John Horgan: "The End of War"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-02/john-horgan-end-war
A science journalist debunks the idea that war is a fact of human nature. He describes why people are equally disposed to peace as violence.
Guests
John Horgan
a science journalist; director of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology and author of "The End of Science," "The Undiscovered Mind" and "Rational Mysticism."
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Program Highlights
John Horgan is a longtime scientific American writer. He also teaches a course called "War and Human Nature" at the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology. He's just published a book intended to challenge assumptions about the inevitability of war.
A "Visceral Response" To War
Horgan grew up in the Cold War era and was eligible to be drafted during the Vietnam War, but he received a high number. But by the time he received his number, he had already decided he wasn't going to fight. "I've always had this kind of visceral, emotional response to war as something that was not only wrong morally, but also just really stupid, this really primitive behavior, this kind of relic of our past that we must find a way to get past," Horgan said. He believes that war is a problem man created, but that some scientists thing it really only started emerging about 12,000 years ago. Others argue that there's evidence of war from millions of years ago. Horgan is most concerned with why we fight now, and how we can stop.
The Origins Of War
Horgan argues that if war was really "biological" in the same sense that language is biological, it would be must more consistent in the historical record. But according to Horgan, war is actually very sporadic. There are some societies that become very materialistic, and stop fighting. There are others with long histories of fighting who then become more pacifistic. Horgan is most bothered by what he has observed as a sort of fatalistic point of view that war is inevitable. He believes that humans have much more power than some believe to plot the course of events
and resolve conflicts without violence.
Why Do We Fight?
A popular theory about reasons for fighting comes down to resource competition. But Horgan said that while some wars are fought over land or resources, there are many in which there is no clear motivation for the conflict. He also believes that the horror of the two World Wars have changed how many think about war - whereas leaders prior to WWI sometimes glorified war, our politicians don't generally present war to the public in those terms any longer.
What If Women Were In Charge?
Diane wondered if things would be any different if women were in charge. Horgan said that the idea that women are pacifists doesn't hold up any more than the idea that men are natural warriors. "We need to end war for the sake of ending war," he said. "The culture of war perpetuates war."
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
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War will always exist until that distant day
When the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and
prestige that the warrior does today.
- John F. Kennedy
It seems that countries (societies) who eventually become peaceful, no-war societies have overwhelmingly violent pasts (Germany and Japan) and came to the realization the cost wasn't worth the action.
Wars are refered to as Conflicts but this misses the point A war ia a Resolution to a Conflict. If we stop looking for Agreement and start looking for Concensus maybe we could aviod vilolent Resolutions
Gardenista:
Napoleon Chagnon's interpretation and accounts of the Yanamamo have been partially discredited. He had an agenda going in and they were not a pristine culture. Question: What did they spank women with before they had machetes?
Several of the comments presuppose men's dominion over women, and assume male jealousy is a primary driver of all human culture. Maybe uneducated people can only know what their minds are colonized with, and cannot imagine other times or other ways. Narrowness of imagination may be the main thing behind American exceptionality. Politically, we belong in "special class." We are the champion violent retards of the world. I'm glad our reign is almost over. Our excesses have hurt everyone.
Andy Valenti,
Or maybe it's because the U.S. stripped Germany and Japan of their military arms, made them sign treaties, and plied them with huge amounts of financial aid to rebuild their economies!
As long as we believe that war is neccesary, it will be. As long as we think it will always be, it will. There was a time we all thought the world was flat and we were the center of the universe. It only took a few people to change those truths. This one needs to change as well. Kathleen from Arezona.
I am the parent of a US Army soldier who has been through two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. The horrors he has seen would fill volumes. Elimination of War is certainly a compelling subject- we pray daily for the conversion of our swords to plowshares. However, I cannot believe how clueless this guest is regarding the sources of War and that he debates the need to defend one's self and to fight injustice rendered by those seeking to destroy us.
Should those defending the innocents being slaughtered by the Janjaweed in Sudan lay down their weapons? Should Israel lay down their weapons and submit to the immediate extinction they will experience? Should we have "negotiated" with Osama Bin Laden? President Obama was correct- there are very bad actors out there. There are those for whom military strength is the only deterrent, and for whose destructive deeds we must act. This is a painful reality.
