Is War Inevitable?
Written by Margie King Saphier Sunday, 24 May 2009 00:00
Thursday Andrew, our youngest son, graduated from Middlesex Community College. The diversity of the students and faculty was very evident by those in attendance.
After the students and faculty processed, there was the procession of the flags representing the 33 birth countries of the faculty and students. Community colleges are where many children of immigrants, as well as immigrants themselves, begin their secondary education. It was impressive to see how easily these students from Africa, Central America, India, Haiti, Viet Nam and so many other countries, as well as the States, talked and mingled with each other. I was also aware that many of these students, as children, including one of the commencement speakers, fled with their families from war torn countries.
Today I want to talk about war and its causes through the lens of David Livingstone Smith’s book The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origin of War. Smith claims war is inextricably bound up in civilizations as well as in humans. He writes, “The naturalness of war lies in its role as an innate, biologically based POTENTIAL (and I stress the word POTENTIAL): something that nature has built us to be capable of.” It is an innate potential, which when we understand this provides us with the CHOICE of how to respond to situations that may trigger us to go to war. Smith is adamant that until we come to terms with this fact, we are bound to be a warring people.
On the other hand, and here Smith gives us hope, “the more we know about ourselves, the more skillfully and the more effectively we can pull the strings that control our own behavior. Human beings may not be doomed to war. But to do this we must be willing to look at ourselves, and face some stark, unflattering truths.”
Before I go any further, I want to say I hope I do not offend anyone here who has a loved one presently serving in the military or who died in service or is a veteran. My intent is to honor the men and women in military service by helping all of us understand why we humans go so easily to war, so hopefully we can create other choices. And when and if we do go to war, we know why and for what we are fighting.
The unflattering truth, according to Smith, is war is a result is of xenophobia that helps us protect and gain resources. Xenophobia and the quest for resources are part of the evolutionary biological imprint of human beings. The wisdom saying, “Know thyself,” is our hope and in this context takes on a whole new meaning, because exploring our evolutionary history is critical to our self-knowledge and self-preservation.
To learn from our evolutionary history we need to look to chimpanzees, with whom we share 98.77 % of THEIR genes. Now if you are feeling uncomfortable, I need to share a joke with you from the New Yorker. There is a line of evolving primates walking single file: the line ascends from the shortest primate, the chimpanzee, to the tallest and most erect hominoid who is homo sapiens or man. The man turns his head to look at the line behind him, when the hominoid immediately behind him, looks up at the man and says accusingly, “Elitist.”
Chimpanzees also have a streak of elitism. Chimpanzees are intensely status conscious and live in tightly-knit communities bounded by high powered males. They are very suspicious of chimps from other communities and will attack and kill them.
Male chimps will also attack another community of chimps to gain more resources, especially females. The xenophobia that exists between different communities of chimps is directly correlated to the competition for resources. If all this sounds similar to human behavior, there are differences. Only humans rationalize their reasons for going to war. The quest for resources is often rationalized in religious and political ideology which become commodities, such as the Crusades with promises of salvation, and fighting to spread democracy, or communism. Another difference is that chimpanzees’ behavior is never filtered though a web of beliefs about good and evil or God.
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler in his book, War is a Racket, documents the dangers of the military-industrial complex, which often rationalizes its monetary interests as national interests. I thank Al Armenti, who recommended this book to me. Butler was a much lauded and decorated career officer in the U.S. Marine Corp. He served in WWI, as well as fighting in Mexico, Caribbean, Central America, and China. Butler became an isolationist because he saw war as a method to increase resources for a few powerful alpha males. Butler spoke against capitalist greed, stating, “I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American Oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank Boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking House Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went unmolested.” Butler lost many good men in battles for the financial benefit of relatively few men, but the battles were never cast in those terms. Instead the wars and battles were claimed to be for God and country. The intimate relationship between war and deception hides the raw truth about war by placing emphasis on glory and heroism ignoring the horror and suffering war inevitably imposes on innocent human beings. Our use of deception is another unflattering truth.
I think back to commencement at Middlesex Community College, as I watched the students of different races and nationalities hug each other. They are my hope in human evolution. I believe we live in a hopeful time as evidenced by the students’ shared joy in each other’s accomplishment. In the evolution of humans, we are social animals – even more so than chimpanzees – and we are curious and want to learn.
With conscious effort I believe we are making strides in becoming more inclusive as we become less hierarchal. In the past century we have made great strides leveling the playing field for women and minorities. But I also believe we live in precarious times.
Because of these very gains, there are those who are violently opposed to these changes. Sadly xenophobia is very much alive and well. In the United States hate groups have multiplied since President Barack Obama has been elected. We see religious fundamentalism increasing throughout the world. Hate groups would not have seen the Middlesex Community College Commencement as beautiful and hopeful.
But the tension between our tendency toward xenophobia and curiosity has another OPPOSING trait. It is an important one. It is the dread of killing another human being. Generally, we are conflicted warriors with a lust for war and the dread of war. Niall Ferguson, a Harvard University historian, says without alcohol WWI could not have been fought. Dissociation and drugs are two ways many soldiers deal with the horrors of war. The number of men who have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of combat from ALL our wars is evidence of this dread. Many men do kill in combat and come home to lead normal lives, but most do not talk about their personal experience. Studies have shown that to go into battle men often have out of body experiences watching themselves killing. When the battle is over they mentally and emotionally return to their body. Sadly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may not be a disorder but a normal response to killing on a large scale. We need to recognize this and not shame the men and women who come home with PTSD.
You don’t have to be soldier at war to use alcohol or drugs to numb yourself against the constant news of the ravages of war. Now more than ever we need self-knowledge and awareness to end self-deception and xenophobia. “Self-deception provides a balm for an aching conscience allowing ourselves to think we are caring compassionate people.” But to be compassionate, we need to turn to our natural curiosity about others and we need to be AWARE when our judging mind begins speaking out of its xenophobic heritage contradicting our passion for learning and understanding. Having awareness and curiosity may sound naively simplistic to such a monumental issue as war.
But I do believe we need to start with ourselves.
If we free ourselves of the xenophobic judging mind, we have the possibility to CHOOSE to practice what we say with our children every Sunday: Let us to open our eyes to seek what is beautiful, let us to open our minds to seek what is true, and let us open our hearts to love one another and go in peace.
Benediction
The thought manifests the word.
The word manifests the deed.
The deed deepens into habit,
And the habit hardens in character.
So watch the thought and its way with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.