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[sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>]

> >  We are a warring species, plain and simple.  We ask, and if we do
> >     
???  I  think it's hard to say it a species given......how about the 
Inuit?  the Zapotec?  the Tahitians? the Ladahki?  These are old 
societies, and have for many years chosen peace over war, beginning in 
their personal lives within their own spheres, and in some cases 
carrying a lack of willingness to be aggressive to the point of 
declining to defend themselves.  Whole societies/cultures have been 
decimated because of a refusal to be violent.  So while it may be that 
if the planet lasts long enough that all these people are wiped out, and 
we actually lose whatever it is that causes some of us, individually and 
culturally, to seek a peaceful outcome to conflicts, it doesn't seem to 
me to be a 'given' that we are a warring species.

Many of the old matriarchial societies practiced peaceful existence and 
searched for peaceful solutions.   There are also the johnny-come-lately 
cultures that seem to find it easy to choose peace:  the Anabaptists, 
who make an attempt to remain peaceful by holding themselves somewhat 
separate from aggressors, and when that fails, they choose flight over 
fight.  These people make an apparent choice to be peaceful; if 
warring/aggression were inherent in the species, seems like it would be 
hard to maintain these stances over time.

And at the other end of the spectrum we have the cultures, such as the 
Vikings and some segments of  Mongols which have been violent, warriors 
always (at least so far as we can tell from here), and went about their 
regions, or in some cases, the world, proclaiming their superiority and 
going about proving it so.....proud to be people who were considered 
anywhere from from obnoxious to brutal by the subjects of their aggression.

Between the two more-or-less extremes lie many societies/cultures who 
have been perfectly happy to live and let live, but resisted being 
pushed around.  And there exist whole other groups where physical 
violence/aggression is used as a tool, for instance, the old practice of 
killing or maiming a majority of male infants to reduce the numbers of 
persons available to conduct a war....common at one time some places, 
particularly in Indonesia.  So there is acceptance of violence in an 
attempt to prevent violence, odd as that seems.

So maybe it's not that we humans are a warring species, but rather that 
we're able to learn a 'skill', or coping methodology, that seems to 
serve us well, whether peaceful or aggressive.

SusanJane, pacifist mother of a career-military son, sister of 2 living 
brothers who have had 20+ years each in the military, and who has lost 
brothers, half brothers, and nephews in war.