As far as I know, there has never been a period in human history when one nation wasn’t at war with another, when one tribe wasn’t spearing another, or when one bunch of cavemen wasn’t hitting another bunch of cavemen over the head with big sticks. War, it seems, has been around since we had opposable thumbs.
So the thought occurred to me that if mankind has always been at war, couldn’t we say that war is “natural” state of affairs?
The act of killing seems to be such a deeply ingrained trait in the human race, that at times it seems to be almost genetic. War has followed us every step of the way, and sometimes it seems that it always will. As sad as it seems, I truly cannot imagine a future in which mankind isn’t at warsomewhere.
So what do you think? Is war natural? Is it an innate part of who we are?
I think a problem here is that you’re conflating violence with war. There’ll probably always be some low level violence somewhere, some of it organized. War, narrowly defined, I’m not so sure about. I don’t think we’ll see another Great Power war for a long, long time. Nukes and globalization have rendered great power wars obsolete for the forseeable future. Terrorism and rogue states are a problem, but I’m not sure if terrorist and anti-terroist actions can really be called wars. Even with rogue states, I predict that these will be dealt with mostly through diplomacy, especially if they acquire nukes. There may still be civil wars and insurgencies in the developing world, but I don’t think we’ll see anything like WW2 or the Thirty years war in the forseeable future.
Of course my crystal ball works no better than anyone else’s.
Yeah I think so. Also they ancient Greeks thought so, and they were way smarter than me. Of course we’re fast approaching a point where good old fashioned war will become impossible due to the extreme destructiveness of it. Still I suspect it’ll just find other avenues.
The fact that it happens at all makes it ipso facto “natural.” I think what you’re really asking is whether it’s inextricable from human existence.
I think that human civilizations have trended very slowly towards less violence in the grand scheme of things. There was a time when slavery, racism and misogyny were a “normal” part of human civilizations. All of those things still exist in the world to one extent or another but they are seen as backwards now.
I think that human culture is evolutionary in that it gradually changes to accomodate the security of human populations. The clashing of disparate populations and cultures was probably an inevitable series of events but I also think that given enough time (and if we don’t destroy the planet first) that humans can evolve past war.
Ultimately, humans will have to do what is in their own best interests.
Bibliovore: * War, it seems, has been around since we had opposable thumbs.*
Way I hear it, that’s not true. A paleoanthropologist friend of mine says that as far as they now know, it doesn’t seem to be true that wars have existed throughout human history. Apparently, archaeological evidence (discoveries of skeletons and indications of the causes of their deaths, weapons and other military implements, etc.) suggests that the custom of organized violence by one tribe or population group against another dates back only about 10,000–15,000 years.
Individual acts of violence existed prior to that, sure, but apparently the practice of group-wide armed combat, where Group A tries to kill as many members of Group B as possible and vice versa, didn’t start seeming like a good idea until human beings began to practice sedentary agriculture and make permanent claims on particular territories.
Don’t chimps also go to ‘war’…and murder each other? I don’t think Apes do though so maybe thats not a good example.
I think that humans are very competetive, and to survive against each other they have to be prepared for occational violence. I can’t think of many examples of peaceful tribes, even when they are isolated. Even small isolated populations like on Easter Island have warfare.
I THINK though that we are moving to less war in the future with globalization. If civilization doesn’t completely collapse I can see a time in the future when MOST wars are a thing of the past. Certainly large scale conflicts between the biggest powers seems to be fairly remote these days. I can’t see, say, the US going to war with Europe, or even with China…nor China with Europe. I see in the intermediate future more conflicts between those smaller powers that want to cling to the older, harsher ways coming into conflict with the major powers for various reasons…like the current dust up between the US and Afghanistan and to a lesser degree Iraq.
Chimps are apes, so I’m not sure what you meant. But, yes, male chimps have been documented to band together and make raids against neighboring troops for the sole purpose of killing the males in that troop.
Kimstu: I would question our ability to make definitive statements about behaviors of pre-literate peoples. Sounds like your friend is just echoing thoughts about “noble savages”. For all we know, our distant European ancestors might have wiped out the Neanderthals through violence 30,000 years ago.
Yes, I know. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I mean gorillas…afaik, though they may fight for mates, they don’t band together to fight as a pack or group.
I do think that war is an innate trait in humans, though some cultures have managed to supress the urge better than others.
It seems that we’re programed for xenophobia, which is one of the major reasons for warring. We seek out differences to seperate “us” from “them”, even if the differences are slight. At times, it seems as if this urge is not so much to protect the community, but for the sheer enjoyment of being able to exclude. It gives people a sense of identity and belonging to be able to exclude others. Secondly, human beings seem to always want an identifiable enemy, someone who can be blamed for troubles, someone to hate.
Add to this the human propensity for violence, and there’s a recipe for war. In the modern era, it’s even easier, because wars can be fought from a comfortable distance. (Killing takes on a whole new meaning when one has to look the enemy in the eyes.) War is cleaner, more efficient, thus losing a lot of its emotional impact.
