I'm telling you 'human nature' is a useless term in the context of this thread. It stops debate because it's so open ended, vague, and yes outdated, that human nature can't be argued. I'm reminded of when I'm debating god and someone starts presupposing god. It kills the discussion, and any hope of progress.
How does one 'study human nature'? You watch people glutton?
If you'd like for me to pull up studies about twins I can, but it'd be a massive threadjack. Of my own thread. My point was that you made up a study in your mind, and thus the results aren't exactly reliable. What if Jung did that?
The analogy doesn't work because you fixed the results. I can make analogies, too, but it doesn't mean anything.
What do predictions based on look have to do with human nature? I think you're getting lost.
I'm not in the field. I have my degree, after helping my mom get her doctorate.
It could be one of a thousand things. You're asking hypotheticals where I'd need real world. And I'm not even licensed. With a licensed psychologist, you'd have a better chance of figuring it out.
Step 1: One of my favorite John Lennon quotes was "give peace a chance". I dare you to argue with that ideal. So I think we can all agree that peace is better than war.

Step 2: For those who make war, why do you do it? What makes war a better alternative than peace? Why is killing someone going to achieve a greater good in your mind?

Step 3: How can we stop war?

a few things...first off politics is a type of philosophy. so there's no point in moving any threads around.

human nature.
the debate that is happening around this is in a sense a very old....for example, the notion of human nature is kind of platonic. plato opposed athenian democracy because he understood its de facto rejection of human nature as a category to be a problem, a violation: he thought that meanings were reflections of forms that did not change, were eternal---so it would follow that for plato, human subjective attributes--meanings--are also reflections of forms and so are not simply subjective. so democracy, which put all this into continual play, violated human dignity somehow. hierarchy is natural for plato. democracy, with its revocable hierarchies, seemed not to be so. people forget this about plato when they repeat his arguments.

aristotle moved in the same directions: based on a notion of "human nature" he understood that human communities that were good were those which reflected a "natural hierarchy" that would unfold within ANY human community. each human being has a telos or end--a good community would allow each telos to unfold. but the trick is that notion of telos: you define the "proper" space occupied by a person, or allowed within a community by the fact that the space exists. the end defines the process. that's fine if you're reading aristotle's politics and want to understand what is happening--but if you actually start thinking about human beings and social formations they create, you quickly realize that using an end point to define a trajectory is (1) circular and (2) at the very best reductive.

this notion of human nature--some grid of fixed qualities or attributes (or actions which are then explained with reference to this grid--which is closer to what human nature is, a cheap and easy explanatory category that you apply to particular types of actions ex post facto, but which says nothing about the potentials for action a priori)----derives from a long tradition of anti-democratic thinking. like it or not.

i am not sure there is such a thing as human nature--avoidance of pain, a preference for stasis apart. the categories that are being tossed around to either list features of this "nature" or to talk about what it is are all very abstract--presumably they come from narratives--o i dunno, say biblical narratives which deal with cardboard cutout figures doing Exemplary Things--by which i mean doing things that "demonstrate" claims about "human nature" that are built into the narratives themselves because they function to demonstrate the powerlessness of human beings without some divine agent. so this kind of story will tell you "human beings are greedy" and then trot out a nice little story that demonstrates the point and will conclude with something like "see? human beings are greedy. they need Rules and those Rules ought to come from god. who needs democracy when you have god? in a democracy, people just fuck up. a nice centralized Authority is what is required. a nice centralized Arbitrary Authority."...

which is quaint, dont you think?

problem with these claims is that they are all abstract--they are not theories of subjective dispositions--they do not tell you what this "greed" tendency might be, what it might mean for any particular individual, what associations come to be bundled around it, what triggers it, what desires are associated with it, what actions might follow. none of it. the category is not predictive.

i mean if "greed" really is subjective, then it can be figured in any number of ways, mean any number of things, respond to any number of stimulii, prompt any number of reactions---but all of this follows from the assumption that the social order within which folk operate is netural, and so desire for a different arrangements are not legitimate---so you could even argue that the notion of "greed" serves to paper over objections against a given social arrangement by pushing the issue back onto the mental universe of a particular agent.

in other words, i do not see how you can say anything about deep subjective dispositions by way of a general theory of "human nature"--it seems that you are playing a circular game.

power follows from control over narratives about action more than from actions themselves.

