posted
Squick, I'll respond to your first post in this thread in greater detail later on--possibly tonight--but in response to your discussion here with PSI about animals who kill for "sport" rather than for food....Well, I'm hesitant to use the term "sport"--I don't really know what that means, I suppose--but besides cats, another animal that seems to kill simply because they enjoy doing so, and not necessarily for food, would be the chimpanzee. I've read articles in the print versions of several reputable magazines about chimps killing hyraxes, and doing it in a way that suggests that they were enjoying it (catching the hyraxes, which typically results in excitement from the rst of the troop, is usually followed by holding them by their hind legs and bashing them against trees and rocks until they've pretty much been pulped, and which point the bodies are discarded).
A short respose to what you addressed to me above, which I hope to expand on later, would be that I think you're misunderstanding me--I'm not arguing that the violent actions that humans engage in are animalistic, while the pacifistic actions that they engage in are an example of the mind triumphing over its base animal origins, or any silly crap like that. I think that the roots of what we're capable of, for either good or ill, lie in our biology, but that of course our environments can have an enormous impact on what behaviors are brought to the fore. From what I've read, of the higher non-human primates (and here I'm thinking of all flavors of gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan) chimpanzees are those most given to both inter and intratroop violence. Of course, with orangutans, this could have everyting to do with the fact that their relatively solitary creatures once they reach maturity, but gorillas develop fairly socially complex societal groups, and don't tend toward violence the way that chimps do (to the best of my knowledge, of course--if anybody has read articles in reputable magazines or journals that detail gorilla violence, I would love to read them, and would change or drop my argument immediately upon doing so). I suspect that, had a species evolved from the gorilla's branch of our evolutionary shrub that was as...neurologically complex, shall we say, as we are, that they would be more pacifistic than we are. While it's true that there are societies (if I recall correctly, none of them practice agriculture on a wide scale, do they?) that don't have the violence running through them that we see in most human societies, I would argue that the possibility toward violence nonetheless exists in individual members of that society. I would argue that with another intelligent, sentient species, a different continuum of behavioral possibilities would be present, and if this species were evolved from gorilla-like ancestors, rather than chimp-like ancestors, that continuum would not reach as far into the spectrum of violence as our continuum does.
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posted
I think I was using "sport" to mean anything but survival, but I suppose that's too broad and probably not very accurate.
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posted
Dag, I've been meaning to get around to that book. I've read Guns, Germs, and Steel and really enjoyed it.
Actually, funny that you mention it, but I think that some of the evidnece about the Indonesian cultures with much lower agression comes from GG&S. My copy of that and of The Anatomy of Human Aggression are loaned out to other people right now, so I can't check, but I think that both books document the cultures that I'm talking about.
There are also Amerindian cultures, such as the Pueblo, that historically were incredibly peaceful. As I said, I don't really have the time or inclination (I'm in the midst of a big, big paper challenging the concept of self-esteem, titled "Everyone is stupid but me." and all my time in the library is directed towards that, because, if I do a good job, it could make my career) to look up my sources here, but if you give Anatomy a shot, I think that it gives a bunch of references to follow up on. I may be overstating the case, but I can assure you that these studies do exist.
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That being said, the evolutionary perspective when put in service of the current moralizing concept of human nature seems to me to be self defeating. The whole point is that people act like animals (i.e. violent) because they evolved that way and that we need to enforce morals on them because otherwise society and all the humans in it will fall apart. From a disineterested evolutionary perspective, that doesn't make any sense, even if you leave aside the evidence from acutal animal studies that show that there is very little intraspecies aggression in nature. Human beings evolved in such a way that we need to completely contradict evolution so that the species can survive? It is specifically because humans and other pack/social animals needed to rely on each other to survive that evolution suggests that they would have strong "getting alongness" bred into them.
Original Sin and evolutionary theory don't work together, no matter how hard you try to make them fit.
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quote: And you know this is for sport as opposed to say, vestigal predator wiring that, because the cats are fed regularly, isn't expressed as part of the feeding context?
That sure sounds like sport to me.
Couldn't you say the same thing about human sport hunters?
posted
I was thinking the same thing Porter. Better to avoid the term "sport" entirely, though, I think, as it's a bit ambiguous.
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Do you think men play like sports because they don't have any need to assert their maleness in a biological sense? They can't beat up the other males in their territory, so they do it with football.
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quote:Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killed about 3 million Cambodians in the 70s.
One of the classes Juliette took as a part of her credential program had a guest speaker who had been a child in the Killing Fields. (Apparently, Long Beach, CA has the highest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.) Even the highlights of the lecture that she was able to pass on to me sounded absolutely horrific; pretty much in every way as bad as Holocaust stories.
