In any debate about war, the question of human nature usually arises. I will just say briefly here some thoughts that I have.
First, if war is natural human nature; then why have a draft and force people off? Even if people would dodge this, they are faced with punishments of fines and prison. This despite the fact that billions is spent making war attractive through the use of films and TV. When was the last time you saw a film in which war was portrayed in a negative light? There maybe one or two, but the overwhelming majority of hollywood and mainstream movies and TV are pro war. Showing war as something that you do with your buddies and have fun at the same time.
It is quite the opposite. In many cases the people of a nation are against the war and the rulers are for it. The rulers change the minds of the people through advertisements, films and TV. Generally creating a sense of fear of that group of people. It happens to other people too, single moms, foreigners etc… From a psychological point of view, fear is a great way to control a persons thought process.
From a war point of view, people are lead into it. The USA leading up to WW1 is a text book example. It took only six months to turn a pacifist nation into a war hungry one. Peoples perceptions are changed by the world they perceive, if the world is shown through the tinted eyes of the media which is controlled by the rulers it is not hard to see how it works. So why all of this pro war propaganda if people would naturally be for this?
I don’t think that the journalists writing the stories or films are lying, they firmly believe what they say and write. If they did not they would have never been hired or promoted to that job. They would have not made enough money for the company or been good enough for that post. Would a communist be promoted to a position of importance at the Financial Times? I guess not, the media and society has created its own self-censorship. Every paper, TV station has a brand that it wants to maintain.
War is not human nature but man can become war like, depending on fear and other external factors. Even animals are not as aggressive as some people think - unless the term “aggression” includes killing to eat. Organized group aggression is rare in other species, and the aggression that does exist is typically a function of the environment in which animals find themselves. So why not in humans?
Scientists have discovered that altering animals’ environment, or the way they are reared, can have a profound impact on the level of aggression found in virtually all species. Furthermore, animals cooperate both within and among species far more than many of us may assume on the basis of watching nature documentaries.
When we turn to human history, we find an alarming number of aggressive behaviors, but we do not find reason to believe the problem is innate. Here are some of the points made by critics of biological determinism:
Even if a given behavior is universal, we cannot automatically conclude that it is part of our biological nature. All known cultures may produce pottery, but that does not mean that there is a gene for pottery-making.
Aggression is no where near universal. Many hunter-gatherer societies in particular are entirely peaceful. And the cultures that are “closer to nature” would be expected to be the most warlike if the proclivity for war were really part of that nature. Just the reverse seems to be true.
While it is indisputable that wars have been fought, the fact that they seem to dominate our history may say more about how history is presented than about what actually happened.
Many people have claimed that human nature is aggressive after having lumped together a wide range of emotions and behavior under the label of aggression. While cannibalism, for example, is sometimes perceived as aggression, it might represent a religious ritual rather than an expression of hostility.
It is true that the presence of some hormones or the stimulation of certain sections of the brain has been experimentally linked with aggression. But after describing these mechanisms in some detail, K.E. Moyer, a physiologist at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, emphasizes that “aggressive behavior is stimulus-bound. That is, even though the neural system specific to a particular kind of aggression is well activated, the behavior does not occur unless an appropriate target is available (and even then) it can be inhibited.”
Regardless of the evolutionary or neurological factors said to underlie aggression, “biological” simply does not mean “unavoidable.” The fact that people voluntarily fast or remain celibate shows that even hunger and sex drives can be overridden.
All this concerns the matter of aggressiveness in general. The idea that war in particular is biologically determined is even more far-fetched.