if you want to talk about controlling people: what could be more controlling than erasing space for responsibility for one's own actions by crushing their motives back into some eternal grid or some hydraulic system that animates them but over which they have no influence (except via some god who knows the deal and tells you what to do thank you sir may i have another?) using these cheap devices, one gets to sit on the sidelines and say "i told you so" NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS because the categories you are using are built around a circular logic.

so there is no point in considering alternate social arrangements because i know, armed with my magic grid, that any such experiment will simply fail because the magic grid tells me that social arrangements are superficial, that socialization is not fundamental, that politics is like frosting on a cake.

i know what "reality" is--my magic grid tells me that "reality" is simply a set of occaisons that allow individual subjective attriubutes to be triggered and the same old story to play out as always plays out: nothing ever changes, nothing can ever change.

my magic grid tells me that where we are now in the best of all possible worlds. but all magic grids always say that, the same thing: that's the point of having such a grid. my magic grid of the seven deadly sins, key to explaining everything about human beings when you strip away all information that could potentially contradict that explanation--which is easy peasy when you control the story---tells me what margaret thatcher once said--"when i look around me, i do not see society: i see individuals."

so collective action is like frosting on a cake is a kind of delusion because we all know that reality is solitary, that we have no particular meaningful will because when things get tight the magic grid will assert itself and we will once again become puppets that demonstrate to someone (who?) that political action is a waste of time, that trying to build an alternate order is goofy because in the end we are nothing but this magic grid and we spend most of our time fucking about trying to pretend otherwise--but in the end, the magic grid of the 7 deadly sins always wins.

so why bother?

and the fact that in repeating the human nature routine you are also repeating a component of the ideology you live under which in a sense presupposes that you would understand your own powerlessness first and foremost in order to assure your ongoing gratitude to and for the existing order--not relevant.

the magic grid is outside of history, outside of politics.
god sez so.

What he said.

i'm starting to think that writing this stuff while i drink coffee first thing in the morning is a bad idea. i read through them and i can tell where the 3rd cup starts to kick in....

If you can tell me what kind of coffee results in that level of writing, then I might actually take up drinking coffee. Do you write your posts in a similar manner to how you speak?

I have no idea what he said, but as I read it is supports exactly what I am trying to say.

so does that not also apply to WAR? as you've written it I can supplant human nature with war and it makes the same sense.

what i am saying at bottom, cyn, is that emphasizing subjective dispositions eliminates not only any space for collective action, but any hope you might have that it could accomplish anything. the story is written in advance, so why bother?

so there are two problems with this human nature business
a) in itself, the game is circular.
b) the consequences of this circular game are politically debilitating, so even if the theory of "human nature" were true in some non-tautological sense, it'd be a regressive move to susbscribe to it.

there's another side to it, but i have stuff to do that requires my attention, so maybe if this is still twitching later i'll post more about it.

So this thread for discussion purposes is to not take anything into account including logical factors and reasons behind previous wars, but to just come up with some sort of meaningful dissertation, but not something that would actually work.

So thus, I proclaim that people just should have ice cream and that will solve war. I mean who doesn't like ice cream right? Everyone is satiated and satisfied after a nice bowl of ice cream. Everyone eat ice cream every day once in the morning and once at night. There, I've solved it, No More War.

You have no idea what he said?
I don't see it that way. This is about setting a real world goal and discussing what course or courses of action would have the highest probability of success. If we want to know why people wage war, why work in generalities (i.e. 'human nature')? Wouldn't it be better to speak in specifics?

Back in post #84, I named some recent wars:
Israel vs. Lebanon, 2006
US and allied occupiers vs. Iraqi rebellion
JEM vs. Janjaweed, vs. AU, Darfur, 2003-present
US vs. Baath Iraqi Regime, 2003
Second Chechen War, 1999-present

With a bit of research, one could lay out the rationale and intent behind each of these conflicts and then address them. I see that as a better course of action than chasing vague, undefinable terms like 'human nature'.

uh, you really didnt understand, did you cyn?

first off, what could possibly be vaguer than some "human nature"? what is it? a series of features that you get from parables--you know, the stories that start off by telling you THIS IS A STORY ABOUT GREED or LUST or blah blah blah and then provide you with "details" about greed or lust or blah blah blah. what does it do? well in most situations, it does nothing. in political contexts, it erases the fact that human beings live in communities and that communities are built around particular types of social relations that may or may not be functional. like private property: what would greed mean in a context without private property? or pride: behind this is the assumption that every human being has a "place" and should stay there. lust? same business. most of the conditions these vague categories point to are SOCIAL are the results of political choices--and what these categories and the stories that they are embedded in tell you is STAY WHERE YOU ARE. the order of things is necessarily good because god sanctions it unless it isnt good in which case god does not sanction it (depends on which side youre on i suppose). what they tell you is: THE EXISTING ORDER IS LEGITIMATE BECAUSE IT EXISTS----so crap like "sin" or "expressions of human nature" function to eliminate the fact that we live in social systems which may or may not be functional, may or may not be desirable and push all political thinking and action back onto pathology, deviance, error.

so this notion of "human nature" functions to erase the possibility of thinking in political terms.

and every one of the categories involved with this "human nature" is hopelessly vague. every operation involved with application is entirely circular.

so no, cyn, you really didnt understand.
maybe this helps.