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But I think that playing "sports" like football, baseball, golf, etc. is pretty different from "sport" hunting, fishing, etc., which is what I was talking about.
Different enough that it should not be the same word.
posted
Football has always seemed to me like stylized, sanitized warfare, with the cheerleaders representing the populations that the winning team would get to capture, rape, and enslave. I'm sure that this theory isn't unique to me, but I don't recall ever reading anything about it.
posted
I'll check out the Anatomy book, it sounds interesting.
I agree that evolutionary reasoning is not dispositive. But it does have some explanatory value. From what I can glean from your posts here, though, you will enjoy Chimpanzee a lot.
As a theological note, the theory that original sin resulted in a reduction of humanity's ability to overcome it's physical characteristcs/animal nature would be consistent with evolutionary theories on aggression. Again, I think the evolutionary reasoning is incomplete at best.
posted
Noemon, Yeah, a lot of times, I'm aiming for a target other than the one that it looks like I'm aiming at. I got what you were saying, and, in large part, I agree. Responding to your post the way I did let me claim the rhetorical ground against the idea that I was really fighting against, that aggression in humans is due to their animalistic nature.
To clarify my position, as I said, I believe in a dynamic human nature, and selfishness fueled aggression is definitely a major player in this human nature. However, as opposed to what I see as the contemporary view of aggression, I believe that there are many parts of human nature that specifically work against this aggression. The drive towards aggression doesn't exist unopposed by motivations internal to the human.
This offers a vastly different picture of both human nature and prospects than is currently held in our society and calls for much different methods for achieving higher human potential. It's my opinion that many of our cultural stories, perhaps especially those about morality and aggression, foster an environment of immorality and aggression.
If aggression is an unopposed part of our nature, than it will come out unless we put external restraints in place. However, if there are internal factors of human nature that work against aggression and immorality, we should be strengthening them, especially as there is good evidence that, if we use external reward/punishment systems, they will often weaken or overcome these "good" internal motivations.
One of the major effects of imposed external morality is that, on average, it encourages dehumanization across a populace. Rather than seeing other people as subjects, to be understood in the totality of their situation, the become reduced to abstracted objects to be judged against a series of rules. Likewise, the idea that peopel are all basically evil logical fosters a great mistrust of everyone around you.
It is those societies that believe in an a priori One Truth that bring horror onto the other people in the world. It's my opinion that they do this, not because people are unrestrainedly evil, but because one of the main forces opposing this sort of evil is empathy, whcih they've thrown away. It's very rare that one person who acknowledges other people as kin to themselves will act aggressively towards them. That why these systems almost invariably label the people they want to do bad things to as "subhuman" or "infidels" or "barbarians" or "sinners" or whatever. It all comes down to trying to overcome those things that keep us from doing bad things to other people.
America is a very violent place, both in action and in thought. In part, this is because our ancestors were of a more active, aggressive breed, but it also has a lot to do with our cultural mythology (and not just those parts of it explictly about aggression). Our very conception of human nature is one of the biggest influences in the way that we act. The thing is, this conception of human nature is only occasionally tied to fact and there are a multitude of examples of both people and entire cultures that violate some of the things that we consider fundamental pieces of what it means to be human. Either these people and cultures are just straight out "unnatural" or perhaps our conception of human nature is overly limited.
edit to add: Dag's right. I'm going to get back to work.
posted
Huh. Well how do you like that--we don't have anything to argue about then; I pretty much agree with what you're saying. Where's the fun in that, I ask you?
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quote: It seems to me that once you've reached a certain point, you're just heaping horror on top of horror. My mind, anyway, goes numb somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, I think. That Hitler managed to do in 12 million doesn't really resonate with me any more than Pol Pot's 3, you know?
Noemon, I partly agree with this, it's true that when the number of deaths climbs to a certain point it's just heaping horror after horror, but I still think there's a huge difference between 1 million and two million, even 1 million and 1 could make all the difference in the world to one person. Also, what I thought was unique about the Holocaust as opposed to all of those other ones you mentioned was the fact that the Holocaust was based on prejudice and racism and the propaganda worked so well that the civilians actually hated the Jews with a passion and thought they deserved what they were getting.
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posted
I'm a little curious about your claims that most of the German populace supported the Holocaust, Jaime. My understanding of WWII-era Germany was that while most German civilians were almost certainly aware of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda--and probably even bought into it--most were not members of the Nazi party and didn't even know about the Holocaust. This doesn't speak to whether or not they would have supported the Holocaust had they known about it, but it does seem opposed to what you're saying.
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posted
Also, it wasn't always the minorities that were targeted in Nazi Germany. A lot of the time it was anyone who disagreed with the Nazi propaganda who were targeted.
I remember a wonderful poem, I think written by a WWII area German citizen, about how he was afraid to say anything when his friends and neighbors were taken away, until the were all gone and there was no one left to say anything when they came for him.
