> Everybody is violent. We are violent as a species. I think this is the thing that bothers so many people. They'd rather just turn away, pretend it's only othe

> Everybody is violent. We are violent as a species. I think this is the thing that bothers so many people. They'd rather just turn away, pretend it's only others, and so forth. There is a ton of disgust and denial about who we are. We confuse who we aspire to be with our actual state. There may be Ghandis and Jesuses in our midst, but they are an extremely small percentage of the population. We are monkeys that kill things. I agree with the sentiment of your post about the denialism in the modern world, but I slightly disagree that people are one or the other in extreme proportions, I feel like a good analogy is to view those potentials more as phenotypes that can be expressed to varying degrees along side each other (simultaneously), and a phenotype can change from one moment to the next depending on the environment. In other words - I think we are both Gandhi and the violent monkey and many other things. I say this not from philosophical or psychological musings, I say this simply because with the slightest introspection I feel the potential for it all in me simultaneously - there's the part of me that arrogantly "knows" he can be the most bad ass muthafucka alive if needed, and part of me who has a more rationally minded world view and looks down upon mindless and pointless violence, and a great many things in between. > I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Absolutely, I don't think I need to argue this one for any man, but perhaps I can just resonate this: i'm not a very social person, I didn't learn these traits, but I definitely feel the propensity for violence given the right conditions, be it something admirable i.e "protective", or not i.e "vengful". As usual understanding these things rather than rejecting them out of some miss-placed shame of humanity is the correct way to move forward, accept who we are and understand why. Understanding them should gives us the power to either follow or reject the emotion that drives them to be expressed, rather than being led by them blindly like an animal.