Warfare And Violence : An Anthropological And Archaeological Perspective

From prehistory to 21st century, violence and warfare permeate human existence. Tribes, cities, and nations have pitted their youth against one another in hopes improving their position. However, these Soldiers regularly fall short of maximizing their killing potential. In the book On Killing, Dave Grossman scrupulously examines war throughout recent history; specifically the human element in killing. His thorough assessment of the psychological factors associated with homicide is vitally important to individuals who wish to successfully lead their Soldiers during and after combat. Its ultimate value clearly visible in light of four major facets: the background of the writer, the general points of the book, analysis of essential concepts, and the insight provided.

For as long as humanity has existed, men have committed violence against one another. Assuredly, Nancy G. Guerra’s and Lyndee Knox’s entry on violence in the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice affirms that, “As historical and cross-cultural records demonstrate, our evolutionary history is laced with examples of violence. Indeed, paleontological data reveal a rather continuous stream of human violence dating back thousands of years.” It is clear that violence is a part of human nature that has always existed and will likely never be eradicated. One of the aspects that all forms of violence seem to share is that, societally (in terms, at the very least, of Western societies), they are looked down upon. Consequentially, those who commit violent

Instinctivist theories on human aggressiveness often promote the notion that warfare is in the nature of humankind and therefore cannot be prevented. However Margaret Mead eloquently refuted this idea in her renowned essay Warfare: an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity. Mead states, “War is inevitable unless we change our social system and outlaw classes, the struggle for power, and possessions; and in the event of our success warfare would disappear, as a symptom vanishes when the disease is cured.” Through this statement Mead makes it clear that because aggression and subsequently warfare is a learned invention, it can be avoided. For the purposes of this essay, aggression will be defined as “a response that delivers noxious stimuli to another organism.” This essay will outline how and why aggression, and thus warfare, is not biological and is rather a behaviour that is learned as a reaction to social stimuli. Furthermore, it will be explained that violence is used by societies as a political weapon to achieve ostensible objectives.

While Pinker does an efficient job substantiating these claims with abstract examples of our “bloody history” drawn from sources like the Old Testament and feudal lifestyles, his argument rests upon a narrow denotation of violence that only looks at human death and no other manifestation of aggression. Though Pinker organizes his argument to prove each development process’s impact on peace, he fails to acknowledge the price society has paid in ways like global warming, diplomatic inadequacy and weak national governments. The data Pinker uses to prove his point obscures the collateral damage social change has generated by creating new forms of violence that are as destructive as wars but disproportionately affected certain communities.

Mankind has long accepted violence as a fair means to achieve equality. In human history, the most thorough changes are brought in by the most radical overthrow of the old structure, knocking down the walls that separated the silent majority from the minority, sweeping aside the commands of the oppressors, tearing down the chains of oppression that once trapped them away from their inherent rights of freedom, in an effort to achieve justice for themselves and their countries. Revolutions in particular illustrated that the groups that desire reform but are willing to compromise for stability, take longer to implement changes, while the groups that are more devoted to revolutionary change and are often unafraid to use violence, could implement

Historically, there has been consistent disagreement between political philosophers regarding the possibility of a justification of war. Theorists from Grotius to Gandhi have from time immemorial argued about whether violence can ever be sanctioned as a viable recourse for preventing evil. History itself, at various times, seems to offer lessons regarding the complexity of the issue—demonstrating both the human capacity, if unchecked, to cause immense destruction and evil and the inherent destruction that accompanies the common means of using war and violence to rid the world of such evils. However, it is clear that neither

The history of mankind has been predominantly influenced by the use of the various purposes of the manmade tool. From one’s first feeble steps as an infant one uses the sturdy aid of a table or chair to support oneself. As he progresses in age, one will use a variety of tools to aid and at times protect oneself from the many external factors that will plague one. In each civilization, from the Ancient World’s catapults and clubs to the nuclear and machine weapons that predominated the World Wars, history has been forged in the bloodshed of men, women, and children akin. From war to immediate survival humans have been dependent upon the use of these weapons, such as guns, to maintain order within their respective societies; but, after tragedies

Civilizations have changed over the years from the cavemen using sticks and stones for hunting and gathering food till now using industries to get our food. With the passing of time humanities equipment has evolved and helped civilizations become more. Specific cultures used their own type of equipment for their life styles. The weapons and system of fighting is what helped make each of these civilizations unique. Aztec’s people used wood, stone, and obsidian for their weaponry while the Greeks used wood, metal, and bronze for theirs.