I am not trying to justify the German peoples indifference and or collaboration with the Nazis. I think they had to be held accountable for allowing their leaders that much power, and that they were culpable, to a certain extent.
I am just saying that it is easy to say they should have done something, but none of us are living under that kind of fear now...we don't really know how horrible it was for them too.
Not nearly as horrible as it was for those who were in the camps, that's for sure...but not easy either, never knowing if they would take your family away. Or is they would kill you for treating Jews as humans.
posted
Here is the quote I wanted...took a bit to find, I am ashamed to say.
Long before I was interested in poetry I heard this, and it has always resonated with me:
quote:First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Here is some more about the author....
quote: the version above is taken from an article on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of WW II that appeared in TIME Magazine, Aug 28, 1989. There are many versions of this poem floating around... by no means is this the authorative one. Similarly, the author of the poem is often not mentioned. On one level, that is not important. Indeed, Martin Niemoller was an outspoken advocate for accepting the burden of collective guilt for WW II as a means of atonement for the suffering that the German nation (through the Nazis) had caused before and during WW II.
On the other hand, I think that something is missed if one doesn't’t understand that the words come from a man who also declared that he “would rather burn his church to the ground, than to preach the Nazi trinity of ‘race, blood, and soil.’”
Niemoller was tainted. He had been a U-boat captain in WW I prior to becoming a pastor. And he supported Hitler prior to his taking power. Indeed, initially the Nazi press held him up as a model... for his service in WW I. [Newsweek, July 10, 1937, pg 32]
But Niemoller broke very early with the Nazis. In 1933, he organized the Pastor’s Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the police. In 1934, he was one of the leading organizers at the Barmen Synod, which produced the theological basis for the Confessing Church, which despite its persecution became an enduring symbol of German resistance to Hitler.
From 1933 to 1937, Niemoller consistently trashed everything the Nazis stood for. At one point he declared that it was impossible to “point to the German [Luther] without pointing to the Jew [Christ] to which he pointed to.” [from Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict]
He rejected the Nazi distortion of “Positive Christianity” (postulating the ‘special virtue’ of the German people), as opposed to “Negative Chistianity” which held that all people regardless of race were guilty of sin and in need of repentance. An excerpt from a sermon of his printed in TIME Magazine [Feb 21, 1928, pg 25-27]:
quote: Rev. Martin Niemoller was protected until 1937 by both the foreign press and influential friends in the up-scale Berlin suburb where he preached. Eventually, he was arrested for treason. Perhaps due to foreign pressure, he was found guilty, but initially given only a suspended sentence. He was however then almost immediately re-arrested on Hitler’s direct orders. From then on until the end of WW II, he was held at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Near the end of the war, he narrowly escaped execution. [from Charles Colson’s Kingdoms in Conflict]
After the war, Niemoller emerged from prison to preach the words that began this post, that all of us know... He was instrumental in producing the “Stuttgart Confession of Guilt”, in which the German Protestant churches formally accepted guilt for their complicity in allowing the suffering which Hitler’s reign caused to occur. In 1961, he was elected as one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches, the ecumenical body of the Protestant faiths.
Niemoller emerged also as an adamant pacifist and advocate of reconciliation. He actively sought out contacts in Eastern Europe, and traveled to Moscow in 1952 and North Vietnam in 1967. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967, and the West German Grand Cross of Merit in 1971. Martin Niemoller died in Wiesbaden, West Germany on Mar 6, 1984, at the age of 92. [from the Encyclopedia Britannica].
I read some more and there seems to be a problem with this poem...it has been edited by almost every group on earth....lol...
Really, it isn't funny. Even the Holocaust museum changed it, eliminating Communists as the first group and putting Jews first instead of last; it matters because as it was written it was a real lesson on the order of which Nazi Germany eliminated it's opponants....communists, then trade unions, then socialists, and the culmination of their pogroms, the Jews.
Later it became bastardized, with people adding gays, Roman Catholic's, and specific races in where they never existed.
The lesson can be transfered...indeed it must be in order to have revelance...but the poem shouldn't be.
posted
Saxon, while I don't think they were aware of the tortures and killings going on in the camps, I'm sure they noticed Jews being "relocated" from their homes and, knowing about the propaganda, they probably figured it wasn't to a very nice place. Also, weren't the civilians also told to report any Jews? Doesn't that tell them something? I mean, Germans weren't idiots, they could probably figure out that Jews weren't being treated like the rest of Germany. Kwea, that is a very good poem, it reminds me of something I once heard about how when Hitler was briefing his followers about what he planned to do with the Jews, they asked what would they do when the world tried to stop it, he told them nobody spoke out against the Armenian genocide, why would they do anything now?
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