Baraka_Guru

I think by war we mean a physical conflict between groups that causes damage and/or destruction of life and property. Violence is a more general word that could refer to an act by one person on another, or, perhaps, simply on oneself.

In other words, war is violence of great magnitude.

Peace, I think, would mean the cessation of such violence as war. It would be far-reaching to say we would want no conflict/violence whatsoever. For the purposes of this thread, it would be good to focus on the cessation of war as defined above as being indicative of peace.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

pan6467

I'm not pessimistic, I'm being a realist.

Yes, I believe in what Lennon and Christ taught, peace is a great concept. However, it is impossible at this time and I recognize it may always be impossible.

My above argument shows my reasonings.

People desire peace as a whole and they see the destruction, but as long as there are sovereign countries there will be war.

As long as there are differences among peoples, there will be sovereign states.

Let's say the UN or some world governing body finds a way for countries to have peace. There will always be rogue nations to deal with, there will always be "terrorist" cells to deal with, eventually that spills out into countries.

Will, again, I reiterate, you cannot have peace unless everyone is exactly the same, and it is not in man's nature to be exactly the same. There will always be war, whether it's tribes in Africa, the Bloods and Crips and whatever gangs are out there, etc etc.... it will always exist.

I am willing to listen though to how you would find a lasting world peace. Tell me how to do it and I will be happy to stand beside you and "fight" so to speak for it with you.

But as long as there are naysayers..... there will be no peace.... the only way to get rid of naysayers is to kill them, destroy who they are and create that homogenized specimen example I gave above..... and that cannot exist. I will fight to my death to prevent it.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

so we're talking about the "state of war" or a legal situation.
that'd be fine except..

there's always an except

something strange like the cold war--which i think paul virillio characterized neatly as a war of pure logistics that did not require the messiness of battles etc. to function (politically, economically, socially) as war. but the cold war was a de facto state of affairs, not a de jure one...so would it count for these purposes? same questions basically obtain for the ongoing absurdist "war on terror"....

over the past 60 years or so, the dominant forms of war have been linked to cold war--logistical conflicts--remedies for the old marxian category "crises of over-production" which are endemic to fordist and post-fordist types of production. so if you think about war from a vantagepoint informed by war-as-logistics rather than war-as-series-of-discrete-events (you know, battles and attending whackings and dismemberings), then (a) the boundary war/not-war gets quite blurry (b) the question arises of whether the present capitalist order can function without some kind of de facto state of war that functions to direct production into spaces of waste/expenditure/turnover in products otherwise useless (think cluster bombs. the americans do. tey like cluster bombs. they dont want them regulated.) or problematic (the americans are the world's largest exporter of weapons conventional by a MULTUIPLE of ten--from which a cynical fellow could argue that the central feature of the american GNP after agricultural production is war...)

if that's true, then you might also wonder why it is that folk are so willing to default into arguments from "human nature" to "explain" war--given that they are social agents within a context that relies on war production in order to operate at anything like full production capacity (even this is a bit outmoded terminologically, but i'll leave it) in a range of industrial sectors (in general, those which benefit from state largesse under republican "fiscally responsible" regimes, characteristic of which is hostility to the transfer of wealth in the direction of poor people but support of transfer of wealth toward defense contractors)...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

A few of what I would consider recent wars, to give you an idea:
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
Let's take two people with diametrically opposed viewpoints, like host and ace (first that came to mind). These two people often get into verbal battles, and clearly have a completely different outlook on life, different philosophies, and different politics. I would be willing to bet, though, if Host were president of the United States of host, and Ace were the leader of Aceland, they wouldn't go to war. In this crazy world, you can completely disagree with someone even on fundamental levels without going to war. If everyone who was different and had different viewpoints went to war, the US would have bombed France in 2002 and 2003. Why didn't that happen?

reconmike

Because the French would have surrendered before the bombers took off.

__________________
Where is Darwin when ya need him?

Willravel

Touche. The point stands, though. People can disagree and be individual without war. I am different than most TFP people in that I am openly socialist. Most on TFP are more about the free market (libertarian). I cannot recall one time where I have had a debate here about that where it even became heated. They're respectful discussions about the way of things, and even if we leave the discussion agreeing to disagree, we leave on not only peaceful but pleasant terms. That's what I'm talking about.

jorgelito

Yes exactly. In the same way that the Buddhists act violently and make war are going against Buddha's teachings is the same way that "Christians" who act violently and make war (and there are plenty!) are not following Christ's teachings.

