....Part of what you, SJ, are saying illustrates my point, that those whoBev, I don't think any of us are trying to say humans don't war more than is good for them, or that any given population is not capable of warring. The point I was trying to make is that since there have been, and are, large groups of people who have existed for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years, without warring, it seems to me that the urge to war isn't actually inherent in the species, otherwise it wouldn't be so 'easy' to overide. That's certainly not to say that some groups don't have such a propensity, but rather that I don't see how it could be a species-wide trait, since so many have not exhibited it.
don't fight, die. Like you say, whole cultures, whole groups of people
are gone............ In the right environment, a peaceful group
can survive for a time....
I think the Mennonites/Anabaptists/Amish are anThis is oft-stated as a "fact". However, they do not see it so. They have moved away from aggressors so many times that they see themselves as a people on the move. In this country, beginning in the late sixties, and accelerating through the seventiess and continuing now is a large migration of Amish and conservative Mennonites to Central America, particularly Belize, where they are currently courted by the government (don't have to have photo ids, their farming methods are advanced, and attainable, compared to local historical methods, they provide no drain on the educational system, etc). Here they have been badgered (over schooling, social security, plenty) in many places until it's actually embarrassing, at least to me, to think that my country behaves so. They are, from their point of view, being forced out. There is a bizarre case in Michigan right now where somebody actually got some kind of 'permission' to bring a suit against somebody/some situation (runs in my mind it's some GE corn fiasco), not something usually accommodated, in fact it's normally forbidden, so there's another group that will probably be on the move soon. There are large migrations into Brazil, the first of those having gone from Germany/WWII, but many have gone from here in the past few years; Paraguay also has large new populations, some from the Ukraine, where pressures are heating up again, but more from here. Maybe they and George W will end up neighbors :-D .... The only real change I see this time is that they seem to be changing from using the word Amish in their official names. I recently asked a relative headed for Belize about this name business and his statement was that if they use "Amish" in the name, they are automatically perceived as rich (monetarily) and therefore felt like they provided a more visible target for thieves, interestingly he said "thieves, government or otherwise". I would hazard a guess, albeit only a guess, that it makes the counting a little more difficult, too, as they often make themselves difficult to quantify: easier to stay under the radar to be left alone.
example of a peaceful group that is not wiped out because it exists
within an insulated environment in a country where they have
constitutional protection. Inside of the USA might be the only place in
the world where such a group can survive.
Zapotec and Tahitians non-violent??? Didn't they practice humanMany groups have violence in their makeup one way or another, but they have not all been groups given to warring with another population. To me, violence in the individual or expressed in ritual ways does not equate a war. A war, to me, indicates an entire group intent on deliberate, destructive violence. Many of the things I think of as violent have long history (I think of infanticide first), but not necessarily as a way to war: much infanticide has been targeted at survival (too many mouths), or power (producing girls in some societies was 'bad' and lowered status), or as I mentioned the other day, even a way to deprive a population of warriors to prevent ongoing or future wars. So violence per se does not maybe equate to war, albeit they at times are equals.
sacrifice? Dance with spears in martial arts like dances? Was that
just the Maori, or am I confused?
I don't know who the Ladahki are, and I can't research it now, sorry.
To me this doesn't 'gel' with the statement 'we are a warring species' if we are a warring species, we'd have no choice; it would be innately 'us'.Many of the old matriarchial societies practiced peaceful existence and searched for peaceful solutions.
Like I said in my original post, no one wants war or conflict.
SaneAnd of course you are welcome to think that. I will offer what I've seen in my day, only: people sitting in an unheated prison room with nothing but a hospital gown, no pants, (no clue what that was about but I remember that even when a group of us was there, there was much taunting by guards; I was simply told "It's part of their punishment for not going to war".) in Terre Haute IN (many, many miles from where they lived, no one could drive there in a buggy), arrested during WWII for not going to war (arrested before the IW classification but held for unknown reasons until 1951), no complaints, only a request for Bibles, which were withheld for 19 months, and then they were allowed English bibles only, although none read English at the time and permission to pray. When we were in our teens, we often encountered neighborhood miscreants as we went to get corn ground or on other errands. More than once (many times, actually) I've seen people assaulted and do nothing. Just about the only thing they do is to gather a crowd of onlookers, on the theory that beating up a deliberately defenseless person will be even harder in front of a crowd of viewers (so they obviously have no problem with attempting to use shame as a controlling mechanism).
people will always look for peaceful solutions, but in the end, to put
down the evilbadguy, they will fight or they will die. I don't think
there is a culture/human group on Earth that would not fight to survive.
If tomorrow some group or the other started in the East and started the
equivalent of a Viking raid on Amish farms, killing, raping, burning,
pillaging, many Amish would die..I don't know how far West the raid
would go, but I think by the time the vikings raiders reached Ohio that
the Amish would be fighting back. They would group together and fight
back. That's what I think.
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