Aristo enquired: I would like to know what YOU feel is the PRIMARY root-cause of War, Confict and Violence in contemporary society, and how is it in contrast with historical wars. Is it due to: 1) Fundamentalism & Bigotry (Religious, Cultural, Racial, Ideological, etc) 2) Greed (for Wealth, Power & Authoritarianism, Glory) that is sometimes cleverly disguised as reason # 1 3) Innate violent nature of humans, more often of men. 4) Other
Cornel opines: Religious,Cultural, Racial, Ideological rationales are invariably brought into play to get the support of those who may not be interested in conflict and do not want to die in battles/wars which generally benefit the elites at the expense of the lower social orders. I would therefore put your No 2 first, and No 1 second but it is not always so. Elisabeth opines: I think human beings are at the very base of our being very animalistic with a thin veneer of civilisation. As animals, we are territorial and on a constant quest to safe-guard our resources. When you boil down all the religious wars, the cultural wars, the economic wars, it is all about safeguarding what we want to preserve. Mario opines: Would you please see where you can fit the following situation into your ruminations about the causes of war, conflict and violence: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/05/D8ILUTQ01.html Do you still think Aristo's # 2 supercedes # 1? BTW, could you provide some recent examples of # 2? Hi Cornel, Elisabeth and Mario, Thank you for your responses. Im glad to have got different perspectives - one phisophical, another scientific, and the other, well, Goveian! I personally do believe that contemporary wars and conflicts are being fought on the basis of Fundamentalism & Bigotry, but are triggered off by individuals motivated by Greed in some cases. In much the same way Cornel is fearful of Evangelical activities that may cause tension in the near future. Whether the Iraq war was due to reason #1 or #2 is a matter of great contention, judging from previos posts of Mario and others (which we wouldn't want to get into again, I might think) However, I also believe that wars of the past were caused mainly due to greed, the Crusades included. Cornel, about the reason for asking this fairly broad question: well for starters, it helps to take a step back sometimes and look at the big picture. It puts things in perspective!! But actually, I am currently reading Amartya Sen's "Identity and Violence", which from the title, it is evident that it elaborates on reason #1. However, in the third chapter, he states that "Civilizational Clash", while being a popular and glamorous theory, is NOT necessarily the real root cause, but it may be something more mundane, without specifying what exactly he meant, in his esoteric style of writing. Coincidently, I happened to be listening to John Lennon's "Imagine" the other day, and began to ponder whether if there was no religion and there were no possessions, would the world really live as one? Regards, Aristo. _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org