War- prosecuted to repel the ruthless and defend the weak is just, right and necessary.
I'm sure that Dick Cheney and people from the military defense industry will not like this show because they profit from wars; it's really sad to see that the vast majority of people in this country still don't see this clear and they still elect republicans to office.
Hi Pancake Rankin
You're right -- Chagnon's work was heavily criticized and partially discredited. I was surprised that John Horgan cited that over-used (example-wise) tribe. Goes to show that science itself is an objective methodology, but people who use it are quite subjective and mold "results" to fit their agendas. ;)
Regarding "male jealousy," -- I see the emotion as just an expression of the underlying drive for access to females (for genetic replication). We use emotions to rationalize physical drives we don't understand.
I don't see men as having dominion over females; rather, males and females are wired for different functions. Males are wired to seek access to females (though of course sexuality is a gray area in nature, and not black-and-white this way) and the resources with which to acquire and maintain females. Females are wired to seek resources with which to raise their young. Hence, females are attracted to males with lots of money and power (regardless of the males' looks), and males are attracted to sexually appealing females, regardless of their lack of wealth (though of course wealth is quite welcome!). :)
Amy--
I watched the animation and was quite impressed with it.
It is certainly possible that I misunderstood it.
However, please keep in mind the following:
The flowers plucked, and taken away, do not symbolize all of how, and why, war happens.
While I assume that the symbolic metaphor was to depict how conflict arises between factions, in general, the actual removal of flowers to reduce the amount of pollen/etc. that might be necessary for the bumblebees and butterflies respectively to survive, is one major reason for war:
Competition for Resources.
But wars arise for many reasons--although Competition for Resources is certainly a big reason.
Other reasons include:
Religious Bigotry
Ethnic Bigotry
Same Land Claimed by 2, or more groups, based on history or historical proximity
Abject Greed
Abject Lust for Power
Abject Fear of the Threat From Another Group
Abject Lust for Profit
Basic Survival Need To Avoid A Plague, or Dramatic Climate Change, Would Be Included in Competition for Resources
Thanks.
Brett
Excelsior
Diane's show is curtailed in content by institutional limits as well as the capacity of the audience to tolerate truth. Some CIA analysts probably predict people would rebel violently if all the machinations of Oligarchy were presented nakedly by outlets such as DRShow. It is excruciating how careful anyone who slightly deviates from the corporate line has to be to retain free speech and an income. If you don't believe me, try mouthing off at work like people do here, you big old lovable Peace Bunny. I liked your critique though.
Gardenista: Excellent reply to my observations.
I'd prefer your company to that of Leon Chagnon.
I see less sexual dimorphism in humans and more gender plasticity than you do apparently. People under 25 in the developed nations have recently blurred the assigned sex-linked prescription to an increasing degree. Personal inclinations were always at odds with institutional hierarchies, and now we anticipate the overturning of powerful institutions and the customs they endorse. Peace is increasingly possible.
I Pancake
am by no means a saint. Curious, compassionate sinner for sure. I have been so moved by talking to older and younger Veterans. Have lots of friends who are Vietnam Vets and actually have more difficulty asking them questions because I know them. But have asked. Never go further than they want to. Notice with the older Vets they really want to talk because so many of them have shut it down and things are surfacing at the end of their lives. But ask I posed questions to them I would frame it in regard to the more recent wars. They could extend their own lessons, compassion to these younger men and in the midst of expressing their thoughts and feelings about these more recent wars their own feelings would well up. Hard to watch when they would start having melt downs. But always hold their hands if they will allow me and acknowledge their pain and sadness. One fella in Nelsonville Ohio that I engaged in conversation while then Congressman Strickland was running for Governor of Ohio really threw me for a loop. Started talking to him about Strickland, then the war in Iraq and the old man started weeping I mean weeping about the Iraq war and of course his own left over trauma from WWII. We stood for several seconds (ok this is making me well up again) on the Nelsonville Ohio square with my arm around him as he cried. After a bit he shook it off.
cont
Pancake
Also had the honor of pushing a WWII veteran at the anti invasion of Iraq march in New York City in early Feb 2003. There were several thousand Vets at that protest against the invasion. These guys know what war is really like. Unlike Cheney and the other chickenhawks who so irresponsibly sent so many off to an unnecessary and immoral war in Iraq. If I had my way Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz etc would be prison for sending these yound men and women off to an unnecessary war based on lies. At the very least I would have thme driving the handicapped Vets around for the rest of their days on this planet. Cheney and Bush would be orderlies or nurses aides in the VA's changing these Vets bed pans.