One of the most influential songs of all time, “Imagine” by John Lennon, envisions a world of peace; “Imagine there’s no countries…nothing to kill or die for…imagine all the people, living life in peace.” During the 1970’s the hippy movement was very pro-pacifism and love, however, it ended almost abruptly. This was not the only cultural movement to advocate for peace, Mahatma Gandhi was the strongest advocate for non-violence in the last century, and he was assassinated. But can life really be lived completely peacefully? History has proven that violence is inevitable and that peace, while a beautiful concept, is nothing more than such. Since the beginning of time our race has shown that fighting is inescapable. There must be some reason as to why humans are violent creatures. Ayush Midha wrote an interesting article, “The Neuroscience of Aggression” which attempts to answer this question. Her authoritative work makes the claim that our species has a complex connection and desire for violence. Midha’s main argument is a claim one of cause and effect. All cause and effect claims have very opinionated and debated points of view. This makes her job hard to convince the reader of her standpoint. However, Ayush Midha’s effective use of Toulmin’s argument style makes her position strong and compelling.

Violence and war is notable throughout history. However, it is lazy to say that this proves humans are naturally violent. Rather than using nature as an excuse for those who chose to act violently it’s important we recognize that we have a choice to decide how we act. In Howard Zinn’s, “Violence and Human Nature” He shows that violence is not an instinct but that the environment in which they live in provokes them to act violently or peacefully depending on their choice (43). In City of God, a film concentrating on the gangs of Rio de Janeiro during the 1960’s to the 1980’s, specifically the township of Cidade de Deus, we are introduced to various characters who all make different choices under different motivations. Rocket, the little brother to a member of the Tender Trio, who are essentially the Robin Hood’s of the City of God, to act non-violently despite his environment and the influences around him.

The idea that Steven Pinker discussed in his Ted Talk was that over time our world has become a more peaceful place to reside in. Breaking his evidence down into the viewpoint of millenniums, centuries, and decades, he utilized mortality rates due to warfare, homicide, and death penalty. Furthermore, Pinker analyzes the history of warfare from a social perspective that investigates the effect that anarchy, the value of life, and the expanding of one’s circle of acceptance.

Throughout much of the history of civilizations, states have declared war for land, valuables, and resources. In the course of the mid-20th century and the 21st century, ascendant super powers have invaded foreign lands for resources such as oil, and weapons companies have profited from the ongoing cycle of war these super powers promote. The populations of these states have been fed lies vis-à-vis the media; propagandizing these “rogue nations” and promoting an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality, to garner support for these armed conflicts. War is our primordial instinct, as humans are territorial and aggressive. That is our nature, and by looking at events in our history, one may see that war appears to be timeless and inevitable.

Those who accept that war as a sociological inevitability, believe that warfare is a creature that was caused by the development of state. They accept that the struggle for land and resources will never end, and believe that the history of war will repeat itself. Although the same people who assume that war is a sociological inevitability believe that war is not in the nature of man, they say that war is eternally unavoidable unless we transform our social system, outlaw classes, and possessions. If and only if these transformations were complete, then the plague of warfare would be cured in the eyes of sociological inevitability.Margret Mead defines warfares as “a recognized conflict between two groups as groups, in which each group puts together an army into the field to fight and kill, if possible, some of the members of the army of the other group.” Mead uses the Pygmy people from the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal as an example. The Pygmies would line up 15 soldiers in the field and would fight, however even then Mead declares that is warfare. The Pygmies were a simple people that were hunter and gatherers, but even

The history of human nature has been bloody, painful, and even destructive. Nonetheless, before understanding their environments humans used to kill each other based on their own mindset on the ideal of violence, and what it actually meant. Pinker describes narratives of violent acts from the past, that today are foreign to us. He gives us a tour of the historical human violence and how the violence in human nature has changed throughout time. The main idea from Pinker’s book,“The Better Angels of Our Nature ', is “for all the dangers we face today, the dangers of yesterday were even worse.” He provides its readers with explicit violent stories beginning from 8000 BCE to now, and describes how violence has evolved from a blood lost to more of a peaceful existence.

2. There are different theories that seek to explain why humans still fight in war. Some of the individual, state and global level theories of conflict are based on: Human Nature or Individual Leaders, States’ Internal characteristics, and Global Level System (Turetzky lec 11). Human Nature arguments for the causes of war are based in Sigmund Freud idea that “aggression is simply part of human nature that stems from humans’ genetic programming and psychological makeup.” Realists also “argue that violence is a product of bad human nature” and that there is not anything to eliminate this bad human habit. I believe that it is true that humans’ nature is composed with an instinct of violence (War). However, society has a lot to do with the expansion of this bad habit. Today aggression is embedded in everything, which enforces our acceptance and practice of violence. Obviously, as realists argue, it is almost impossible to eliminate this bad habit from human nature. In contrast, the individual Leader arguments blame the state leaders for wars. However, we can’t blame a country’s leader for war. The author Stoessinger, stated in his book that a state head’s perceptions are decisive in war (Stoessinger 65). I believe that a leader’s