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I don't understand why that's toxic. Striving, struggle, and violence are critical for any living thing to survive. Short of reaching post-scarcity, this can'
by alex_sf 4y ago
I don't understand why that's toxic. Striving, struggle, and violence are critical for any living thing to survive. Short of reaching post-scarcity, this can't change.
If we define toxic as harmful, then violence is the opposite. It's the only reason we have civilization.
- fwip 4y agoCooperation, not violence, is the reason for civilization.
- scandox 4y agoI think possibly cooperation and violence. Or even cooperation for the purpose of enhanced violence.
- dotgov 4y agoWhat if both are?
- alex_sf 4y agoCooperation is certainly critical, violence is what allows for it to take place. You can build a utopian commune, but if your neighbors want your crops you would be wise to get a weapon.
- umeshunni 4y agoCooperation within the group and violence outside the group.
- wsc981 4y agoPerhaps a bit of both. > So before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel. - “The Haj” by Leon Uris Perhaps applies to other cultures as well. After all, the Western world is now struggling against Russia and tries to define “us versus them” through this struggle.
- refurb 4y agoPretty much this. Humans are not peaceful by nature. And when one group of humans want something another group of humans don’t want them to have, violence is the ultimate option to solving that conflict. Thankfully many countries see the cost of solving conflict through violence and seek to avoid it, but it’s always there.
- michaelchisari 4y ago| Humans are not peaceful by nature You can't make a broad sweeping generalization like this. There have been so many peaceful, even pacifist civilizations throughout history. That they have been wiped out or dominated by the violent ones is a valid historical point, but it doesn't disprove that human "nature" can just as easily be peaceful, given the right conditions. Failing to protect yourself from external violent pressure is not the same as intrinsic nature. The only strict statement about human nature that we can confidently make is that we are extraordinarily adaptive to and malleable by the conditions we live under.
- alex_sf 4y agoThat's semantics imo. If pacifism results in extinction, then any revision of human nature that involves it is irrelevant. Humans don't exist without violence.
- michaelchisari 4y agoIt's not semantics at all. "Human nature" implies a universal, inherent state. If we have peaceful, pacifist civilizations regularly cropping up throughout history, then saying that human nature is violence just simply isn't true. It doesn't matter if the violent civilizations come to dominate. That the peaceful societies exist at all (let alone are abundant and common) means that argument falls apart.
- alex_sf 4y ago> universal, inherent state It's not a universal, inherent state in any humans that survive. It's an aberration. That being said, I'm not actually aware of any of these abundant/common peaceful/pacifist societies you're referencing. It's entirely possible I'm ignorant of them, but I'm suspicious that they weren't actually 'peaceful'. Can you name a few of them?
- chriscappuccio 4y agoPost-scarcity is not (ever going to be) reality