Why Men Love War (1984)
public.wsu.edu
public.wsu.edu
It's a topic I often wonder about: now there is less war than ever, but also more depression and despair, even among those with peaceful, affluent lives. We humans have always been running from the fires behind us - what if, having outpaced them, we discover that what lies ahead is ice?
It's an interesting point of view, but here's some food for thought... perhaps there's plenty of despair because there's more to be concerned about than just war and poverty.
Seriously, there's absolutely tons of things messed up about the world we live in, and it can feel overwhelming, which leads to paralysis... people feel powerless to find a better way as individuals. Feeling separated from communities in their immediate vicinity doesn't help either. At least with war, which is truly messed up too, there's an us vs. them, a clearer sense of purpose. In our current world the answers are less clear.
If you'd prefer I mention something concrete that's messed up, I'd almost not know where to begin. For the sake of simplicity in choosing, this was my most recent discovery... it makes me sad that this exists... http://www.thebigroundtable.com/stories/damage/
It seems that people have a largely irrational, intense fear of something. Public speaking, heights, spiders - whatever your fear is if you embrace it you can still (safely) find that incredibly intense experience you are talking about. For me it was skydiving. I get sweaty palms even thinking about heights, going up in a plane with an open door was terrifying! Leaving it was incredible. If you're afraid of spiders, pick up a big one, public speaking? Join toastmasters. You don't need war to experience the thrill of death.
"And now you better stop, and rebuild all of your ruins. For peace and trust can win the day, despite all of your losing" [Know now, our conquered subjects, that we are your virtuous overlords, so let peace be with you hereafter. We will install our heaven here, for you and with you. Now, come with us.]
Can we be sure that this is something new? In both Western and Eastern culture, you can go back thousands of years and follow the sentiment right through to now, century after century: warriors (and to a great extent, aristocrats) have always put honor (which I will include under matters of "soul") before mere physical life. If anything, life began to make more of a difference only now, when we are actually able to do something about meaningfully preserving it.
Throughout human history there have always been those who believed in utopias. For a long time those utopias were religious -- people imagined either a humanity living in God's grace or an afterlife in heaven. Then, utopias became about removing injustice; communism is a notable example. Now you see, especially here on HN, people believing in technological utopias, where we don't have to work, a benevolent AI makes the best decisions for us, and extend our life indefinitely or at least spend eternity in a silicon afterlife as non-corporeal rational beings. Whenever I hear someone explaining how to achieve utopia, I ask them to do the following thought experiment: imagine their perfect utopia and all those who live in it and all those born into it, and ask themselves this -- will those people really be happy? A very crude approximation of what people are -- but one that's better than many others -- is this: once they've ensured their survival, people are happy when they get what they want, and what they want is what they cannot get.
It seems downvotes on HN are used as the equivalent of a child sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "NOT LISTENING!".
Oh, and don't be surprised if you find a bunch of your older, unrelated comments downvoted as well. Apparently it's a form of punishment. Or something.
Counterpoints:
* Why should an unsatisifability instilled in us by evolution be reckoned as more ethically valuable than our actual well-being?
* What evidence shows the unsatisfiability is even there? Long-term studies have showed that many people live contented lives for what appear to be understandable psychological reasons.
* Provided it is, why could you not find or produce genuinely engaging challenges that don't boil down to "avoid being murdered by the other monkeys"?
This line of thought loses most of its coherency and thoroughness after managing what starts out sounding like an argument that simply solving one human problem will not immediately bring about utopia and thus does not justify mass violence (motte), but ends up proving much too much by claiming, in the end, that human happiness is categorically impossible and therefore all projects to improve life must inevitably fail (bailey) and result in horrifying mass murder (reductio ad Hitlerum).
(Terminology hints: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_too_much)
> Why should an unsatisifability instilled in us by evolution be reckoned as more ethically valuable than our actual well-being?
It shouldn't, but it still means that people might do potentially bad things even if everyone's physical well being is ensured, because contentment trumps ethics. I'm not saying it's right jus that it is.
> What evidence shows the unsatisfiability is even there?
The only specific study that I remember off-the-cuff is the one mentioned here [1] (search for "Mike Norton"), but, of course, I think this "unsatisfiabilty" is what brought us here to begin with. Without it, we'd still all be hunters-gatherers. Some of it probably has to do something with social comparison[2]
EDIT: This is a published study: http://jeffreypfeffer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DeVoeMo... (overview here: http://www.upworthy.com/why-do-rich-people-seem-to-always-ne...)
