Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Wade Riddick <wriddick AT usa.net>]

> At 05:11 PM 3/7/2005 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
> > > Good point. History was on Freud's side when he defined this death urge in Civilization and it's Discontents and history since has not exactly proven him wrong if the reports from Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur are to be compared to the two world wars.
> > Not to put a pin in anybody's bubble, but war claims a far smaller percentage of the civilian population now than it did ten thousand years ago - just 1500 years ago in some parts of the Americas.  If modern civilization has a destructive urge, it's certainly not as great it was for the "uncivilized."
> Wade,
>
> I'd like to think your statement is true, but when I think of Lenin and Stalin, of millions of Jews and Poles, of Pol Pot and Kmer Rouge --- it gets doubtful. The instinct for destruction of the other does not seem to have abated.


There's actually little doubtful about it when you compare the total number of civilian casualties as a percent of the overall population in the archeological record.  Entire populations were completely wiped out.  Significant fractions - but not entire populations - were wiped out in the 20th century.  It pales in comparison to early village warfare in prehistory.  Whatever "urge" we're talking about here, it's been with us quite a while.