It is an honor and a deep learning experience spending time with Vets. I encourage anyone looking for volunteer work to do themselves a favor and make the time to spend time with our Vets what ever you feel about these wars. You will learn a great deal
I see some logic into thinking that we are genetically inclined to fight the “other” people just because they are different. I am the last person to endorse the concept of intolerance in the modern world. But this has been a key ingredient to achieve the required genetic isolation and keep us on a pathway to evolve and become the human race. But if we ever aspire to be an advanced society as a whole, we must fight our own inherited nature.
It is true that the small percentage of women in politics can be just as aggressive as men (Hillary, Palin, Thatcher, Merkel, Golda Meir).
The profession, by it’s own masculine nature, will select this attribute. But female politicians are only a tiny sampling of women in the larger population in which aggression is replaced with mediation. More women with a natural reserve of caring in politics will have a positive effect to mediate aggression.
Women in the general population must assert their natural caring influence into the social fabric in order to constrain masculine tendencies to war.
Pancake
Here is something that I discovered with the younger Vets when I have asked questions. I say this to them because I beleive it. I usually open up with that I believe they were sent to Iraq under false pretenses and that it is a very stressful and must be a surreal world that they are in once they are there. This of course is something I have heard from Vietnam Vets. Also believe that the study of war has clearly taught those who send these young men off that those hormones that young men are on are easily manipulated, stirred up.
But when I leave an understanding ear wide open for these young men to know that I am not blaming them but want to know what they have really been through if they want to share. I have heard some very very sad accounts of abuse. Go listen to the testimonials of some of the US soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghani who testified in front of congress. You will hear some of these stories of abuse. These are brave and honorable young men for telling the truth about some of the horrific things that have gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan that people do not want to hear about. These hearings were not even whispered about in the MSM
Winter Soldier | Iraq Veterans Against the Warivaw.org/wintersoldierCached
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
Iraq Veterans Against the War ... Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan featured testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate ...
kathleen: Thanks so much for your advice. Maybe I need to seek out some women vets to learn more. I have been working mostly with women in the community. I have my PTSD too, and maybe I'm shutting out male emotionality except among family and intimates. Intellectually I can hold my own with males, but I don't think I'm eager enough to trust or understand their feelings. When I'm attempting to hear men's problems I keep saying to myself, "He's not that different than me," but maybe I don't believe it. All of us were babies once and nurturers held us and comforted us. It's hard to reproduce that for adults. Special circumstances are required. I fear getting to the point where I have to reject men because they've taken my concern the wrong way. Anyway, I have to try and get beyond subconsciously seeing all men as vessels of violence and sexual aggression. Maybe I will and maybe I won't, but even that personal attempt is a form of seeking peace. First we make peace with ourselves. Ohio and NC are similar. Both have hidden peace. May you find a pot of peace at the end of the rainbow.
We wouldn't exist actually as the Americas would never have been taken over.
kathleen (reply to 12:46) I've listened to some accounts of coercion, shaming and comrade brutality in war. The rape stories get me all torn up emotionally, especially the failure of officers to respond when victims report. I think it might do our public good if they were informed how often men (and local boys) are sexual assault victims in war zones, even in stateside camps . It's far more frequent than we'd like to believe. Our counterinsurgency schools teach rape and rape-threat as conquering strategies, but they deny it even in the face of preponderant evidence. Approved sexual perversion is a powerful resource of violence, cheap in funds and costly of spirit, so portable in the field it often returns to the Homeland. We are being fed implausible tall tales of extreme heroism in MSM but whistleblowers are treated as squealers and are punished for telling. How can they argue just war when there is not even the possibility of honorable service?