We here in the United States (excluding soldiers who’ve served overseas) do not really know what war is. We may understand on a visceral level that people suffer in war, but we have never held in our arms a dying child who has just been torn in half by machine gun fire. We can sleep in our beds with confidence that our houses will not be blown up beneath us. We can shop without even wondering if we’ll return alive. We know that there will be food in our cupboards, that the water will run, clean and disease-free, when we turn the knob, and our homes will be warm.
Having never suffered the indescribable horrors which war brings, I think many people are more accepting of it. If the war was to be fought on their doorsteps, I think their support might waver a bit.
I think there will always be war. I don’t believe that man will evolve beyond it, because man doesn’t want to evolve beyond it. We love war so much that we’ll make up excuses to have one. I don’t see that changing.
Gorillas have a very different lifestyle than chimps. Gorillas live in harems, where the silverback pretty much is the only male with mating rights. There is a top dog, and no one else. Chimps form aliances among males for dominance in the troop, and the females are much more pomiscuous.
John: * I would question our ability to make definitive statements about behaviors of pre-literate peoples. *
Astutely observed. Somehow, though, I think that paleoanthropologists as a group are already aware of the difficulties involved in that enterprise. I don’t know of very many who try to claim absolute certainty for their theories about the behavior of our prehistoric ancestors.
John: *Sounds like your friend is just echoing thoughts about “noble savages”. *
Sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about. The paleoanthropology of war is quite a controversial subject, and it’s true that there are also a number of theories suggesting that warfare may have evolved starting with a pre-human common ancestor of humans and apes, etc. But the anthropological theories suggesting a more recent origin for war cannot be dismissed as “just echoing thoughts about noble savages”. Sheesh. (Rereading my post, though, I think I did give a misleading impression that the recent-origin hypothesis is shared by all anthropologists, which is not true.)
If you want an overview of various views on the origins of war, you might try comparing the following two publications:
Well to make fine distinctions between organized raids/wars and the chance meeting followed by killing seems a bit artificial. You can’t expect small hunter gatherers groups to make “war” simply due to lack of numbers. I don’t doubt that xenophobia meant that when they could kill some stranger they probably did it… but usually by chance meeting… or small raids killing a few stragglers.
Lack of warfare was a case of simple dispersal I'd say. Plus raiding other hunters would at best get you a animal carcass or two... maybe a few women... but nothing much. Primitive weapons were unreliable too. Agricultural societies and their foodstocks would eventually make for more tempting targets and greater numbers.
To expand on this, long-term wafare among chimps was observed by Jane Goodall at Gombe in the 1970s.
We must also remember that Goodall was observing chimps at the behest of Leakey, the famous archaeologist, who surmised that we could find out something about the behavior of our hominid and primate ancestors if we could compare our behavior with other species descended from them, chimps being the most closely related. Any parallel behaviors could indicate something inherited by the common ancestor of both species and presumably passed through intermediate species on its way to us.
So yeah, I’d say the urge to warfare is something inherent within us.
I’d just like to point out that warfare has been observe din pretty much every single HG group studied. Not isolated and unplanned killings of other tribes but deliberate and organised attacks on other tribes.
I agree that mpost of the anthropologists/palaeontolgists pushing the ‘no warfare’ line seem to be strongly pushing th enoble savage idea as well, perhaps inadvertently.
This fact that these peoples used hunting weapons to kill humans rather than manufacturing specific people killing “military” implemets is hardly evidence that they didn’t kill people. If I have years of practice with a specific weapon in killing bears I’m hardly likely to need to or want to change weapons to kill a man.
Similarly the fact that a tribe routed in a battle didn’t have time to bury the dead and so very few planned burials show war wounds also seems to be missing the point. A defeated tribe will usually disperse and hide and will likely be being hunted down. They won’t be returning to a battlefield to spend several hours or days cremating and burying the corpses. A corpse left in the open is highly unlikely to leave remains that can be found and analysed for cause of death.
A case where absence of evidence clearly isn’t evidence of absence.
I recall a relativily new theory that proposed that homosapians and Neantherthrals existed at the same time but homosapians killed off the N’s (maybe even some cross breeds were found). I don’t know if it was war, or perhaps hunting for food.
I recall a relativily new theory that proposed that homosapians and Neantherthrals existed at the same time but homosapians killed off the N’s (maybe even some cross breeds were found). I don’t know if it was war, or perhaps hunting for food.
Many war is fought over resources, when you are lacking something your neighbors have, and it is not practical to trade for it, you try to take it. For those who have it, the need to defend it comes into play. In some ways territoral animals act this way. It only took a way for people to work together for this to become war. So I’d say it is a result of people forming societies.
IMHO I don’t believe war is intrinsic in mankind, but violence to an extent is. I draw a distinction between two people / animals fighting each other over a piece of territory or property and vast numbers of fellows banding together to follow another. The second case involves propaganda and social agendas (not necessarily the participants views either, soldiers go where theyre told to), the first the here and now of personal conflict…
The short of it is, I consider war a much larger animal than innate trends towards violence. It can and hopefully will become obsolete, but not in my lifetime…