Because we already know why people wage war, and its always for the same reasons. Reasons become patterns become human nature. People like roachboy can turn those patterns into a form of literary masturbation, but they are still just patterns. Many people in this thread have already told you why people wage war. Its not a trick question.

The rhetorical question I have is what is the fascination with war and violence? Why do we gawk at traffic accidents? Why is it on the front page of the newspaper each day? We have historical documentation of formal acts of warfare going back thousands of years, sometimes in the most minute and dedicated detail. There are forms of weaponry of the most elaborate design and craftsmanship. Think about the sick mind that devised the guillotine. Why don't people chronicle acts of peace? Was there ever a Pelopennesian Peace? The Peace of 1312? World Peace II? The Hundred Years' Peace? The Punic Peace?

Some have spoken in specifics, and I sincerely appreciate that. Others pulled the 'human nature' card like 50 times. Reasons do become patterns, but each step you take away from specific reasons moves into a more vague and disconnected area of thought. That is a hinderance to the debate after a point. Human nature, as has been said ad nausium at this point, is too vague to be discussed in this framework. "People just make war," is inane. It's essentially meaningless.
I don't gawk at accidents, I pull over and help.

How is it vague at all? What is so complicated here? What is the debate?
May I ask: what do *you* think are the reasons for war?

I agree with your statements above as they apply to how "human nature" is used in the posts above. Simply attributing something to "human nature" doesn't help us understand the problem - war. It's just a label (much like "socialization" or "society" or "politics" as an explanation for something). As you said, the way "human nature" is used above is not predictive. I do think that it is possible to have a theory of human nature that is predictive. Evolutionary biologists, etc. use evolutionary theories to make testable predictions about human psychology.

I don't think that "human nature" and social forces are mutually exclusive. A coherent theory of human behavior or "human nature" needs to account for the interaction of evolved dispositions with environmental conditions. So, both are necessary to explain human behavior. An aside: I don't think that a preference for stasis and avoidance of pain are all that is "human nature". I don't understand the basis for such a claim.
Social explanations can be equally controlling - Skinnerian explanations of human behavior, cycle of violence explanations of human behavior, the twinkie defense, etc. all attribute human behavior to either social or environment forces independent of the individual.

No I get what you are saying, and I'm saying THEORIES are bunk in the REALITIES of the real world and dynamic of the way people interact with the world around them and actually interact and actually have driving forces.

And I have been saying lay out the rationale and intent and behind it you will find human reasons behind them. For example:

Israel vs. Palestine/Lebanon/Syria/Egypt
I don't like you because you are different than me becuase of your color of skin, religion, you live on the mountain, I live on the flat lands.

Germany vs. World
I want the stuff you have and I don't want to share it with you.

Germany vs. World
You killed my family, so I'm going to kill yours.

Julius Ceasar/Marc Anthony/Cleopatra
Your girls are hotter than our girls and I want to impress them.

What's vague about that? There are basic human nature elements at the foundation of them.

Back to these questions.

1. If the Give Peace A Chance is valid, then the converse is equally a good choice. For you, peace is better than war. For those societies like Vikings and Fundamentalist Islamics, war is better than peace.

2: My religion tells me that I should wage war against all those outside of my beliefs. You telling me my religion is wrong?

3: Why do I want to stop it? I want to bring more of it. It brings me great honor and I have the opportunity to get to Valhalla or 72 virgins.

So again, isn't this same crap that you both are saying, EQUAL to the devices you are saying are false and have no bearing?

How is 'human nature' vague? How is it not vague? We're talking about the causes of war, and someone replies "power" and we all go home for the day.
It's not complicated, in fact it's overly simplistic. That's the problem
Which war? Israel vs. Lebanon was about Israel's overreaction to a kidnapping and show of force, also intended to destabilize the Lebanese government, and this triggered an attack by the Hezbollah organization, which had some influence and now has more influence in Lebanese government and society. It's a bit more complicated than that when to start putting it in context with the history, but so far as a one sentence explanation goes, I'm happy with it.