I want enlistees to be fully informed. When they are war will be harder to make.
This resonates with a thought I have been having as I watch the economy collapse, and see calls to spend less on social safety nets, but more on defense. I also notice that many countries on this planet are struggling with their economies. Perhaps our leaders will wake up to realize we can ill afford war, and its destruction.
What if we felt, realized, that we need to focus on CONSTRUCTION! Food, clothing, shelter, reading, writing, and arithmatic, arts, communicatin, and just helping each other were ALL we COULD afford?
When I went to a party in France, people were concerned about the economy. They said, "The world's economy has never reset, except through war!"
Lord John Maynard Keynes thought there were times when ONLY the government COULD spend. Republiicans fought stimulous measures, just like today, but finally Adolph declared war on U.S. and forced us into massive deficet spending!
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if, before Adolph rose to power, the world had poured money into Europe to rebuild it from the first WWI?
I'm afraid war may not be in our nature, but selfishness, and greed are, and those human traits lead us to war.
This enjoyable discussion has continued long after Ms. Rehm's program ended for the day! Thanks to all who have shared their thoughts.
Stepping away from the biological foundations of war (despite it being a topic of fascination to me) and talking instead of the cultural side of war, my father (nearly 95 and quite active, with all his faculties) is only now starting to tell his family about his experiences as a member of the Americal Division during WWII, in the South Pacific. He was a chaplain's assistant, and eventually acting chaplain, for his battalion at Guadalcanal and saw to the burials of many men. He commented on the ferocity and absolute "barbarism" with which the Japanese fought the U.S. troops, and how they seemed so unconcerned for their own fates. If you know something of Japanese history and culture, the underpinnings of this behavior become clearer.
In view of that, I would like to recommend a book, "Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers," by cultural anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (2006, University of Chicago Press). It is an amazing read, and provides some food for thought.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"I see less sexual dimorphism in humans and more gender plasticity than you do apparently. People under 25 in the developed nations have recently blurred the assigned sex-linked prescription to an increasing degree. Personal inclinations were always at odds with institutional hierarchies, and now we anticipate the overturning of powerful institutions and the customs they endorse. Peace is increasingly possible"
Interesting observation! To counter it, I'd suggest we look closely at the situation in Egypt, where male protesters (who vastly outnumbered females) became quite unruly and began sexually harassing the females present. I read some analyses of the goings-on in Cairo, and learned that many, many, many of the young men protesting do not have jobs, and are quite poor.
Without jobs, without money, these young men have low social status and do not have any hope of marrying ("having their own woman"). They went so far as to act out their frustrations (both sexual and that of being low status in the social hierarchy) in public, not just with the protests but in harrassing women. There were rapes and abuses... in public!
Women reported that even before the anti-government protests, any female who went out in public was harassassed on many levels, verbally and physically.
This again reflects the Biological Prime Directive, albeit at its worst (subjectively speaking).
We rationalize the concept of "status," but it comes down to... access to females (and resources with which to possess them) for genetic replication. Maybe on a cognitive level humans don't think that way, but if you think of living things as vehicles for genes, it makes a lot of sense.
Your guest made some interesting points but ultimately left me thinking he had his head in the clouds when he said that the Military Industrial Complex exploits wars that already exist to make profit rather than perpetuate war so that it can benefit. He gave the example of us ramping down after WWII but I think he mistakes scaled down production with a trend towards peace. The military Industrial Complex is more than just arms manufacturers. It's corporations, bankers, and government leaders who actively aggravate low burning divisive ethnic conflicts that last decades, push arms deals and yes inflict full blown war every decade or so. I'm a glass is half full person with a lot of optimism but I'm afraid even I felt his perspective is misguided, naive and gives a free pass to the many levels of violence that are perpetuated throughout the world in the name of profit. Whether it's tolerating inhuman working conditions in China so that we can have cheap iPhones or doing business with the same energy companies who manipulate local laws, hire mercenaries and basically terrorize regions in Africa to exploit their oil in ways they could not do here... they're all acts of violence and therefore a war on humanity. I wonder what he has to say about the violence inflicted on protestors in Oakland this week by the police and city government who gives the police their marching orders? Bottom line, it's easy for him to say war is on the decline if he defines it so narrowly as to mean full scale armed country to country conflict. I believe his perspective dangerously gives the perpetrators of war a free pass to commit many kinds of violence that do just as much, if not more harm than full blown armed conflict.
