Musings on war and human nature

This past weekend I caught the beginning of an episode of Radio Lab, the NPR show, featuring one of my science journalist heroes, John Horgan, asking whether war will ever end.

Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He took to the streets of Hoboken to survey passers by whether they thought war would ever end once and for all. Only about 10 percent of the people he surveyed expressed optimism that war would ever end. When asked why, people chalked it up to our “human nature” to be aggressive.

Part of what I want to do with this blog is to point out examples of unquestioned, unarticulated values and beliefs masquerading as science or as Truth. In this case, the idea of a human nature has little to do with carefully considered logic and everything to do with whether people can accept the possibility of change.

Horgan wrote an article for Discover magazine in which he works to undercut some of our ingrained belief that war is a part of human nature. Here’s one juicy bit:

Environmental conditions can also override biology among baboons, who, much like chimpanzees, seem hardwired for aggression. Since early 1978, [biologist Robert] Sapolsky has traveled to Kenya to spy on baboons, including Forest Troop, a group living near a tourist lodge’s garbage dump. Because they had to fight baboons from another troop over the scraps of food, only the toughest males of Forest Troop frequented the dump. In the mid-1980s, all these males died after contracting tuberculosis from contaminated meat.

The epidemic left Forest Troop with many more females than males, and the remaining males were far less pugnacious. Conflict within the troop dropped dramatically; Sapolsky even observed adult males grooming each other. This, he points out in an article in Foreign Affairs, is “nearly as unprecedented as baboons sprouting wings.” The sea change has persisted through the present, as male adolescents who join the troop adapt to its mores. “Is a world of peacefully coexisting human Forest Troops possible?” Sapolsky asks. “Anyone who says, ‘No, it is beyond our nature,’ knows too little about primates, including ourselves.”

And further:

[Anthropologist Douglas] Fry believes that empowering females may reduce the rate of violence committed within and by a nation. He notes that in Finland—which has a low rate of crime and violence compared with other developed countries—a majority of the cabinet ministers and more than 40 percent of the members of Parliament are women. “I don’t see this as a panacea,” Fry adds, recalling “iron lady” Margaret Thatcher, “but there are good reasons for having a balance of the more caring sex in government.”

For those who see no end to war, a more defensible position might be that *conflict* will never end so long as we exist. War and violence are specific responses to conflict, as are peace and mercy. The question is how to activate those latter qualities, especially in light of climate change, which is bound to increase conflicts over rights to water and other natural resources.