There is not one cause of war.

Cynth, the above description is what I would consider the reason for that war. It's not anywhere near as simple as racism or bigotry.
I happen to know some radical fundamentalist muslims. This may surprise you, but they desperately want peace. I don't know any vikings, considering they haven't existed for centuries and no longer have any bearing on the world. I think you catch my drift.
If a religion like that existed, then we could argue based on interpretation of scripture. Fortunately for me and every one else, no such religion exists.
No one believes in Norse mythology anymore, and 72 virgins isn't located anywhere in the Qu'ran. It's hate-filled garbage that simply represents something else, it's foundation, like a wish to force western militaries out of the Middle East by militaristic means.

Cyn, whatever you would like to think that the root causes and motivations for war, are....I still do not think that you grasp rb's point....

war happens because special interests prevail...I see it no differently than in this example;

In the post WWI midwest in 1920, farmers believed that they should still receive the wheat price, $3.00 per bushel, that they received during WWI.

If those farmers, (and we've recently seen peanut farmers lobbyist attempt to attach a subsidy for peanut storage to the supplemental war funding bill...) could convince other farmers to hold their wheat instead of weakening price demands by selling it...or if the wheat farmers could lobby to convince the congressional majority to subsidize the building of grain storage silos, they could have held in more wheat to keep prices up.

In 1916. the IWW, aka "Wobblies", successfully increased the day wage for housemaids by organizing the maids, to a degree, coordinating responses to ads for employment placed by wealthy matrons....scripting the applicants to ask for a uniform amount of pay....significantly higher than the existing rate....and providing a comfortable HQ for maids to meet and share their experiences in gaining hire wages with stricter parameters of what they would or would not do, related to their job descriptions....(see "Jane Street" Denver housemaids....)

My point is that our economic "system" would be "pecked" apart, either by the holders if capital buying the political influence and organization to keep those who sell their labor, or their independently produced products from organizing to a degree that they are able to present uniform price and other conditions on the capitalists, in exchange for their product or service (labor).

The "system" broke down in the late 1920's, unitl 1939, when the solution, as always....was war.

When the laborers and small producers can convince the government to protect their efforts to organize, or to build them storage silos...their disadvantage....choosing food on the table, next week, or going hungry.....selling their grain, or letting it rot under the open sky...is diminished, and the capitalists must pay more....lowering their profit margins....

It's a game, Cyn....and war is what invigorates it. You want to believe that it's about causes and principles, but for the US, it's mainly about the pursuit of an adequate return on investment, and for opportunties to achieve that return.

...and that all comes down to the struggle between labor and small producers, vs. capital....

Why do you think that ex-government officials fly to the Carlysle group, like moths to a flame?

Territorial war...get off my land or I keel you.
Are we talking about political motivations for war, or biological/anthropological/psychological?

Of course its not only humans we humans wage war against. Haven't we sent something like 200 species of animal into the dustbin of history? Is there any animal as filled with bloodlust and sadism as man? I don't celebrate the barbarity inherent in our species, but I don't deny it either. Whats the point in denying it?

I know fundamentalist Christians who feel that faggots should be killed. So what? There are fundamentalist islamics who do want to war? Yes? Or No? Abu Sayaaf for 2 maybe 3 decades waging war in Mindanao Philippines.

Exactly.

And most if not all of those special interests can be rooted into this vaguery of human nature.

So again, if the logic is that it is as simple as waving your hand to create a solution to end all wars, I still state, Ice Cream.

Everyone loves Ice Cream. But see, no not everyone does. See the Milk Intolerants, they don't like it because they can't share in the joy of Ice Cream. Then there are the Vanillas, they only like Plain Vanilla flavor as that is the rigteous Ice Cream and they don't like the ones that like the Chocolate Ice Cream eaters. Woah unto the world those mestizos of mixed Ice Cream eaters, the Neopalitans, they mix the Vanilla with the Chocolate and the Strawberry.

So, you remove this, game of the humanity. So we all have to think like will and rb in the ideology that war is not sometimes based on the simplest motivator human drive and emotion of "I want your stuff and I don't want to share."

