murder and rules for how to determine if someone is a murderer we humans had a much simpler system. You kill my buddy or my family member and you risk me and my buddies and family members going over to your place and trying to kill you, your buddies, and your family members. Blood feud. And this can take place at various levels of social organization. Read the Icelandic sagas for how this worked…basically imagine the Bloods and the Crips and the Latin Kings and the Hell’s Angels with swords.
But even with all this violence it doesn’t mean that “people are basically violent”. How often did the average person kill another person? For modern people this number is near zero. For premodern people this number might be one or two. That’s a lot more violence. But that’s not unrelenting violence. These killers would also raise children, get married, have buddies, have family…and would only very rarely be violent to those people. It might be normal for a premodern person to have killed an enemy from another village, it wouldn’t be normal for a permodern person to kill their wife, their child, their parent, or their brother.
No, it wouldn’t be anywhere near one or two on average. In fact, I don’t think it’s mathematically possible for it be > 1. You probably meant: how many people did the typical adult male kill in pre-modern times? But even then, it’s probably much less than 1.
I absolutely think people are generally good. I think it is a small percentage of humanity that is evil. I do think, however, that without laws, that small percentage would commit more crimes because there would be no repercussions.
I see what you mean. If (say) only half the population dies by violence, then the average number of kills per person has got to be .5.
Yeah…but aren’t there a lot of societies where you can’t be considered a full adult male unless you’ve killed an enemy in battle? I suppose a lot of the people killed in battle are going to be youngsters in their first battle. So your average adult male could have killed lots more than 1 person, since the people who killed zero people tend to be the people who were killed. So while the average would have to be a lot less than 1, the average for living people could be a lot higher.
Say you and I have a fight to the death. You kill me. The average number of people killed per person is .5, you have killed one person and I’ve killed zero. But the average number of people killed per alive person is 1…you’re the only one left and you’ve killed one person. Of course, the numbers go down when killers get killed. Consider 3 people fight. You kill both of them. The average number of kills per live person is now 2, even though the average is 2/3. But suppose one guy kills me, then you kill that guy. The average was 2/3, but the average for living people is only 1.
I think my assumption that people with zero kills are more likely to be killed than those with multiple kills is reasonable…and this can push the average (especially for adult males) waaaay higher than 1.
I don’t know, but I guess it depends on what you mean by “a lot”. It also depends on what you meant by pre-modern in your first post.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the murder rate among the !Kung San (bushmen of South Africa) is not too different from what it is in NYC, if we want to look at one group of hunter/gatherers.
I would agree that humanity is inherently selfish. All a baby seeks is comfort and sustenance. As that baby grows older, wants and needs expand rapidly and the baby will learn from its environment how best to accomplish it socially. Success is doing it with honour and public approval. Good parenting and education is vital.
Unfortunately there are many who fail for many different reasons. It could be failure in there own minds or surrender to unusually large appetite. They are the crooks and hooligans and anyone else who are in prison or heading there.
Have you raised children yourself? My twins have demonstrated empathy (along with plenty of selfishness, true) since they were toddlers.
On one occasion I prepared to change my daughter’s diaper and discovered she had a terrible diaper rash, so I immediately took her into the bathroom to run cool water over her inflamed bum as she sobbed. Her twin brother, who was drinking a bottle and watching TV in the other room, perfectly content, went and found the diaper rash cream and brought it to me – without my having said a word. He was 17 months old.
What starving or extremely hungry person would not steal for food or drink?
Overpopulation is rapidly depleting this beautiful earth of ours of its resources…and yet babies are ground out as fast as they can be made supported by the Catholic heirarchy and others who people look up to for guidance.
Someone above asked an excellent question: What is “good”? iMO good = that which results if someone lives within reason by the Golden Rule. This would apply to all peoples on earth.
Most people- essentially decent but still flawed. The best of us have our bad moments. Our decency shows if we regret & try to repair them.
If external governing forces were removed, there’d be more violence but not necessarily out-of-control violence. And not only bad people would form vigilante groups. So would good people. They however would also set up rules by which they would operate. And thus, government comes into being.
You’re mixing metaphors - empathy is not “good”, it’s the capacity to feel what another person is feeling. I introduced the issue b/c of a pp who said children were motivated entirely by self-interest, rather than being socially connected and hardwired to function as part of a caring group.
Except the only famines that occur anywhere in the world are political famines caused by dictatorship and war. North Koreans are starving while South Koreans are fat. And population growth is slowing everywhere in the world.
Human beings are gregarious animals. It seems to me, therefore, they adopt the mores of their group so they can remain part of it. There are exceptions on both end of the spectrum. Some reject the mores and are criminals. Other reject the mores and are responsible for advances in group behavior.
The majority of people who follow the group rules and those who bring about beneficial changes in the group behavior are “good”. Those who recect the group mores and lean toward the criminal are “bad.”
