A humanities class has inspired me to post in the D&D to try and spark some intelligent debate, as I am in college and a lot of the kids I'm conversing with are just now learning their ideals, so it's hard to spark the best debates. So here's a question I wanted to see multiple views that are backed up by experience, evidence, anecdotes etc. Are we as humans inherently violent? I believe that we are. It's obvious when you see young children fighting with each other, or even babies seemingly being angry. If you've ever been in a fight, you feel that adrenaline rush and your body supports it, as if fighting is as vital as eating or surviving (which it is in many cases). Many argue that we a nurtured into violence, that we are peaceful creatures. What say you?
We're as violent as we need to be to survive. http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html So no, we're not violent by nature, as the trend is carrying us towards absolute peace.
Don't have time to watch the video but I'll take a look later on. That said, I think I'd replace 'survive' with 'prosper' (though the subjective nature of prosperity complicates things).
I haven't watched the video but this pretty much sums it up. Evolutionarily we are hardwired for violence since in the struggle for survival violence is frequently necessary. Also our close relatives chimpanzees are very very violent and engage in war and murder often seemingly for fun. Evolution though isn't destiny and as a species overall we have it within ourselves to control, or at least channel, violence.
Violence is a very useful tool. We're violent because violence can be a tool for accomplishing our goals. In today's society, violence is discouraged, even when it is justified because the state wants to maintain a monopoly on it's use. This is the social contract. The social contract is broken when the state can no longer monopolize violence. The strain on that contract is always there, as evidenced by criminals and criminal groups striving to use violence for their own ends, but fluctuates depending on the state of society.
I don't think emotions of anger and rage necessarily needs to be mutual with "violent" acts. When you get "pissed off" hippies act like you're out of control when its not the case. And humans have ways of still being sick and twisted with a straight docile face. For instance, don't need violence to have a "big brother" surveillance society. But its still odd and unsafe on liberties though its not physically violent. There's still things to fear (maybe fear itself) outside of violence. Does absense of violence and volatile emotions actually mean more peace? Long way of saying, yes its about channeling it into things instead of on each other. We're born with it, and its not cool in my opinion to 'drug' the emotions out of people either.