You can't necessarily fix territoriality in some people, so it CAN'T be that simple for the sake of trying to find a solution. I hope that's clear.
Anything we can fix or work with. You can't work with 'human nature'. You can work with economic instability (Lebanon has to rely on Hezballah because they're still coming back form a civil war). You can work with kidnapping (Hezbollah kidnapping a few Israeli soldiers in order to barter a trade). You can work with over reaction (Israel invading, killing thousands and displacing millions in the name of a few kidnapped soldiers). All of those things can be addressed individually on their particular merits. You can't address territoriality.
We've probably killed off a lot more than that. In turn, other species have wiped out other species, too. When a predator can reproduce too quickly for the food supply to keep up, that food supply can be exhausted. If you have too many timber-wolves in an area who feed primarily on rabbits, they can eat all of the rabbits. Likewise, when humans have moved into an area and ingested all that there is to ingest, that's a part of the food cycle. We have ways of picking up an moving that wolves don't have access to, though, so it's a bit different. To a certain degree, I'm willing to call that natural selection. As far as barbarity, many species crossing all kingdoms could be considered barbaric. Have you seen how dolphins behave when they are in an area with low food? They war. Packs of dogs war. Ants and termites war. That doesn't excuse it or make it a part of anyone or anything's 'nature', mind you, but it's not a strictly human behavior.

The point in denying it, as it were, is progress. I hope that the future of mankind leads towards peace, understanding, and mutuality. We work better as a team instead of rivals.

But why is the war being waged? He want's Islamic independence and sovereignty from the basically Christian Philippines. Do you think he just picked up a bomb in the early 90s and started bombing? Or do you think there was an attempt at a peaceful solution before then? Clearly, he's a violent, and hurtful murderer, and I'd never excuse any of his violent acts, but the situation isn't as black and white as "he hates, therefore he wages war".

And why do those fundy bigots want faggots killed? It's not that "they hate, therefore they wage violence." It starts with discomfort, then when combined with organization with other bigots becomes groupthink. This can also be a result of the depression from repressing homosexuality, after all several studies have suggested that homophobic people can be repressed homosexuals. http://web.archive.org/web/200402020.../homophob.html

I see so you want to fix only certain fixable kinds of war. So you are not stating that the premise it to remove ALL war, but those that can. Okay, in that frame, I'd agree that there's not point in working with the human condition.

I'm glad we're almost on the same page. Now take the idea of using real solutions to end war, and multiply that by however many wars there are. With enough effort, one can end a war. Doesn't it stand to reason that with more effort, two wars can be ended? With yet more, three? And so on? I'm not talking about taking away people's need to kill, as that's impossible. I'm not talking about forcing people to be happy with what they have. I'm just talking about the tenacious working to halt military engagements by addressing what is being considered as a need for those actions on as big a scale and as many fronts as possible.

So we're talking politically. Fine. Thats something Im going to stay out of for the moment. I think its accurate to say that all political action carried out by people is subject to the laws governing the base behaviors of those people.

I think this is what the "intrinsically war-like" crowd is saying. Just like ants and lions and sharks, we too have war-like tendencies. All of us. There are varying degrees of aggression in different people obviously, but there is an underlying and possibly even unprecedented degree of violence potential in people. I agree with Freud that much of our propensity for violence comes from our intelligence and our sexuality, and that people sublimate their base instincts for the sake of civilization, ie., the safety of the herd. Without the sublimation, the human race would cease to exist, he says. The sex drive is one of those things that fucks up the possibility of a perfect world, or world peace or shangri-la. Wasn't sex outlawed in the movie "1984" so as to avoid subversive thought amongst the populace? Thats a specifically Freudian concept for example. Then there are issues surrounding the aggressive wellspring inherent in orgasms (the ultimate source of ego gratification), and castration as one of the most effective ways to remove much of the latent aggression in people and other animals. I would recommend Freud's Civilization & It's Discontents to anyone interested in the dynamic, or in just a plain cool book to read.

But one does oneself a disservice by denying reality. Inherent human aggression, ambition, motivation needs to be included in the equation of any sort of "quest for worldwide peace". There needs to be mechanisms built into the system to account/accomodate for this.

Not really because all the kumbayayas that get discussed don't apply to some of the people so thus someone gets marginalized.