The same goes for Islam. Some take it to the extreme and others are peaceful.

For all the Christian war mongers, there are plenty of peaceful Christians engaged in humanitarian activities and charities.

That was pretty much the point I wanted to make. I am not opposed to Buddhism mind you. My objection was in the broad generalization.

I think the problem lies even more basic than religion. It goes back to the human element. If war is the extension of politics, then religion is the excuse or reason some politicians would seize upon to make their war. So I am inclined to believe that it is not religion that is the problem, but rather the people in power or the politicians.

Actually, DK, I brought that up. And yes, for me, deterrence is certainly ONE way to frame the idea. It is an intriguing idea, I am still thinking it through. Seems like en endless loop.

Baraka_Guru

But you see, my point implies that Buddha teaches something inherently non-religious, that if war were to be ceased, it would likely be because of humanity adopting much of what was taught by Buddha at the core, as I've quoted from the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Once we "let go," there will be less to fight about. If war becomes a thing of the past, I think it would be because of something related to these teachings, even if it is merely a coincidence.

The Buddhist teachings I quoted aren't dogma, ritual, or worship (they are atheist, even); they are practical steps toward getting to the source of misery and ceasing it at its cause.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

djtestudo

There are only two ways to end war.

1) Eliminate all of the problems in the world.

Not just the "seven deadly sins" mentioned previously, but the poverty, religion, and racial and ethnic differences among individuals, plus the problems of resource management around the world.

This is probably impossible, not just because of the overall "human nature", but because there will always be someone who will see an opportunity to take some kind of power and then use it to gain more. That's is how we got here in the first place.

In addition, the way the world is structured today, the organizational problems, not to mention the social ones, make it an undertaking that would ultimately lead to failure, based on the reason above.

Think of it as the Soviet Union. After the revolution in 1917, they were trying to form into a socialist nation. Then Lenin dies, and in the confluence of confusion caused by his death and the ongoing struggles of the revolution, Stalin sees an opportunity, starts knocking off his superiors, and takes absolute power. Or even as Russia after the collapse of the USSR, where Putin is taking more and more power in the rebuilding towards capitalism.

2) Continue on the path that humanity was on up until the past half-century: make war so terrible that no one will be willing to fight.

Until the nuclear age, the goal of military technology was to kill as many of the enemy as possible so that, through demoralization or simple depopulation, they were no longer willing or able to fight.

However, once people saw the power of nuclear weapons, the tide started turning away from that towards simply disabling the enemy. That is the wrong way to go if you want to prevent people from fighting, since death is in most people the ultimate fear.

Even this isn't foolproof, because there will always be someone who is motivated by the reasons mentioned earlier who will take the risk, or there is even the chance of someone with mental problems or an inferiority/superiority complex will be the one making the decision to fight.

So, as I see it the end of warfare at this point in the history of human civilization is an impossibility.

However, if one of the two scenarios I suggested can come to pass, then war could end at some point, in the future.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

jorgelito

Ooh, well then that is definitely a different set of points altogether then. I have long argued that Buddhism is not a religion but rather, a philosophy.

But although you cite the teachings as not being dogma, ritual, or worship, the various denominations of Buddhism have evolved and adapted the teachings as dogma, ritual, and worship. I used to live in Asia and am pretty familiar with Buddhism. Two of my family members are Buddhist as well. A lot of these different Buddhist denominations can't agree on the doctrines which is why they split off and formed their own schools.

No doubt if all of humanity were to experience the "Awakening" (or Enlightenment if you're Western) then war could be a thing of the past. Freedom from want is a powerful thing.

Likewise, if we were to follow the teachings of Christ, even by coincidence, then war would also be a thing of the past.

pan6467

But diametrical differences aren't what starts wars. It may act as an impetus and create the friction that causes more panic to be stronger than the other side (USA -USSR/China) but it isn't the start.

The start for war is primarily greed (Hitler wanting to take over the world, the USSR in Eastern Europe, China in Asia), trying to "liberate and protect people" (US - Iraq/Nam/Korea), trying to subdue and conquer your "enemies" before they can do it to you, religious issues (the crusades, todays Middle East, India/Pakistan), many reasons, those are the simple basics.

Or in most recent times, you could have the 2 strongest kids on the block wanting allies so badly that they start revolutions and put puppets in... the other side finds reasons and plants the seeds of hatred/fear/prejudice/etc into neighboring countries... both sides arm and it's a ticking bomb noone can disarm because the seeds of hatred and looking for reasons to fight/defend preemptively have been planted.... think US-USSR Middle East.

