Human beings do not have an instinct for war – David Barash – Aeon The human mind is drawn toward simple either/or statements — God versus the devil, cowboys versus Indians, you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists — but reality is more nuanced and complex. This applies particularly to the seemingly simple question of whether human beings are ‘naturally’ or ‘instinctively’ aggressive or violent. In the past, popular treatments of human beings as ‘killer apes’ have clearly been misguided in their single-mindedness; ditto for others purporting to demonstrate that we are uniformly co-operative and peaceful. Our human nature is neither Rousseauian nor Hobbesian; instead, both a devil and an angel perch on our shoulders, gesturing toward evolutionary predilections in both directions. At this point, readers looking to evolution for guidance can be forgiven if they feel confused, even frustrated by the fact that our biological heritage is so ambiguous, or ambivalent. It is certainly worthwhile interrogating the evolutionary background to our predilections, but the answers will lead us back to Jean-Paul Sartre’s formulation that human beings are ‘condemned to be free’. Advocates for peace might be relieved that we are not biologically obliged to war, or be distraught that we are not unilaterally predisposed to peace, but we are all stuck with an obligation (if not necessarily a predisposition) to assess our uniquely human situation as honestly as we can. When dealing with matters of war-proneness versus peaceful capabilities, it would be far better, not only for scientific accuracy but also for social consequence, if we took seriously this pronouncement by one of the premier authorities on human nature, Theodore Geisel (aka Dr Seuss): ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.’
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:36:51 +0000
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