> Long-term studies have showed that many people live contented lives for what appear to be understandable psychological reasons.
The problem with that is that much of that contentment appears to stem from the fact that others have less [2],[3]
> Provided it is, why could you not find or produce genuinely engaging challenges
Perhaps. But it is also possible that we have destructive urges that require satisfaction. Freud spends half of his Civilization and its Discontents exploring the "death urge". It isn't science -- far from it -- but it's pretty compelling.
> argument that simply solving one human problem will not immediately bring about utopia ...
I wasn't discussing a specific utopia (even though I personally dream of both a communist utopia and an anarchist utopia), but my thought experiment is meant to doubt that any kind of utopia is possible for a significant period of time. Imagine not how to get there, but what there looks like, and then, think for a while on whether people will really be happy for long in your utopia. That is not to say that we shouldn't strive to build our utopia -- in fact, the impossibility of achieving it is what ensures we'll always have something to do.
> claiming ... that human happiness is categorically impossible
Again, my "approximation" wasn't a well specified law of nature. People are happy with their achievements for a while -- until they're not. In fact, most people are happy some of the time, and some people are happy most the time, but I don't think all people can be happy all -- or even most -- of the time. It's quite possible that people's happiness depends on others' misery. I don't think happiness is impossible; I think utopia is.
[1]: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120092/billionaires-book-...
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_comparison_theory
[3]: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/your-money/02shortcuts.htm...
Second thought: the correlation between "not having ever really lived" and nonviolence is a false one. The actual issue is "capitalist realism": the increasing cultural hegemony of indoctrinating people to believe that the well-sterilized path of being someone else's worker bee is desirable in the first place (almost nobody in human history has ever actually desired it), and that it has always been this way (the vast majority of human history happened before Reagan and Thatcher, actually), and that there is no alternative except for primitive and nihilistic violence (then what happened throughout all of human history?).
Third thought: the correlation between our current lifestyles and depression may well be a causal connection for purely physiological reasons that have nothing to do with any purported meaninglessness of a nonviolent life.
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The problem is not that there is something wrong with living an ordinary life, in following the comfortable and society-approved paths of success; the problem is that for many people, that is not enough. There is (so the story goes) something in many of us that yearns for chaos, for a purpose beyond the ordinary, even for violence and death. No more do these people deserve our scorn.
How do we satisfy this desire? War is one solution, but clearly not a good one.
Extreme sports, video games, and other entertainment.
I think we ought to be asking whether this is a story told primarily by generals, by enlisted soldiers, or by someone else, and also asking how well that story corresponds to reality.
If you are interesting in learning more about this theory, here's the book:
Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World by Malcolm Potts ISBN 978-1935251705
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trial
The real problem isn't a hypothetical 'war instinct' in all humans, it's the leaders who take advantage of animal logic for personal gain.
(Sometimes very short-lived personal gain. But still.)
"In 2011, De Waal and his co-workers were the first to report that chimpanzees given a free choice between helping only themselves or helping themselves plus a partner, prefer the latter."
It's pretty much the same high as working at a startup vs. a big company.
I think pretty much anything you can do in the military you can do better in civilian life, you just have to be a bit creative. You rarely hear about it though, because no one is trying to recruit people for it. Here's kind of one example though: http://www.theamphour.com/220-an-interview-with-shaun-meehan...
[0] That documentary with all the home footage is pretty cool, so is "bulletproof salesman".
In some ways, the reasons look to clearly stem from culture and society's influence, as discussed in the Baumeister article.
On the other hand, there is definitely a some element of the innate [2] "us vs. them" at play, allowed to run unbridled in the suspenseful environment of war. I imagine this would result in an experience not easily replicated in the real world.
No where else offers this:
1. You might get to kill "bad people"
2. You won't get in trouble for it
3. You don't have time to think or process it. It just happens, split second, you die or they die, you panic, resort to your training, you live. Instead of being punished, you are a hero.
4. You might die. Hearing a bullet whiz by your head and surviving, followed by the subsequent huge adrenaline rush.
5. If you don't die, you see yourself as an invincible super hero that gets to save the world.
There are ways to replicate a lot of this, like joining a street gang or getting involved in organized crime, but instead of becoming a hero, you get 20-to-life. Not quite the same risk-reward.
Something about it seems very juvenile, in the sense of getting to do "bad things" with very little risk of negative consequence, and there's some element of "playing super hero" here. It makes me think of going off to college and partying your ass off for a semester, with unlimited access to alcohol and sex, fully funded by the parents, with very little negative consequence. I'm sure many people do look back on that with fond memories. To some people, war is probably like that, on steroids.