You are talking about "solving" maybe one or two, there was something that I sent to roachboy a bit ago about conterfactuals, whererin a known counterfactual historian changed his mind based on simulations.

here's another way of making the same kind of point: "human nature" is a kind of therapeutic category in that any psychotherapy involves, at one level or another, enabling people to function within a given order no matter the nature of that order.

in a way this makes sense because no matter what you think of the political system within which you operate, no matter how fundamentally you oppose it, unless you are in the middle of some revolution you have to function within it.

so notions like "human nature" and their origins in the notion of sin *naturalize* the existing social arrangement.
they collapse ALL forms of opposition into ONE act, which is then recoded as subjective and evaluated as WRONG following that sad, debilitating logic of christianity and its sin-fetish.
you see this all over the old testament: god backs the existing order NO MATTER how it is organized and you are wrong for thinking that there could possibly be any problems with it.
so the function of notions of "human nature" and their correlates in the idea of "sin" are the same: they are about getting you to submit to the existing order because it exists and for no other reason.
if you find that compelling, then you can have it.
personally, i find it to be a joke.

so where does this leave us?

well, first off if you want to think in political terms you have to relativize your own position--you operate from within a particular framework and that framework shapes who and how you are.
you do not stand outside of all history looking at it as if it were a tv show. general narratives concerning how "people are" only operate for you as they do because they fit into the ideological context that you repeat continually, even in the smallest perceptual action.
these narratives seem to appeal because they resonate with (or inform) ideological positions that function in your immediate context.
they have no legitimacy--or even interest--outside that context.

so if this business of ending war necessarily involves changing the way in which this socio=political arrangement works (which is the point i made earlier somewhere, that seems to have been ignored) then nothing at all is helped by throwing about ideological propositions like "human nature is x or y" simply because when you do that you impose the logic of exactly the political context that needs to be changed.

it is circular, in other words.

there are a couple of interesting posts that have come up today that i'd like to address, but i cant see them without vaporizing this one, so i'll get back to them a bit later.

=================
powerclown: "literary masturbation"?---what the fuck are you talking about? if you want to take on the arguments i am making, do it directly.

There is a difference between violence and aggressiveness, and war.
Kumbayayas?
I understand counterfactuals, but because no one has made an effort of this magnitude, it can't be considered unreasonable.

btw: freud was also engaged in a therapeutic practice and many of his main metabooks do the same thing that i have been talking about regarding "human nature"--civilization and its discontents and totem and taboo are exercises in the archaeology of myths that explain something of how middle-class austria/europe appeared to be to freud in the 1930s--they isolate certain behaviours and try to explain them by situating them in relation to western myth structures (c&d) or in terms of some (now outmoded) golden bough-style transcultural fantasy (t&t). it's not that these texts are not interesting--quite the contrary--but they arent exactly guides for either living or thinking about how one might live.

btw: a characteristic of classical freudian psychoanalysis as a treatment regime is the bracketing of politics up front. an analyst would not say to a patient that response x or y which is understood socially as being problematic originates in an accurate political interpretation of the cultural context within which the patient operates. the context is given, the problematic responses remain problematic and therapy is about helping the patient get back to being able to function within that context--again NO MATTER WHAT THAT CONTEXT IS, NO MATTER HOW IT IS ORGANIZED.

=============================

on counterfactuals: they are an interesting parlor game.
the devil is in the details of course--usually these details start with the assumptions about causation--a famous counterfactual exercise (cant remember who did it) involved trying to figure out what railroads meant by trying to figure out what the u.s. would look like had they never happened. the problem is not so much the erasing of railroads but in the figuring out of what "caused" them and what they in turn "caused" so the model can be something beyond simply erasing the rail lines from a map.

what's interesting about them is that they remind you that the present arrangement is neither inevitable or necessary.

but that's all they generally do.

but it's a bit difficult to work out how on the one hand you might find counterfactuals interesting and on the other hold to a notion of some immutable human nature. i dont get that.

roachboy, you and I are commenting on "human nature" from different perspectives. You, from a political viewpoint. Me, from a biological/psychological viewpoint. I would say that one can definitely examine the human condition outside of the political realm. Take the Indianapolis 500. From your perspective, you would be commenting on the occurrences within the race itself, the rules, the team strategies, the weather conditions, etc. I would be commenting upon the cars themselves...the different pieces and functions that make up the cars, exhaust, intake manifold, tires, windshield, etc.

I can't understand this denial of the existence of a "human nature". It seems to me as obvious and as relevant as the functioning and pathology of the organs within ones body. Some people spend their lives studying just one organ, say, the heart. Would not the modes of functioning of ones internal organs constitute as objective an explanation of the human condition as ones personality?

If you'd like me to attack human nature from a psychological or biological standpoint, it wouldn't be too difficult. Of course, that'd be for another thread. As it is for now, speaking in political, social, and economic terms as this thread intends, 'human nature' should probably be closed for business. Unless someone would like to explain how weapons production interference via labor unions has something to do with gluttony or lust.

