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1. HeavenlyPossum (heavenlypossum@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Sep-2023 18:33:44 UTC HeavenlyPossum

   in reply to

   Violence is, unfortunately, endemic to the human species. Some people interpret this to mean something like “human history is the history of war,” or something to that effect. Yet the vast majority of people do not engage in violence.

   In “The Banality of Ethnic War,” John Mueller notes that we often envision conflict as “a war of all against all and neighbor against neighbor—a condition in which pretty much everyone in one […] group becomes the ardent, dedicated, and murderous enemy of everyone in another group.” In reality, he argues, war is “substantially a condition in which a mass of essentially mild, ordinary people can unwillingly and in considerable bewilderment come under the vicious and arbitrary control of small groups of armed thugs.”

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   • HeavenlyPossum (heavenlypossum@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Sep-2023 18:33:45 UTC HeavenlyPossum

     Consider to the Khoisan-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, whose ancestors likely were the first anatomically modern humans to enter the Kalahari Desert region 150,000 years ago.

     While interpersonal violence does occur among these communities, group violence is essentially unknown. That means these bands of foragers lived without war or conquest for more time than I can wrap my mind around.

     If Haudenosaunee expansionism can define tribal society and suggest a universal human violence, why cannot the total absence of war and conquest among the Khoisan define the human experience?

     https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoisan

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