UFPPC's book discussion group, Digging Deeper, has been living up to its name while examining a series of books that examine not only warfare & peacemaking in all of human history but related phenonema in primate societies. -- Ron Boothe, a professor of psychology recently retired from Emory University, has been leading the discussion. -- He provides an overview below.[1] -- Digging Deeper will continue the exploration on Mon., Feb. 26, at 7:00 p.m., at the Mandolin Café in Tacoma (3923 South 12th St.), and because of the interest generated, will extend the series of conversations to include Mon., Mar. 12, and Mon., Mar. 19, also at 7:00 p.m. -- (Digging Deeper will take a break and not meet on Mon., Mar. 5.) ...
1. BIOLOGICAL HUMAN NATURE -- IMPLICATIONS FOR WARMONGERING AND PEACEMAKING
By Ron Boothe United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
February 20, 2007 OVERVIEW OF TOPIC A traditional view is that biology predisposes us to brutish acts such as aggression and war, and that only the veneer of culture and civilization saves us from this brutish nature. In this series of readings and discussions I will present evidence and arguments that this viewpoint is flawed. What has been inherited via biology is a mixed bag. Some aspects of biology predispose us to engage in aggression and war, while other aspects of biology predispose us to engage in reconciliation and peace. We will focus primarily on three biological predispositions that have a profound influence on whether humans engage in war or peace: · Biological Predisposition #1 -- When we encounter another human, there is a biological predisposition to regard that person as being either part of “our group” or part of “some other group”. Our built-in methods for resolving conflicts that arise with these two types of individuals are different. · Biological Predisposition #2 -- We are predisposed to resolve conflict with individuals from “other groups” via aggression, including murder.
· Biological Predisposition #3 -- We have a natural tendency to resolve conflict with individuals “within our group” via methods that are not lethal, such as reconciliation. SUMMARY OF WEEK 1 Readings: --Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang. Reprinted by Stackpole Books, 2004.
--Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Reprinted by Anchor, 2003. Summary: Modern governments are very effective at using propaganda to create “Myths of War” in order to mobilize civilians to support a war effort, and to motivate soldiers to participate in killing the enemy. The reason this propaganda works is because it taps into biological predispositions #1 and #2 by painting the “enemy” as being part of some other group than our own. The only hope for using anti-war counter-propaganda effectively is to try to tap into biological predisposition #3. All too often efforts by the “peace movement” fall into the trap of biological predisposition #2, in which case “peace efforts” degenerate into “cheerleading for one side or the other to win.” SUMMARY OF WEEKS 2 & 3 Readings: --Gwynne Dyer, War: The New Edition. Vintage Canada, 2005.
--Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel. Norton Paperback, 1999. Many aspects of modern warfare can be understood by looking at human history. War for hunter-gatherer societies took the form of skirmishes in which one small band (who all knew and lived with one another) fought against a neighboring band for access to resources (food and mates). The change to agricultural societies (beginning in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 BC) led to formation of settlements, originally small villages, and then increasingly larger city states. In times of shortages of food, conflicts arose between neighboring cities and also between cities and roving nomads. Wars became more sophisticated, eventually morphing into full scale battles between nations carried out with armies. Along with increased sophistication in weapons and strategies, nation-states also became more sophisticated in terms of how to use propaganda to manipulate perceptions of “our group,” whom we ought not kill, and “other groups,” towards whom killing is a noble act. Originally, “our group” consisted of kin and other individuals in our band. Propaganda now leads us to identify with millions of people who we do not know and will never meet (a nation-state),and motivates us to facilitate killing all those deemed enemies of that state. Similarly, armed forces of any modern nation can take a young civilian, and in only a few weeks of “basic training” turn that individual into a (killer) soldier. SUMMARY OF WEEKS 4 & 5 Readings: --Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape. Riverhead Books, 2005.
-- Frans de Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates. Harvard University Press Paperback edition, 1990. When trying to address questions about whether human predispositions are biological or socially/culturally determined, it is useful to look at behavior of non-human primates. Humans evolved, along with all other species, from biological ancestors. All primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) diverged from a common ancestor about 30 million years ago. Our closest living relatives are the chimpanzees and bonobos, from whom we diverged about 5 to 7 million years ago, and with whom we still share 98.5% of our genes. Chimpanzees engage in war as do humans. Bonobos are best characterized as having a predisposition to “make love, not war.” Frans de Waal argues that humans are a “bipolar species” sharing many aspects of both chimp (warmongering) and bonobo (peacemaking) behavioral predispositions. UPCOMING WEEKS Reading: --Marc D. Hauser. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. HarperCollins, 2006. Do our biological predispositions provide us with our moral sense? If so, then how specifically does this come about?
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