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  • From: sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] It's almost over
  • Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:35:42 -0500


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.




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