One reason the Iranians have come to hate us is we needed Iran to help us maintain control in the Middle East, we put a very sadistic, cruel leader in power (the Shah) and when the people overthrew him and realized we had supported him, they came to hate and distrust us. They then go to their neighbors and plant seeds of doubt as to what the US might have done in their countries.

There was no need to bomb France, and had we, any allies we did have would have been lost and that would have started a truly serious war that would make the one we have with Iraq/Afghanistan seem nothing more than a skirmish.

It takes time, education and willingness on both sides to diffuse the hatreds and gain true peace between countries.

It is easier to rule and keep power by fear (either within or without) than to share true power among the people.

With fear comes hatred, with hatred comes preparation and eventually some form of violent reaction. Negativity begets negativity.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Elphaba

Roachboy and I have both pointed to the economic basis that supports and furthers war in this country and others. The economy is driven by political ideology. If you agree that war is driven by economics (which is implicit to politics), what do you suggest is necessary to move our economy from a war driven to peace driven economy?

I reject the notion that human "nature" is the source for war. We continue to have some primitive brain stem functions, but our species is primarily distinguished by our intellect. That some would chose to engage in war does not negate the supremacy of intelligence over animal violence. Many of the great leaders over recorded time denounced violence and promoted peace. If war is a part of the human condition, why did the great teacher, Jesus, say otherwise over 2,000 years ago?

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

Cynthetiq

Because other stories and parables that are older than 2,000 years ago from Greek to Babylonian discuss that the human condition is more consistent than "peace."

Jesus also tells of a parable wherein the eldest son will leave the father and squander all the family money. Or that bandits will beat the crap out of someone and many people will not help the distressed man.

Seems to me there's plenty of selfishness (Pride) that is mentioned as well.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

roachboy

without a rethinking of basic structures and basic ways of doing things--which cant be just a matter of people trying to be nice to each other and perhaps embrace the buddah, but has to involve the entire socio-economic order within which we operate and that we have effectively exported over big areas of the world--you'll have lots of war.

it'd probably have to involve a decentralization of economic organization--but there's still have to be infrastructure, so there'd still be centralized functions--so economic reorganization is too narrow even in the abstract---so there'd have to be a political decentralization as well, a multiplication of centers of organization and political power. some kind of tending-toward direct democratic organizational forms--so folk could be in a position to get information and operate within responsive structures (though who knows how responsive folk really want organizations to be--too much of that stuff and you'll have to start taking responsibility for what you do--it's a two edged thing.)

i think people replicate the ideology they live under all the time.
it's a problem. we are adaptable beings and lots of how we think moves as the bigger frameworks we think through move.
so you think war kinda sucks so how do we stop it and you say let's try to be nicer to each other and there's nothing wrong with that, it's a fine idea, who wouldn't argue that being nicer to each other is better than not being nicer to each other?

but if you think that actually responds to the question "how could we stop war?" then you probably watch tv--because the same kind of things are included and the same kind of things excluded in thinking "how to stop war" via "be nicer to each other" as are included and excluded in a tv image of the world.
and your thinking moves as the framework you think through moves. just like anyone else's.
it's no-one's fault, really. it happens by itself. it's the camera.

i dunno, maybe you could get at these problems from any number of starting points, and maybe embracing buddah would be a good thing to that end, but it seems to me that you at least have to think a bit about this other stuff...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

You reject and deny that human nature is the source for war?

Ok, then what other source is there and since you can point so easily to this other source and reject that human nature is the cause, perhaps you know the solution to end war and would like to fill everyone in then?

What book, chapter and verse does Jesus say war is not part of the human condition?

Where does Lennon say it, Ghandi, Mohammed, etc?

War is part of the human condition because they are started by the free will and emotions those leaders, it continues through the emotions of those who wage it.

Jesus talks about YOU as a person, Lennon talks about individuals, they all talk about individuals, choosing peace, turning the other cheek etc, etc. Each one believes it should be the individuals choice. That being the case not everyone obviously will choose peace.

As an example, Lennon distinctly states "You may think I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you will join us, and the world will live as one."

He hopes people will join and want peace but he is not demanding it, forcing people to believe as he does, but he welcomes them and believes someday free will, will lead to peace.