I was going to call bringing up Sigmund Freud as an argument for human nature a straw man, but he (Roachboy) didn't bring it up. (I read his post about Freud before yours). Freud? Talk about theories that don't predict anything. Yikes. Psychodynamic theory, especially as espoused by Freud, was and is unfalsifiable. Now, I'm of the opinion that human nature exists. However, we can't go attributing random things to human nature willy nilly and random things to socialization and stop there. It isn't useful.
Very few active researchers approaching human psychology and behavior from a biological perspective would use Freud as support for their cause. Also, I would argue that the biological/psychological viewpoint requires accounting for both the occurences within the race itself and the car.

The idea of "human nature" (more specifically, "the human condition") was eviscerated by the post-modernists years ago. We can no longer refer to anything resembling a unified "condition" of our experience because, as the post-modernists aptly point out, we no longer have what can be called a "grand narrative." Our experiences as human beings are too diverse to apply universal ideals to us as humans.

One way to look at it is this: "War" (both semantically and culturally) has a multitude of meanings depending on the individual. For example, my view of the word varied greatly from a former co-worker of mine whose family had fled war-torn Somalia. An insensitive manager of the store I worked at had thought it was a good idea to post a "War Board" (and it was labeled as such) in the staff room as a "cute" way to establish and record our sales targets. I immediately took a pink highlighter and turned it into a "No War" board. The idea was subsequently scrapped.

Also consider that "greed" would likely have varying meanings to the following people:

• A fifty-something, male, Caucasian CEO of a large multi-national based in New York City, who's from an affluent family.
• A recently unemployed single Black mother of three, whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
• An Aboriginal in Australia whose family has been fighting fruitlessly to have their native land returned to them by the government.
• A Buddhist monk from Tibet who has been subject to humiliation and physical punishment for eight years in a Chinese prison because of his religion.

There are no grand narratives... only small ones. "The human condition" should not be applicable to this discussion.

Evidently, I didn't get the memo (and neither did most of biological psychology, bio-anothropology, evolutionary biologists, evolutionary psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists... the list goes on....) There's a great deal of productive research being done from a functional biological perspective.

Also, there's nothing in the questions presented in the OP that suggests that human nature is taboo to apply to a discussion of war.

The term was replaced with more apt or specific terminology with better definitions long ago. I've never heard "human nature" used by anyone but laymen in discussions of anthropology, psychology, or biology.
When I made this an exercise of finding real world solutions, I believe I made outdated, vague philosophical terminology somewhat unwanted. Imagine there was a thread about ending the genocide in Darfur. Would you think it normal to say, "It's just human nature. You can't stop it."?

huh.

ok so sapiens (and indirectly this addresses powerclown's no. 128 as well)

i have been doing a bunch of work with complex dynamic systems theory as a way to model being human--particularly with reference to cognition. i am still learning this material (there's a ton of it)---but i find it fascinating and conceptually useful---this interest explains alot about why it is that i find nothing terribly compelling about claims concerning "human nature" from a bio-system viewpoint. the idea of "human nature" seems to me entirely ideological in the old marxist sense of the term. what i have been running out is a critique of the idea of human nature predicated on this claim. it seems to work pretty well, as no-one really has a response to it on its own terms.

i guess i could try to explain some of the complex dynamical systems material, but i am not sure how relevant it would be...

powerclown: while i like the indy 500 analogy, it dont think it accurate to describe why or how the arguments cross or dont cross. but it's interesting nonetheless.

baraka, sir: does your post mean that i am somehow a "postmodernist"?

First of all, it isn't something as simple as a universal memo. I refer to a bulk of writings on critical theory developed out of the 20th century, beginning mainly in the '50s, hitting its peak in the '70s, and having been refined between the '80s and '90s. It was an international movement and included some interesting critiques of the rhetoric of science of the time, to be sure. The world cannot be defined, evaluated, and conducted on research alone. Scientific research and development on its own is not a slam dunk. It must be left open to be critique before its worth can be known. The last thing we need is another social Darwinist movement.

Taboo? No. An outmoded and therefore useless term? Yes. Go on using it if you want, but be forewarned that its on shaky ground that you do so, though I think it is possible that you say "human nature" when you mean something else entirely.

Actually, no. The post-modern era ended on September 11, 2001 at 8:46 a.m. EST. While your ideas are certainly based on post-modern thought, they appear to fit within the next era of critical theory, which is yet to be defined by any stable measure. I think it has something to do with a combination of quantum theory, degrees of abstraction, and something that might be called post-humanism.

