TO better understand our own instincts we need only look at nature to discover the root of our primal urges. If we look at animal offspring for example, one might observe that some animal species, lion cubs, wolf pups, and other juvenile animals may appear to be incredibly violent toward one another. This would illustrate where our violent urges may come from, however I believe it goes a little deeper. After all what the pups, cubs or juveniles are doing is not trying to harm one another, but merely playing, they are training and preparing each other for the hardships of life. Humans no doubt probably share that playful instinct, and yet as a society we do not allow children to be so physical. We instead shove video games in front of them, or they desire video games on their own. The most popular videogames of course are the ones with violent actions, thus replacing the playful learning structure that was instinctive. So now our society, not learning the purpose of violence, such as play fighting, sports, or even healthy competition, which is at the root of play and learning, is maladjusted, and easily aggravated. All the aggression that should be vented in play, physical activity, or natural development, is stored up, and only released in harmfully violent outbursts.
This trend I have only observed for Americans, however it does explain a part of human nature. The idea that violence deserves retaliatory violence, when one is struck, one must always strike back. You see it on the streets, when one individual offends another, and an apology would suffice, violence is instead the resort. When America was attacked on September 11th, the blow was so great, and perpetrated by so few, we wanted to retaliate and cause an equal amount of devastation to our attackers. The science of vengeance is not an exact one however, and our violent retaliation only angered more people, not settling the score, but developing more violence. When we dropped those bombs on Afghanistan, and Iraq, there was a social enjoyment, why else would the media cover it so vigorously, and show all the videos they could of the attacks. Our violence fetish, as it were, seems to override our logic. Yes we were attacked, a great injustice was perpetrated, something must be done to correct and punish those responsible, but not by perpetrating another injustice. As I have stated in my previous posts, my fundamental theory describing what is universally immoral, forcing one’s will on another who is unreceptive of it, is the driving force behind all immoral activity. The extremists will was that we were a great evil, and deserved to die, they forced that will on the victims of 911, but then what did we do? The retaliation against Afghanistan may have been justified, the Taliban claimed responsibility and therefore reaped what they sewed by attacking us. It was after this however, when we made it our business to judge who was a terrorist, and who was a freedom fighter, and punish those we judged immoral, forcing our will upon them, when we over stepped our bounds, and increased the unnecessary level of violence in this world.
In conclusion violence is a part of our nature, war is not. It is not immoral to fight when both parties are on equal terms, and understand the consequences of their actions. This is why competitive fighting though violent, can be pure. It is a form of play almost, venting one’s aggression on an adversary who will give you equal treatment, and thus no harm is actually done. War however is immoral violence. Yes armies are made up of those willing, and understanding of the consequence of their actions, but such large scale violence also harms those who are unwilling, and unknowing of what they did to deserve harm. If two sides truly hate each other, or have an insatiable level of aggression toward one another, then they and only they should sort it out, in perhaps a violent, yet non-lethal manner. That way there may still be a victor and so a resolution may be reached, while still venting as much aggression as possible so that hatred may be removed and eventually true peace may occur. This is no grand solution, but a suggestion, if a group must fight, then fight in a manner where learning may be gained as well. TO kill one’s opponent denies that opponent to learn from you, or to be killed denies you that same lesson. This equality in competitive fighting can be seen by the respect shared between fighters after a match. Each fighter can hate each other at the beginning but if both fight with everything they have, though violent, they discover more about each other, and themselves, and thus learning is achieved.