I may live peacefully, I may talk to others about how they can, but it is free will, and I am pessmistic that man will ever choose 100% peace. There are too many differences, too much greed, too many inherent hatreds, that exist.

If you force peace, people will resent peace, you cannot force upon others what they do not want, or you will have started the violent actions yourself.

Finding reasons to go to war is easy, finding ways to prevent war and find a lasting peace are extremely hard and both sides have to be 100% willing to do the work. I just don't ever see that happening.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

Alright, time to address this human nature stuff.

Either a given trait can be explained by innate genetic traits or it's tabula rasa. 'Human nature' is a simplistic and outdated term that's virtually meaningless because of it's varied and vague meaning. One may have a genetic predisposition to violence, or has acquired the concept of war from their environment. To blame 'human nature', as is pointed out by roach above, is to blame Vague language does this thread, and by extension hope of a solution or progress in the venture of ending war, a disservice. Can we move away from the vague and antiquated, for the benefit of the thread topic? If you'd like to suggest that a genetic or environmentally acquired predisposition for violence (coupled with any number of things such as greed or selfishness) spread across certain members of a given society can and will manifest themselves in violent behavior and, when coupled with a type of thought like groupthink, the inevitable conclusion on a mass scale is war, then go ahead and we can debate it on it's academic merits. I welcome that type of debate here, as that can reach a solution. Blaming human nature is tantamount to using Newtonian physics to examine wave functions on the subatomic level or using a rams horn to play a trumpet concerto. We have the necessary tools to really look into this.

pan6467

Ah, but see therein lies a problem, I believe in human nature, I don't believe that we are "predisposed" or "our environment" is 100% fully responsible for who we are. So if I can't make my arguments from my beliefs.... you win the debate by default and don't have to answer any of the questions that the opposing view put forth..... how fucking clever.

If it were, genetic, environmental, etc.etc. (whatever you want to claim); the same drugs would affect everyone the same. You can have identical twins, who have shared every experience of their lives together smoke weed, do coke, take a xanax, etc. and have totally different reactions. Sooooo why is that? Identical twins have pretty much the identical genetic makeup, and sharing the same experiences takes the environment factor out also... so what is the answer that makes this happen? HUMAN NATURE, FREE WILL, INDIVIDUALITY, whatever you wish to call it.

We have emotions, we are a species that we may try to control emotions and come up with 99 million excuses as to why we feel certain ways, but if it is not an individualistic choice, then everyone would eventually feel the exact same about everything. This isn't even true with siblings, let alone any number of random people in a group.

You can collect a group of 100 random people, sit them down and show them Annie Hall (as an example). Now, from that group you may reason certain percentages will feel certain ways, but chances are you will not even guess 10% accurately as to who felt what about the movie, who slept through it, who ate more popcorn, who didn't truly pay attention and so on. You cannot guess because of HUMAN NATURE and FREE WILL.

To disregard them and to try to explain them away is ludicrous, lazy and IMHO, trying to be someone who believes since they know what makes humans tick (so to speak) they can poo-poo anything and control mankind. Trying to explain away man's emotions as genetics and environment is to say we have no souls, we have no spirits we are just neurons reacting in certain ways. Sorry, don't believe ya. But I am so glad that the government has been training our psychologists and psychiatrists to believe this. Makes helping the individual almost impossible at times. But makes the makers of Benzodiazapines, Prozac, Seraquel, etc, much, much richer.

Sorry, man is not GOD and man will never be able to control others... Hell the people who claim environment and genetics, I know have a hard time with their own self control.

BTW, if you go by "academic merits" you can come up with answers to everything you wish to..... theoretically... however, put into real life and upon the grand stage you will never get the results you hypothesized. Again, human free will, individuality, nature, spirit will prevail. What you profess as "antiquated, vague.... (was obsolete in there also?)" will basically always bite you on the ass, when you profess that it doesn't exist for one reason or another.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Cynthetiq

Wait... you are saying that things like desire for things, such as better more fertile lands, resources such as oil, gold, food, pretty wenches for better bred offspring have no bearing to warring peoples whatsoever?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

Separate fact from belief. If you have no facts to argue with, what are you posting? Opinion? This isn't a theological or metaphysical debate. This is about actively seeking to end war. In the real world.
Identical twins aren't actually identical. It's a generalization based on the phenotype. Each of two twins may have a different reaction, but it's not God or human nature that determines that. You don't have to be a doctor to get that, but I'm sure people on TFP with more expertise in human biology can confirm what I'm saying.

