War - the Hereditary Curse of Humanity
Guest Writer - Holland Shepherd
As a result of recent events, I have been thinking a lot about the stupidity, insanity, and, unfortunately, the inevitability of war. I asked myself: Is war a hereditary curse we must endure, or something we can prevent through social-cultural change and educational awareness? We would have to start by understanding the roots of war, and then develop the tools we must use to prevent wars.
War is a lethal conflict sanctioned by a tribe or state. It is not considered murder because your identity group or God says it is ok. In my mind, it is still murder, no matter how you look at it. War is state-sanctioned fear and hate against other people, and a result of extreme “othering”. Greg McDonald Jr., the conservative Christian father of an LGBTQ son up against a homophobic culture, points out, “There is no hate like Christian love.”
What is happening now in the world is nothing new to humanity. We have had wars ever since we were running half naked through the African savanna carrying arrows and spears, 200,000 years ago. They have just been on a much smaller scale and not as well documented as in modern times. But the reason for war has always been the same: patriarchy, narcissism, tribalism, and xenophobia. Wars are mostly instigated by men and carried out by men. Heredity and history keep repeating themselves.
I have read portions of several religious texts, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic scriptures, to get a feel of where people might be coming from relative to aggression. It struck me in reading these texts that war is kind of a big deal and is talked about at great length in all these documents of scripture, war, after war, after war. War is a pervasive theme throughout the Bible. Because the scriptures contain over 400 references to military conflict, nearly all of the 66 booksin the Bible discuss or reference war in some capacity. I have also read The Lord of the Rings, which is about endless wars, good vs evil: humans fighting monsters and demons. It even has a devil figure. The similarities in these works of literature did not go unnoticed by me, humans fighting others thought to be less than human, sanctioned by a higher power.
Example
In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, God commands the Israelites to utterly destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites within the promised land. The Israelis were to leave nothing alive that breathes to prevent these indigenous nations from teaching Israel to adopt abominable practices and idolatry, which would cause them to sin against God. This was written in the 7th century BC (c. 622 BC).
Tribalism
According to E.O. Wilson in his book Social Conquest of Earth,
Tribalism is among the absolute universals of human nature. It results in a culture that draws comfort and pride from participation in the group and defends the group enthusiastically against rival groups, sometimes to the death. Modern groups are psychologically equivalent to the tribes of ancient history and prehistory. As such, these groups are directly descended from the bands of primitive pre-humans. The instinct that binds them together is the biological product of group selection. People must have a tribe. It gives them a name in addition to their own and social meaning in a chaotic world. It makes the environment less disorienting and dangerous. Such groups can be completely arbitrary, yet exert powerful forces towards prejudice against outsiders. There are behaviors that support the in-group, but dehumanize the out-group. Is this ‘instinctive’? This quickly becomes tribalism. People are quick to anger at the evidence that an out-group is behaving unfairly or receiving undeserved rewards.
Can these behaviors be overcome, or are we stuck with them?
War as Inherited
According to William James in a 1906 anti-war essay,
History is a bath of blood. Modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war’s irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.
Our bloody nature, it can now be argued in the context of modern biology, is ingrained because group-versus-group was a principal driving force that made us what we are. In prehistory, group selection elevated the hominids who became territorial carnivores to heights of solidarity, to genius, to enterprise, and to fear others. Each tribe knew with justification that if it was not armed and ready, its very existence was imperiled.
And there’s always the will of God to justify attacks. The Christian crusades during the 1099 Siege of Jerusalemslaughtered thousands of Muslims; later came the Islamic slaughter of Christians in 1453. The Athenians slaughtered the Melians during the Peloponnesian War. In each case, it was the will of the prevailing God or Gods, but the excuse is always the same. Man inventing the will of God.
Many churches in Germany supported the Nazi regime, with the Catholic church remaining mute. Christian nationalism in this country today is not unlike the churches supporting the Nazi regime in the 1930’s. Politics and religion blending together to form a toxic brew of social brainwashing, much like Jonestown Kool-Aid.
According to David M. Buss in his book on Evolutionary Psychology, young men are more motivated to go to war as they reach adolescence than young women. Buss also says that young men are more likely than women to be the offenders and the victims of homicide in their late teens and early twenties.
Through age ten, males and females do not differ in the likelihood of becoming homicide victims. At adolescence, however, killings of males start to skyrocket, reaching a peak when they are in their mid-twenties. At that age, men are six times more likely than women to become the victims of homicide. From the mid-twenties on, men’s victimization rates start to drop, suggesting that men then begin to avoid physically risky tactics as they age. Why would young men be more prone to place their lives at risk by engaging in violence? The fact that men form coalitions for the purpose of killing men in other coalitions is observed across cultures. In no culture have women ever been observed forming coalitions designed to kill other human beings.
The science seems to be validating what is happening today, on the world stage, with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. Nothing fits the social-biological playbook as well as the war in Iran instigated by the Trump Administration. Pete Hegeseth, Secretary of War, a classic warmonger, could have stepped out of the pages of Genghis Khan or Ivan the Terrible, given his orgasmic interest in war. War for the sake of gaining territory and resources, and for the joy of war, while invoking the name of God to support his holy-war efforts. Now, poor Tulsi Gabbard, the underappreciated Director of National Intelligence, resigns because she cannot stomach another war in the Middle East and another intervention on the part of her country. She has been opposed to US interventionist foreign policy for years. This was the last straw. She had thought the Trump Administration would support her views, but this administration does not support diplomacy and non-aggression, or advice from a woman. As a woman, she, of course, takes the more reasoned approach to war.
Solutions
So, what are the tools we have available to prevent war and prevent the inevitability of waging war after war? Here is a list:
1. Identify elements of a society that are indicative of a state turning to fascism and thereby war.
2. Support education and science, and the development of critical thinking. Start in the public schools and develop at the college level. Make higher education free.
3.What about supporting more national and international sports competitions? People around the world today, growing cautious of war and fearful of its consequences, have turned increasingly to its moral equivalent in team sports.
4. Support diplomacy within other countries and organizations like the United Nations.
5. Develop trade agreements with other nations to address food, energy, and other resource issues. This helps prevent war over coveted resources. This is the main biological reason for war.
6. Find true spirituality. Avoid Divine Command Theory, often viewed as the ethical framework for religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which relies on scriptures (e.g., the Bible, Quran, Torah) to define divine law.
7. Help find solutions to address the number one global environmental issue, overpopulation. Unless you want to use war to do it.
8. Recognize how “other” labeling works and stop dehumanizing people. Remember They are Us, We are Them.