[1] http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/babies-help-unlock-the-origins-o...
> The first big, basic difference has to do with what I consider to be the most underappreciated fact about gender. Consider this question: What percent of our ancestors were women? It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%....Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.
The only way I see to save the argument is to say that the "losers" who left, or were more likely pushed out, stumbled upon some favorable ecology, maybe they stumbled into modern day Europe. But then you're back to geographical determinism and so many things changed in society as agriculture developed that singling out male envy as the cause of monogamy requires more evidence than I think you have.
If doomsday doesn't come, then all choices are equally successful. But if doomsday comes...
* First, anyone who applies the slightest intellectual effort will see war is a catastrophe, though occasionally better than its alternative.
* If I remember my history, for both the American Civil War and WWI, people were excited by their beginnings. People picnicked beside the first Civil War battles. Needless to say, they soon learned of their mistakes. Similarly many Americans were excited for the second Iraq war. (And those examples hardly are unusual.)
* Civilians and soldiers who die, are maimed, are raped, are tortured, who see those things happen to family members, or lose their homes, jobs, assets, or see their nations and communities reduced to chaos and poverty, -- they do not love war.
* Those who kill and see others kill usually do not love war. What we compel soldiers to do is horrible, killing is unnatural and damaging to the killer too. We've made others into torturers [2] -- what if you were made to torture or kill someone? War costs many survivors their souls and peace of mind. Read any history of any war's aftermath, including our recent conflicts: Those who return often are not the same. PTSD is widespread, and note the very high number of suicides currently among our soldiers, despite the recent conflicts being among the safest, lowest-intensity wars in American history.
* Those who have experienced prior wars came out of them seeking to end war for ever, for example after WWI (the League of Nations) and WWII (the United Nations and the predecessors to the European Union). Some today mock these people as idealistic, but these were the people who led us to victory in existential wars -- they knew far more of war's reality than we ever will.
The glorification of war, military, and soldiers is highly irresponsible and dangerous. We consign soldiers, affected civilians, and whole nations to nightmarish horrors, and then glorify it so we don't have to think about what we have done. [3]
[1] http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/01/if-only-america-care...
[2] Not just CIA prisons and Abu Ghraib, but of others too; for example: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/politics/24abuse.html
[3] http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-trag...
Thanks for offering that. It doesn't match what I've read. My impression is that government and military leadership encouraged such practices as a method of interrogation, legitimized it in the troops' eyes by authorizing and publicly advocating for torture and denial of prisoner's rights, and did not enforce rules against it.
Who came up with this moronic idea?
The perspective is very different when war is happening in your own country, where victims are not just trained military personnel. Neither men nor women love the war that destroy your home and livelihood and kills your parents or children.
There are women who have experienced battle first hand, of course, but since until very recently combat was effectively a male-only experience there aren't a lot of stories from their perspective. (Yet.)
I wonder the same, and more specifically, about women who have been in war.
Also, there was a study (sorry, I'll try to find the source) that male bonding behaviour is disturbed when there are women present, due to the implicit rivalry. I suspect thats a reason why women weren't allowed to join the military for a long time. Also I guess the heightened libido in war might lead to problems there.
I'd be very interested in how these things worked for the mixed sex armies in the Israeli wars, any links highly appreciated.
I can't speak for most of the world, but I believe the USA only started allowing women into direct combat roles in 2013. So there's certainly not enough data here [for the USA].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military#Policy_ch...
Is that true? I would have guessed that most mothers, everywhere, do not want their own sons in war.
Now the war in the Ukraine is happening, and it's an eye-opener (even for those in neighbouring countries). Yes, war is rare nowdays, but when it's on, it trumps everything. Every card you have in your hand, war beats.
When armed and organized people come, money and business and culture bow to them.
It is really that important how games show to us.
Weapons are ominous tools. They are abhorred by all creatures. Anyone who follows the Way shuns them. In peaceful times, the noble ruler honors the left side. At war, he honors the right side. Weapons are ominous tools. They are not the noble ruler's tools. He only uses them when he can't avoid it. Peace and quiet are preferred. Victory should not be praised. Those who praise victory relish manslaughter. Those who relish manslaughter Cannot reach their goals in the world. At times of joy, the left side is honored. At times of grief, the right side is honored. At battle, the second in command stands to the left, And the commander in chief to the right. This means they stand as in funerals. When many people are killed They should be mourned and lamented. Those who are victorious in war Should follow the rites of funerals.
