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Given the number of people currently living whose recent ancestors experienced the trauma of war and oppression, I wonder if it could explain part of the growin

Given the number of people currently living whose recent ancestors experienced the trauma of war and oppression, I wonder if it could explain part of the growing incidence of these illnesses that we keep hearing is burdening the health systems of Western countries these days. Trauma and war have been part of the human condition since inception. What do you think was different for our "recent ancestors"?

Scramblejams 11y ago
Of course war's been part of the human condition since inception, but it hasn't been evenly distributed, has it?
tomhoward 11y ago
I think about this every time I'm at a zoo or monkey temple watching primates interact - fighting, sure, but not torturing or persecuting or enslaving or committing genocide - and wonder at what point in evolution did we start being so brutal and cruel to one another as to cause the kind of trauma that now seems so common. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on history, so I don't know how far back we've had the scale and brutality of the wars of the last 100-or-so years. But I have an easy time believing that the more recent wars have done more to traumatise people who were in them, as well as those who weren't due to the widespread media coverage that's also happened relatively recently. At the same time, I agree with your point; trauma is not new and we certainly see it in other animals (maltreated dogs for example). And I certainly believe the phenomenon I'm talking about could go back well beyond the past 100-ish years; that would make sense in my case, as none of my parents or grandparents were directly involved in the wars. But I just wonder if the scale and brutality of the more recent wars, along with the media exposure, have made the problem more intense and widespread.
- keithly 11y ago
  The Gombe Chimpanzee War was pretty brutal. One side annihilated the other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
zasz 11y ago
While violence has always been a part of the human condition, the scale of destruction wrought by modern war is novel. Violence in pre-Neolithic (pre-agricultural times, which characterizes the vast majority of our time as a species on this earth) was much more interpersonal. Think, two guys fighting over one girl, kind of personal. Organized group on group violence was a rarity. It's only with the creation of complex societies that we see the kinds of wars where whole ethnicities are targeted and uprooted. It's entirely possible that people experience more 'trauma' due to the differing nature of violence these days. Here's a link to a good article by an anthropologist explaining it better than I do: http://aeon.co/magazine/society/human-beings-do-not-have-an-instinct-for-war/ http://aeon.co/magazine/society/human-beings-do-not-have-an-...

Scramblejams 11y ago

Of course war's been part of the human condition since inception, but it hasn't been evenly distributed, has it?

tomhoward 11y ago

I think about this every time I'm at a zoo or monkey temple watching primates interact - fighting, sure, but not torturing or persecuting or enslaving or committing genocide - and wonder at what point in evolution did we start being so brutal and cruel to one another as to cause the kind of trauma that now seems so common. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on history, so I don't know how far back we've had the scale and brutality of the wars of the last 100-or-so years. But I have an easy time believing that the more recent wars have done more to traumatise people who were in them, as well as those who weren't due to the widespread media coverage that's also happened relatively recently. At the same time, I agree with your point; trauma is not new and we certainly see it in other animals (maltreated dogs for example). And I certainly believe the phenomenon I'm talking about could go back well beyond the past 100-ish years; that would make sense in my case, as none of my parents or grandparents were directly involved in the wars. But I just wonder if the scale and brutality of the more recent wars, along with the media exposure, have made the problem more intense and widespread.

keithly 11y ago
The Gombe Chimpanzee War was pretty brutal. One side annihilated the other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

zasz 11y ago

While violence has always been a part of the human condition, the scale of destruction wrought by modern war is novel. Violence in pre-Neolithic (pre-agricultural times, which characterizes the vast majority of our time as a species on this earth) was much more interpersonal. Think, two guys fighting over one girl, kind of personal. Organized group on group violence was a rarity. It's only with the creation of complex societies that we see the kinds of wars where whole ethnicities are targeted and uprooted. It's entirely possible that people experience more 'trauma' due to the differing nature of violence these days. Here's a link to a good article by an anthropologist explaining it better than I do: http://aeon.co/magazine/society/human-beings-do-not-have-an-instinct-for-war/ http://aeon.co/magazine/society/human-beings-do-not-have-an-...