Steve - there is something going on here that begs a closer look. White-Christian culture is undeniably and uniquely barbaric e.g. the inquisition, colonialism, slavery, racism, executions, assassinations, genocide, torture, nuclear bombs, concentration camps, drone warfare, mass-incarceration and violent and aggressive policing at hom…
Steve - there is something going on here that begs a closer look. White-Christian culture is undeniably and uniquely barbaric e.g. the inquisition, colonialism, slavery, racism, executions, assassinations, genocide, torture, nuclear bombs, concentration camps, drone warfare, mass-incarceration and violent and aggressive policing at home and abroad.
Nonetheless, people like Will, are trying to justify, explain or excuse this barbaric behaviour by insisting violent aggression is an innate or universal human trait. Will supports his views by writing:
“Humans have in-group preference and out-group hostility.”
“Ask any three year old if they hate black people or Jews or foreigners”
I disagree with Will. If violent aggression was a universal human trait, we would all be psychopaths, sociopaths, serial killers, and serial rapists. The innate human response is to protect ourselves from these people – not become one. In fact, our brains automatically enable self-defense by releasing chemicals that prepare our bodies for fight, flight or freeze. That said, protecting ourselves from violent aggression, often requires violent behaviour – might this explain the tendency to conflate them?
Historically, peaceable and sociable people kept the human race thriving on this earth by passing these innate traits to their children. The reason is as simple as it is obvious. We, humans can live in isolation and quite happily too. But we cannot produce children without societies. And human societies cannot survive without their youngest, healthiest and strongest members.
When it comes to making babies, nature advantages the young and healthy. As we age our egg and sperm production weakens. Men’s “shooting” power weakens as they age, until it’s barely a dribbled droplet. It’s like nature maintains a sperm bank, in case of necessity, but ensures only the strongest and healthiest sperm can make it to an egg by reducing the shooting power. Growing a child is so physically taxing on a woman’s body, nature protects societal health by ending menstruation. In other words, women are too valuable to functional societies to risk their lives on child bearing any longer than necessary.
So too, soldiers cannot stop fighting and go the grocery store and make themselves three meals a day. Soldiers depend on peaceable and sociable people to feed, water, clothe and shelter them. Harder still, violence often triggers violent and aggressive gene expression, leaving soldiers struggling to adapt, when they return to peaceful, social life.
I suspect this is the reason, that the majority of people do not carry the gene that expresses itself in violent and aggressive behaviour. Moreover, this gene rarely expresses itself – at all. Since most people live in safe and secure societies, people live their entire lives never suspecting that they carry a genetic tendency for deviant behaviour. Even if someone with this gene encounters a hostile – or deviant environment – somewhere between conception and age 15, the same gene will express itself as prosocial behaviour or violent and aggressive behaviour. That is the reason that two siblings, with this genetic trait, raised in the same home, by the same people exhibit opposite behaviours – one is a peacemaker, the other is violent and aggressive.
Just as violence and aggression are deviant behaviours, so too are the environments they build. Unfortunately, white-Christian culture has a long history of constructing islands of hostile environments for its unwanted populations. Today, we call these islands ghettos, prisons, plantations and work, concentration, internment, and refugee camps. Sadly, guarding these islands of despair, further stimulates violent and aggressive gene expression in white-Christians. Today, for example, police officers and prison guards have the highest rate of domestic abuse of any job.
The same deviant conditions long observed in islands of poverty, are present in islands of wealth in equal measure, including, neglect and financial, physical, mental, sexual and/or emotional abuse of parents, family members, siblings and/or caregivers, and the constant insecurity of unrealistic and developmentally incorrect expectations that triggers disordered, or deviant personalities. That is the reason, we see generations of children from wealthy families who exhibit deviant behaviours common to personality disorders e.g. narcissism, conduct disorder and anti-social personality disorder (aka psychopaths).
Unfortunately, white-Christian culture appears to have cultivated deviant behaviour rather than weeding out it out of their societies.
People like Will, often claim white-Christians are the source of human progress. Wrong again. Violent and aggressive people are destroyers (not builders). Warriors did not invent gunpowder or discover nuclear fission. Soldiers did not discover electricity or invent computers. Fighters did not invent automobiles or libraries. Violent and aggressive people lack the qualities necessary to invent, create, study, teach or conduct research. In fact, the first thing they do when they meet peaceable and sociable people is kill their creatives and inventors and seize everything of value they can carry, then destroy everything they’ve built.
Human progress depends on peaceable and sociable traits that enable people to focus on specific tasks over long periods of time – often a lifetime. Equally important, human progress depends on nurturing environments, e.g., safe homes and communities where people maintain libraries, schools, labs, hospitals, etcetera.
