On Tue, 15 Nov 1994, LALONDE ROXANNE wrote:
> In response to the following:
>
> > It seems to me (and I wish I were wrong) that violence/aggression is
> > endemic to nature and that it will therefore exist in some form in
> > all societies.
>
> What human beings perceive as "violence" in nature is merely natural
> predatory relationships that perpetuate the cycle of life. I don't
> see it as a cause/effect kind of thing for human beings to use
> as a model for our own communities. We do have a higher awareness of
> such things and can transcend some of these so-called "natural" laws
> by consciously choosing not to behave that way.
> Just my humble opinion.
I agree. I think that the notion of a built-in/genetic aggression
derives more from our cultural perspective than from careful
observation... Remember your old biology textbook on evolution?
Marching across the page from left to right were the images of apes,
followed by progressively more "human" looking *men*... They were always
men, they were always *alone*, and what did they have in their hand? A
*weapon*! In actual fact, our evolution as a species was dependent
upon: 1) our development of social relations (not individualism), 2)
strong social bonding across gender lines, and 3) tool making and use,
but not necessarily weapon making/use.
In order to evolve to the point where we could give birth to large
brained infants who need extended post-partum care, we had to *first*
develop *cooperative* social relations. Otherwise, the mother of a new
infant would be at an extreme disadvantage in terms of survival -- as
would the infant. This bonding had to cross gender lines. Evolution
involved males and females *together*....
Furthermore, the survival of our species seems to have depended more upon
our ability to adapt to a wide variety of environments than it did upon
our ability to "beat our enemies -- human or animal -- into submission".
In human terms, we have many, many more cooperative/adaptive responses to
conflict than we have aggressive responses -- it is just that our culture
emphasizes the latter and neglects the former. And, not surprisingly the
current "norm" is read back into the past....
So, IMHO, it is not only because of our *moral* capacity that we can
"transcend" natural tendencies towards violence and aggression --
although I would be the first to agree that the human capacity for moral
reasoning and behavior is extremely important... In fact, we may not
need to "transcend" our natural tendencies as much as we need to
"rediscover" and reinvigorate those natural tendencies which we seem to
have neglected -- the tendency toward cooperation, social bonding,
community, and cooperation...
Jayne
