An essay on human violence.

[Cyrene]

It is unlikely that war will ever lose its macabre allure. Its roots stretch too deeply into the soil of human nature, and its passions are too primal to be educated away by well-meaning pacifists. Philosopher J. Glenn Grey remarks in his intensely moving World War II memoir The Warriors that “Happiness is doubtless the wrong word for the satisfaction that men experience when they are possessed by the lust to destroy and kill their kind….”

" Most men would never admit that they enjoy killing, and there are a great many who do not. On the other hand thousands of youths who never suspected the presence of such an impulse in themselves have learned in military life the mad excitement of destroying…the delight in destruction slumbering in most of us…. When soldiers step over the line that separates self-defense from fighting for its own sake, as it is so easy for them to do, they experience something that stirs deep chords in their being. "

War is both unimaginably horrible and exquisitely pleasurable. It is horrible because of the suffering and destruction that it visits upon combatants and noncombatants alike. It is pleasurable because — like all pleasures — it is something that benefited our ancestors. The joy of war is the joy of the hunt, of ridding the world of a man-eating monster or obliterating a plague. Robert E. Lee was spot on when he stated that “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” Our relationship with killing is ambivalent, a cocktail of delight and aversion. Both are rooted in human nature, and neither can be extirpated. We will never stop men from enjoying war. The best that we can hope for is that men will come to detest war more than they enjoy it, and the only way to accomplish this is by relentlessly exposing the self-deception that makes war bearable. If we can do this, we will have accomplished something heroic indeed.

• david livingstone smith

• realhumannature.com/?page_id=26

its a weak article due to its length, buts its a good introduction to ideas which are expanded upon in some of livingston’s books.

[Equilibrium]

One cannot seperate destruction from creation.

What one destroys somthing is created in the aftermath of conflict and what is created often enough destroys the old.

[Juggernaut]

Violence is a form of communication that no one wants to understand. People too often reach such a level of miscommunication, and frustration that what once could be said if it would be heard, can only be expressed directly upon a person.

[Equilibrium]

@Juggernaut

Violence is a form of communication that no one wants to understand. People too often reach such a level of miscommunication, and frustration that what once could be said if it would be heard, can only be expressed directly upon a person.

Miscommunication will always exist. There is nothing that can be helped.

[Juggernaut]

@Equilibrium

@Juggernaut

Violence is a form of communication that no one wants to understand. People too often reach such a level of miscommunication, and frustration that what once could be said if it would be heard, can only be expressed directly upon a person.

Miscommunication will always exist. There is nothing that can be helped.

A misunderstanding is always possible, and easily rectified, since people in a relationship can keep talking. Miscommuncation is something other. Communication is truth, giving and getting, and truth is a form of relationship. Miscommunication is deliberate destruction of the truth to serve a single rather than a common purpose. All violence begins with a lie, because where it is possible to tell the truth people find it both easy and essential. But where truth is a luxury that only few can own because few can afford it; there people will express what they cannot say, usually in the most violent and irrational fashion.

[realunoriginal]

@Juggernaut

A misunderstanding is always possible, and easily rectified, since people in a relationship can keep talking. Miscommuncation is something other. Communication is truth, giving and getting, and truth is a form of relationship. Miscommunication is deliberate destruction of the truth to serve a single rather than a common purpose. All violence begins with a lie, because where it is possible to tell the truth people find it both easy and essential. But where truth is a luxury that only few can own because few can afford it; there people will express what they cannot say, usually in the most violent and irrational fashion.

Thank you for these gems Juggernaut!

[4letterlie]

In the article it says:

For those of us who are not sociopaths, taking the life of another person is agonizingly difficult.

I’m not sure I agree with this. I’ve never personally killed anyone, but if I had a reason to do-so and the opportunity I wouldn’t think twice. Granted, maybe I would think differently in the actual situation. It just seems to be an over exaggeration to say it takes a sociopath to kill someone without difficulty.

[Cyrene]

It’s true for even the worst genocidal freaks, but it depends upon situation.

If you’re being chased through the woods by people that you’re confident their intent is to kill you, most people are capable of unconscious and conscious cognitive flips. If you’re approached by a human normally, you wonder what they want, if approached after being chased like an animal through the woods, most people do 2 things, either kill or run.

In this situation, i’m sure killing another human is a lot easier for most people than killing a sick animal, probably just as easy as buttering toast. People no longer view the people chasing them as *human on a conceptual level, we know their human of course, but the reaction we give them is how we’d react to a tiger, or a wolf, or a dangerous predator.

the cognitive flip here is that you stop viewing the person as a person and as a dangerous predator, killing humans then, is easy.

If you can cognitive flip/delude yourself enough you can dehumanize an opponent, by projecting animal like qualities on them (this happens in the propaganda of war constantly. the beast of whatever, the dog of so so, etc) or as if they are dirty and subhuman. Humans have an ability to precieve ‘essences’ based on folkbiology, we have an inherent idea of animal kinds, somtimes this may get applied to *other humans, an example is ww2 where people with minimum jewish ancestry and completely integrated into german society were killed, as if their blood itself bore some kind of uncleansible taint.

people in war/violence also have a few tricks for dealing with the psychological problems encountered while killing other humans, this includes specific training after ww2 to increase a soldier’s kill rate, and their psychological ability to handle doing so, drugs, depersonalization disorder,

Most soldiers reach psychological breakdown after just so long in the field, about 50% of soldiers who seen combat in ww2 couldn’t return due to psychological damage, the psychological damage rates in the armed forces is behind high, across the world. Its devestating amounts of people who report/end up reporting psychological conditions.

Keep in mind how many soldiers are keeping reports of mental instability back, in a place like the military.

Its not just that ‘most soldiers’ reach psychological breakdown after just a short time in direct combat, its been suggested that all people born with normal human emotions do, and only those that were empathyless and a psychopath to begin with are immune to it. If you’re not born totally fucked up insane, only the tiniest percent of people are goijng to be able to mentally deal with extended extended combat.