BTW, twins to tend to have similar reactions to medications. I know that because Several of the classes I took to get my degree went into twins studies in psychiatry.
Pan, I can respect that you're very smart when it comes to a lot of things. As a matter of fact, I'd say you were probably smarter than I am on average. I don't think you quite understand the way psychology works, at least in the context you're presenting. I mean absolutely no disrespect, you're a stand up guy who I proudly call friend, but you can't make up psychology as you go. I took years of my life to intensely study psychology, and I still don't know most of it.
I also don't know exactly how black holes form, but I can give you my sincere assurances that it has nothing to do with human nature. If I had backgrounds on each of those people, how can you claim that I'd only get 10%? Do you have actual studies to cite? Or is this all hypothetical studies carried out in your mind? Do you realize what you're communicating by stating hypothetical studies as fact?
Lazy is using a vague term and ending the conversation there. Souls were the explanation for sentience and intelligence before philosophy and science got to work on explaining them. The government doesn't train psychologists or psychiatrists. We're trained at universities by people who are experts on the subjects.

Psychology and psychiatry are sciences. They are as reliable as any other science. In all sciences there are exceptions to rules. That's normal. That hardly proves the metaphysical, though.
Man is not god, but neither is god. I control other people all the time. If I ask Jerry in accounting to fix the insurance numbers because they look wrong, he does it. So far as control in the context in this thread: I'm not talking about forcing peace. I'm talking about getting everyone on the same page; we should strive for peace. If all 7 billion people decided that, on their own, this thread wouldn't look so crazy.
Again with the metaphysics. Free will only requires a capacity for rational deliberation. Individuality is the fact that it's impossible for two people to have the exact same genetic makeup and environment. Nature...well we all have covered human nature. Spirit is religious or metaphysical. What I profess as antiquated is in fact antiquated and still has no place in the real world. If you want to have a philosophical debate, I'll meet you in tilted philosophy. This is politics.
Of course they do, but to explain those wants away as 'human nature' is too simplistic for discussion. As we've seen it's starting to break down our progress in this thread.

pan6467

So, basically you are telling me you want to control the debate. You want people to debate only by your beliefs, so that in doing so perhaps you can control the outcome.

I have much Psychology training and I am very well read in the field. (Have to be because I am in the business also.) I may not have a doctorate or Masters, but I know people and I am a good study and have studied human nature and know it exists.

I have no more proof at what I say than you do. You can present your argument, but none of what you say truly can disprove human nature/emotions/individual free will.

The movie analogy stated 100 RANDOM people..... in order to be random you cannot know anything about them before they go in other than how they look. But you imply that you would want backgrounds and yada yada.... that takes away some of the randomness though.

It would make for a good study. Take 100 pure randoms and make predictions just based on look, and then take 100 people whom you have background knowledge of and make the same predictions.... Of course knowing the backgrounds, you'd know who would probably like Annie Hall and who probably wouldn't, but that would be about it. I never stated fact, I said chances are.

Sorry Will, I like you, respect you and yes, I also call you friend. But I am also in the field and I could not disagree more on the subject.

Let's say someone is raised in a certain religion, everyone they know is of that religion, how does that person decide to take a different religion?

As for bringing philosophy and this into politics, you are the one who did so. You stated what you wanted in the thread and after I had invested my time in this thread, I felt I should be able to point out, I wholeheartedly disagree with the parameters you are wanting.

What exactly are you wanting from this thread? Are you asking how can we have peace? Are you asking what people think and feel on the subject or are you wanting solutions only?

If you want solutions only, that everyone can agree upon, you will never get them, no matter how you try to set the parameters of the debate.

BTW, just because "Psychology and Psychiatry" are "sciences" does not mean they are in any way shape or form concrete sciences, with concrete answers. To believe so is foolish and will eventually hurt you.

And yes, if you wish to continue this we can go to Tilted Philosophy..... however, in this thread obviously my answers and debate are not welcomed because they do not meet the parameters you have decided to set already deeply into the debate.... so I will leave this thread, for you to have your controlled debate.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

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?

roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

What he said.

roachboy

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....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

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?

Cynthetiq

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.

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roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

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.

__________________
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Willravel

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'.

roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

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?

Willravel

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.

powerclown

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?

sapiens

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.

Cynthetiq

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?

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Willravel

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.

host

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?

powerclown

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?

Cynthetiq

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."

__________________
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Willravel

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