Jerry West wrote:
> I am glad that you pointed out that war is a given part of the human
> condition.
Oh come now. There is absolutely no evidence of this. Humans (if you
are snobbish in your definition of humanity) have been around for about
100,000 years, if you are less snobbish for around a half a million, give
or take a few hundred thousand. It is a matter of considerable debate
among anthropoligists just how violent the first 100,000 years were --
but it is pretty certain that war (in anything remotely like what we know
as war) has been around for not much more than 5000 years. And to
see what *most* "war" would have looked like up to the last 2000
years (or less) see Nestor's account of the war of his youth (a glorified
cattle raid) in the *Odyssey.*
Moreover -- for several hundred years now the men and women (e.g.,
Albright) who make wars are *not* the people who fight them. Don't
try to tell me that cultured gentlemen and ladies sitting in comforting
board rooms and deciding on the slaughter of millions are operating
out of any kind of "natural tendency to violence." War, like tiddlywinks
or double dating, is a social relation, not a "thing" with an essence.
Carrol Cox
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jun 24 2000 - 20:55:00 CUT