Tao De Ching - Chapter 31
Whats really sought after is invulnerable no form-factor options with beyond-time communications, that are forced to do security stuff for everyone & more.
EDIT:
The downvotes seem to prove my point. We just like to hurt each other. Disagree with someone downvote. Disagree with another punch them. Disagree with another, to the sabres.
Why do we do this?
If men did not have a proclivity for harm, I would not get downvotes when people disagree. They would instead correct me and put me on the right path.
Second, what little research there is suggests (while being far from definitive) that men in fact resist killing[1].
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology#The_problem_of_non-_o...
Ah yes , the most base argument to absolve oneself of responsibility.
It's a good thing you don't have that big brain and act on base instincts alone, because that argument would be pretty silly otherwise.
If you are a from a more peaceful nation congratulate yourself on deciding to be born there.
Some interesting reading on the matter:
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by...
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/02-no-war-is-not-inevit...
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2014/09/17/n...
Don't loose sleep over downvotes. It usually either means you broke a rule, or your point of view is largely unpopular. These systems of 'like', 'pluses' and 'up/downvotes' will turn us all into uninteresting sheep if we pay them too much attention.
I agree with your view point, mainly because even though it is sexist, it has managed to mint billions for the toy, movie and game industries. A good portion of the male population do have a proclivity to dominate or destroy or at least simulate those experiences.
What I do understand is, if one downvotes with anonymity/impunity because they disagree, they would 100% hurt someone physically if they could with anonymity/impunity. But this is another subject.
I do not think my point is sexist. Sexism would be to make a judgement that is both true for men and women, then slap it on only one of them.
Men are prone to violence. I mean look at all the acts of terrorism, and wars, etc... mostly it is men who are doing this. Look at the crimes such as robbery, grand theft auto, and such, I mostly see men.
If my comment was sexist, yours seems to be as well, since you claim it is "women who are the root cause of evil."
At any rate I disagree that women cause men to be violent. As far as I know there may be many reasons to put a suicide vest on, or to drop in the middle of the desert with amos, but impressing women is not one of those. I really don't think men go to war because girls talk them into it directly or indirectly.
Regarding my comment being sexist - true. But one has to acknowledge the differences of sexes before aiming for equality.
Men are more involved, but women are at the root cause of violent acts. Most men are not violent and given time, violent men will be rooted out by brainy meeks. It is women who chose to copulate with violent men than the meek ones.
It is a very bad statement to say 'why men love war', and is only an insidious way of saying the patriarchal statement that 'loving war is manly'. To be expected in 1984, but not today.
Are you sure that's what it is? From what I've heard time and time again it's confidence which is the most attractive quality in a personality, a clear sense of who they are and what they want. You can be confident without being violent.
A cave-man or a hunter (man) has only one meaning of powerful - physical. Today the meaning is changing, and Obama is powerful without having much body strength. Whether he is violent or not is something I will let you decide. But my point is that the anti-physical violence rhetoric one hears all day long is only a very recent phenomena and is directly related to what is considered more powerful today - war or politics.
NOTE: To people marking down my answers, what are your opinions about 'why women love cooking?' because statistically more women are found cooking than not, and 'why blacks like slavery?' because statistically more blacks were slaves than not? (HINT: Django Unchained anyone?)
I will just hold it that I do not agree with all of you and see it as violent. That you do not see as such scares the living crap out of me. Your idea of mute is to downvote, not ignoring a commentator, someone else's idea is just more physical, but ideologically similar.
"an obscene hobbling rhythm. In the ebb and flow of the crowds sucked in and crushed together by the coming and going of suburban trains, and coughed out into streets, offices, factories, there is nothing but timid retreats, brutal attacks, smirking faces and scratches delivered for no apparent reason. Soured by unwanted encounters, wine turns to vinegar in the mouth. Innocent and good-natured crowds? What a laugh! Look how they bristle up, threaten on every side, clumsy and embarrassed in the enemy's territory, far, very far from themselves. Lacking knives, they learn to use their elbows and their eyes."
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5
Now you are are saying something has gone badly in my life, yet you know close to nothing of me outside this opinion that I have. Wow.
;) I forgive you all for the insults. We have a long way to go.
Edit: Besides, I think I have been around HN long enough to not worry about imaginary points. I have no idea where you got that from.
Thanks. But always remember for the brief and last encounter we ever have, instead of clarifying where I was mistaken, you chose to insult me. Thanks man.