> 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 b

> 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. Somehow this feels right, although that's just intuition on my part. I've just started reading Robert Sapolsky's book, Behave, and this is how he frames his study of human biology. Around violence. From the introduction: We are always shadowed by the threat of other humans harming us. If that were solely the way things are, violence would be an easy problem to approach intellectually. AIDS--unambiguously bad news--eradicate. Alzheimer's disease--same thing. Schizophrenia, cancer, malnutrition, flesh-eating bacteria, global warming, comets hitting earth--ditto. The problem, though, is that violence doesn't go on that list. Sometimes we have no problem with it at all. This is the central point of this book--we don't hate violence.