Essentially, you are one who is brave enough to be treading these new waters.

I work in an academic setting. I would never accept "human nature" as an explanation for anything, nor would anyone that I work with. I don't use the term in the sense of "Oh well, it's human nature..." I'm not particularly attached to the term itself, more the idea that we have innate (evolved) psychological mechanisms sensitive to particular types of environmental input that interact with that information in the environment, producing behavior (output).

That said, I would never accept "socialization" or the like as an explanation for anything either. I read tabula rasa type explanations of human psychology on the board occasionally. "People learn it from their parents" or "the media teaches people" or "society tells people" or "it's origin is political" are all as equally imprecise as "human nature" and equally useless.

I think that an understanding of the functional biological underpinnings of human psychology (certainly more than "It's just human nature") is useful in understanding any social problem. I think that theories of adaptive function (like evolutionary theory) have heuristic value. They have the potential to guide us to solutions to social problems like war.

Roachboy, I am familiar with dynamical systems theory, though perhaps not as familiar as you might be. I honestly don't have the energy to debate whether adaptationist perspectives (my perspective) or dynamical systems perspectives better account for human psychology (or whether there is an appropriate integration). It would require a lot of reading and re-reading on my part. Right now, if it's not going to result in a publication or at least an animated discussion over a few beers, I'm not interested.

That said, my primary point, the reason that I wasted all of this thread space, was that you can't just dismiss adaptationist (how I use "human nature") perspectives without consideration.

Is there any chance of Will's topic getting back on track?

sapiens: it seemed germaine. i am not sure that i could debate about it. unless beer was involved.

I certainly wouldn't mind if we could.

I think a part of any debate about war includes the causes of war. But rather than discuss that directly, I would rather imply my thoughts on that through other ideas.

I believe a large part of the process of stopping war includes a mass democratization. I feel that strong centralized power is what ultimately has the will and the means to start war. Whether it is the White House/Pentagon behind the most powerful military in the world or perhaps a despot who has 15,000 loyalists who effectively run a third-world country, it is this kind of power that has the authority to start war, in a direct sense. I would like to see a further democratization in both of these examples. Although it is good that in America one can vote to put another in power, there are limitations. A true democratization goes beyond the masses authorizing centralized power. True democratization goes beyond politics; it also affects economics and society. Think of the Internet: it is one of the greatest democratizations of society that we have ever seen. Sure it has its problems, but it would be hard to deny its impact in this respect.

Examples of mass-democratization in each area would include the following:

Politics:
Not only authorizing power, but regulating it. If a vast majority of a population is against a particular war, why does the authorized power maintain the war or, worse, intensify it?

Economics:
I gave a link in an earlier post: http://www.kiva.org/. This is the best example of the democratization of economics that I've seen. If more of this kind of thing would happen, corporations wouldn't have near the amount of power they do now. This is our best hope of avoiding a global corporatocracy.

Society:
As mentioned above, I believe our participation in the Internet is indicative of the greatest democratization in society. No one is left out on the World Wide Web; everyone has a voice. (Even criminals, if that is any indication.) Though I admit there are those who are trying to control the Internet, I would say is nearly impossible to dominate it from any centralized power sources. The only exceptions would be those nations who haven't democratized their politics and/or economics...

...and here we come to this: these are all connected, and they are often without borders. When power over politics, economics, and society is centralized, the mobilization to war is an easier task, but if it undergoes and maintains a movement toward mass-democratization, perhaps war would not even be an option. For example, if a source of power becomes too much and shows signs of aggression--perhaps leading towards warmongering--there would be a pockets of power outside of that source that would render it impotent through various means, whether it be by shutting off their economic sources or removing their political clout.

A great danger of mass-democratization, I admit, is such phenomenon as tyranny of the masses. But I think this can be avoided. I believe that there will always be a source of understanding that can be achieved by enough people, avoiding the worst of things altogether.

What do you guys think of this idea? Can you come up with any other examples of mass-democratization? It sort of popped into my head after thinking of this and other things over the past while. Am I being idealistic, or does this make sense? I can't help but think of this: People generally don't like war. Why do we go to war, then?

Excellent point, Baraka. We are seeing the effects of the internet in unlikely places such as Iran and China. (Granted, with some censorship). Information from multiple sources is becoming a global commodity and it's influence will be difficult to measure, but significant.

I would be one of the perplexed 20 percenters had I not been exposed to differing positions concerning Iraq via the internet, and chose instead only Fox soundbites for information.