A perspective on War and Peace.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

In many of the threads posted here, it seems almost inevitable to have someone post such things as, "There have always been wars." "There will always be wars." "Mankind is aggressive and warlike by nature." "It is inbred to be warlike."

I don't buy it.

There have been wars throughout history and theres no lack of them today. But, and I think it's a very big but, most of the peoples of the world, at any given time have managed to live without indulging in war. Even during the horrors of WWII, most of the people of the world were affected by tangentially or not at all. Even in the USA, most Americans never experienced bombings, shootings, death, due to the war in which America was a major participant. And, most of the people of the world longed for it to end, including the Germans and Japanese.

Does anyone really believe that the average Israeli, Lebanese, Syrian, Irani, Afghani, American, "wants" war because it is somehow a genetic longing that we supposedly all possess?

Most of the people of the world, right now, despite the fruitless and barbaric bloodletting going on in various places, are living in peace and have no desire for war or conflict.

Throughout history, it has always been a small minority of "leaders" that have called for, justified, and convinced people, that war is a workable solution to conflicts.

If it were true that humankind has a genetic propensity for war the planet would have been without humans long ago. Wars are not inevitable or unstoppable.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. A kick for the hell of it.

[porphyrian]

2. Most people do not want most wars, especially not in their own...

...back yard. However, when their sense of security is threatened convincingly enough, real or imagined, people will disregard logic in order to return to a comfortable state. Governments have known this for centuries, and use it regularly for their own political ends. The wrinkle in that system today is that a) communication and transportation are practically global and relatively instantaneous compared to anything beyond the last century and b) propaganda and brainwashing techniques are regularly employed by corporate interests now as well, creating the same irrational state in the general populace to sell burglar alarms and bug spray. As with the resistant strains of thought-to-be-eliminated diseases emerging in response to the over-use of antibiotics, we will see/are seeing a desensitization to this fear response, requiring greater and more frequent stimuli to produce the same population response and a general sense that this is our natural state, making the lie a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Ignoramus]

3. There is a seed of truth to those claims

It's part of our nature to be violent I think, but it doesn't mean that it is inevitable that it will be manifested in war.

It implies that all of us can potentially commit acts of violence and killing and can be motivated by jingoism etc. An understanding of that idea is necessary for people to get to the point where they can recognize nuances like that Lebanese people don't deserve to be killed just because missiles are being fired in Lebanon.