... So Horgan decided to take firm action and stay in bed with his girlfriend for a week. And when they came out they were outraged! Outraged that the defense budget wasn't cut in half yet. Wasn't he clear? Didn't they hear the nuggets of wisdom he revealed? Nuggets such as 'We've got to find a way to solve those sorts of problems without more violence.' and 'So I think one of the first steps is to get rid of the idea that it's unsolvable and collectively try to imagine ways to get past it.' Yes, after >100.000 casualties in Iraq while you were watching American Idol the past 10 years, I think we're about ready to imagine ways to get past it. We'll tell the families we've made 'moral progress' because we call war a 'necessary evil' now. They'll totally understand. And let's tell the people in Syria and Libya that they should just collectively imagine ways to get past the violence. Because oracle Horgan says there are smart people out there who surely can imagine ways to solve a problem like that. Really, that's what he said and then he went back to bed with gf for another week.
Year after year, decade after decade people argue and debate about ending war, then wring their hands in despair each time another war rolls over us. Most of us wait for a national leader with vision to lead us to "peace." Yet peace and the definition of peace is almost a dirty word in our vocabulary - most especially in our media. We claim to be a nation of peace, yet we are the world's leaders in making war and preparing for the annihilation of the human race by making more and bigger nuclear weapons. But the real irony is that there has been a precedent for peace since 1946. It is written on the stone of the Japanese Constitution and it is called Article Nine. Written by U.S. occupation forces at the end of WWII it forbids Japan to ever make war again. Article Nine was inspired by Japanese pacifist leaders and embraced by the majority of Japanese citizens. The U.S. lobbied to get Japan to drop Article Nine in 1950 and go to war against North Korea. Japan took control of their destiny and refused to drop Article Nine. They have lived in peace for 66 years. Not one soldier lost, not one civilian killed in war. There is now a movement in Canada and the U.S. supported by the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom to amend a version of Article Nine to the U.S. Constitution. There it is. Peace works. No need to re-invent the wheel. Japan quickly grew to be an economic giant - all without making war. A coalition of Japan and the U.S. can lead the world to abolish war both as a matter of principle and as a matter of survival. Heiwa!
To get rid of war, we have to get rid of crime, and we need a change of mental attitude to do that.
Pancake...stay open...allow new information in.
Statistically girls and women are raped more often as well as in the military. It is criminal that we do not witness more prosecutions. But I have come to think about the calculated studied use of the drive and hormones that males find themselves driven by manipulated by those that study war. A type of rape. Young men and now women are traumatized both physically and mentally by systematic misuse of their honor and hormones by those who study war and those often chickenhawks who often send them into unnecessary wars
In his book, Horgan writes about the concept of "Just War" and in particular what Horgan calls the "damned-if-you-do-or-don't" dilemmas. Horgan's list of those impossible dilemmas overlaps your own list - Sudan, Israeli/Palestine, plus Serbian genocide against Albanians, Hutu genocide in Rwanda, and so on in a very depressing collection of horrors.
So I would say from reading Horgan's book that he is not naive. Horgan instead asks us to examine critically whether the use of violence in the cause of a Just War causes some unintended consequences - causes more harm than it is meant to prevent. I'm reminded of Barbara Tuchman's book, "The March of Folly" in which she argues that many so-called Just Wars are "follies" - engaged in against self-interest and causing long-term injury to both winners and losers.
Importantly, in his book Horgan gives many examples of nonviolent resolutions of 20th century conflicts that might have seemed natural candidates for Just War. Sadly, these examples are not the ones much talked about but they are real examples of the power of nonviolent movements to resolve conflicts equally as intractable and seemingly violent as that between Israel and Palestine and others you cite.
The idea of a Just War stirs our emotions and higher feelings, it's hard to step back, be dispassionate, and ask is this war, just or not, in our self-interest or just possibly could we reach a compromise with our enemy?