Again, self-defense is a universal human trait. However, the level of violence required for self-defense is a measure of deviant’s, violent and aggressive behaviour – not those defending themselves against it
Steve - there is something going on here that begs a closer look. White-Christian culture is undeniably and uniquely barbaric e.g. the inquisition, colonialism, slavery, racism, executions, assassinations, genocide, torture, nuclear bombs, concentration camps, drone warfare, mass-incarceration and violent and aggressive policing at home and abroad.
Nonetheless, people like Will, are trying to justify, explain or excuse this barbaric behaviour by insisting violent aggression is an innate or universal human trait. Will supports his views by writing:
“Humans have in-group preference and out-group hostility.”
“Ask any three year old if they hate black people or Jews or foreigners”
I disagree with Will. If violent aggression was a universal human trait, we would all be psychopaths, sociopaths, serial killers, and serial rapists. The innate human response is to protect ourselves from these people – not become one. In fact, our brains automatically enable self-defense by releasing chemicals that prepare our bodies for fight, flight or freeze. That said, protecting ourselves from violent aggression, often requires violent behaviour – might this explain the tendency to conflate them?
Historically, peaceable and sociable people kept the human race thriving on this earth by passing these innate traits to their children. The reason is as simple as it is obvious. We, humans can live in isolation and quite happily too. But we cannot produce children without societies. And human societies cannot survive without their youngest, healthiest and strongest members.
When it comes to making babies, nature advantages the young and healthy. As we age our egg and sperm production weakens. Men’s “shooting” power weakens as they age, until it’s barely a dribbled droplet. It’s like nature maintains a sperm bank, in case of necessity, but ensures only the strongest and healthiest sperm can make it to an egg by reducing the shooting power. Growing a child is so physically taxing on a woman’s body, nature protects societal health by ending menstruation. In other words, women are too valuable to functional societies to risk their lives on child bearing any longer than necessary.
So too, soldiers cannot stop fighting and go the grocery store and make themselves three meals a day. Soldiers depend on peaceable and sociable people to feed, water, clothe and shelter them. Harder still, violence often triggers violent and aggressive gene expression, leaving soldiers struggling to adapt, when they return to peaceful, social life.
I suspect this is the reason, that the majority of people do not carry the gene that expresses itself in violent and aggressive behaviour. Moreover, this gene rarely expresses itself – at all. Since most people live in safe and secure societies, people live their entire lives never suspecting that they carry a genetic tendency for deviant behaviour. Even if someone with this gene encounters a hostile – or deviant environment – somewhere between conception and age 15, the same gene will express itself as prosocial behaviour or violent and aggressive behaviour. That is the reason that two siblings, with this genetic trait, raised in the same home, by the same people exhibit opposite behaviours – one is a peacemaker, the other is violent and aggressive.
Just as violence and aggression are deviant behaviours, so too are the environments they build. Unfortunately, white-Christian culture has a long history of constructing islands of hostile environments for its unwanted populations. Today, we call these islands ghettos, prisons, plantations and work, concentration, internment, and refugee camps. Sadly, guarding these islands of despair, further stimulates violent and aggressive gene expression in white-Christians. Today, for example, police officers and prison guards have the highest rate of domestic abuse of any job.
The same deviant conditions long observed in islands of poverty, are present in islands of wealth in equal measure, including, neglect and financial, physical, mental, sexual and/or emotional abuse of parents, family members, siblings and/or caregivers, and the constant insecurity of unrealistic and developmentally incorrect expectations that triggers disordered, or deviant personalities. That is the reason, we see generations of children from wealthy families who exhibit deviant behaviours common to personality disorders e.g. narcissism, conduct disorder and anti-social personality disorder (aka psychopaths).
Unfortunately, white-Christian culture appears to have cultivated deviant behaviour rather than weeding out it out of their societies.
People like Will, often claim white-Christians are the source of human progress. Wrong again. Violent and aggressive people are destroyers (not builders). Warriors did not invent gunpowder or discover nuclear fission. Soldiers did not discover electricity or invent computers. Fighters did not invent automobiles or libraries. Violent and aggressive people lack the qualities necessary to invent, create, study, teach or conduct research. In fact, the first thing they do when they meet peaceable and sociable people is kill their creatives and inventors and seize everything of value they can carry, then destroy everything they’ve built.
Human progress depends on peaceable and sociable traits that enable people to focus on specific tasks over long periods of time – often a lifetime. Equally important, human progress depends on nurturing environments, e.g., safe homes and communities where people maintain libraries, schools, labs, hospitals, etcetera.
Again, self-defense is a universal human trait. However, the level of violence required for self-defense is a measure of deviant’s, violent and aggressive behaviour – not those defending themselves against it