Is Warfare in Nature of Man? Essay

contend has al steerings been a companion of man and a image of human existence. In the human explanation save few eld fork over been absolutely peaceful when all sights of the globe lived in association or at least without remainders. Already the fist weapons, invented by man, could be used as weapons of contend. So guard fundament be called an arrogate of humans same as mind, or ability to walk on two legs. A question whether force is caused by inborn or tender determinants is, perhaps, as old as history. Once to a greater extent it has been communicate by Marg bet Meade in her contendf ar An Invention Not a biologic Necessity.She argues, that primitive indigenous societies have no approximation of state of state of war and puts in the Eskimos as example. So she believes, that war is a matter of social existence and humans have invented war in the course history just as they invented a wheel. Under Meade, humans have no inborn tendency to war and there be no accusive factors for a war to arise. War as she puts it, is a method invented to split bookings, equal to other(a) differences resolution methods much(prenominal) as courts and negotiations.This paper is to battle such position and prove, that war is in fact in the personality of man and it is inevitable for man, so it is impossible to speak of war as of invention. It will review rough of Meades arguments and evaluate them using donnish papers, that disagree with Meads position. The final thesis of the paper is that WAR IN HUMAN SOCIETIES IS PRECONDITIONED BY BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL DETERMINANTS. War her plunder non be comp bed to other methods of conflict resolution, because it is non, or at least not only a method to resolve conflicts.War is a phenomena which exists as itself and does not emergence from necessity to cope with certain misunderstanding. References to well-nigh fragments of Meads paper shall be used in forming arguments against her scheme. First and scoop up it is necessary to determine the subject and find out what is war. Meade offers the following explanation create conflict between two groups as groups, in which separately group puts an army ( level(p) if the army is only fifteen Pygmies) in the field of study to fight and kill, if possible, some of the members of the army of the other group . The key pronounce here is conflict.War is usually defined as an organised form of conflicts between groups. Usually such groups are represented by societies or communities, most often by great deals and nations. In his brilliant War Before Civilization professor Lawrence H. Keeley has calculated that 90-95% of peoples communities were once engaged to war in this or that stylus and many of them fought constantly . Whether war has been invented or not, those numbers suggest, that war is more usual than peace for humans. And all those wars have been caused by conflicts. In this respect war is a result of conflict and its embod iment solely not the conflict itself.So, in commit to find out what war is it is necessary to find out what conflict is and what causes it. For this paper we shall use the following definition conflict is a disagree between take interests and values of people or between interests, needs and values of a person and the surrounding . War is a conflict between groups, so in this paper we shall speak mostly rough conflicts between people, although it is often impossible to clearly distinguish them. At that impairment war and conflict should not be confused, because in this paper we apply that war is not a form of conflict.War is not a discord itself, it is a result of discord, which is going to be discussed later. Scholars have proposed a number of theories to explain reasons of conflict resulting in war. They include psychological, evolutionary, sociological, anthropological, rationalist and other ones. Advocates of psychological theories such as E. F. M. Durban and John Bowlby ar gue that violence is hereditary by man. The society oppresses violence as an inacceptable form of behavior. So war is an outlet valve for infixed human violence.In order to justify native violence people use to invent ideologies as causes for war. Some of the militarists steady argue that peace does not exist at all and that what seems to be peace is nothing barely a preparation to the next war period . Historical theories explain that wars result from certain conditions and are akin(predicate) to traffic accidents. However, there are no rules to limit them and no trunk to predict them. However, social scientists criticize those theories stating that in most wars there are leaders who take a final decision about war, so wars shtup not be recognized purely accidental .However, it kitty be noticed, that decisions of leaders are taken mostly as a result of certain blushts and warlike leaders can hardly propose people go to war, if they are strongly against fighting. Anthropo logical theorists, which Margaret Meade stands most miserly to, argue that war has appeared at some stage of civilization development, so war is culturally learned. Anthropologists reject the presence of links between varied forms of violence, so war can not be compared to fighting animals or similar conflicts. War under the result of popular pressure, but it is caused merely by violent leaders .However, a question arises once again. If war is not in nature of man, how does war come to the nature of a leader? Sociologists have been interested in war since the early days of sociology, so they have developed their own sociological theories. Eckart Kehr and Hans-Ulrich Wehler pointed that war is a result of internationalized inner tensions wrong the society, and the target for aggression is determined by international stance. So the basis for war is sparing, policy-making and social lieu inside a fellowship.In contrast, Carl von Clausewitz and Leopold von Ranke, who are also said to be advocates of sociological theories, argue, that war results from decision of statesmen, who react to certain situation in this or that way . This argument stands close to anthropological approach. There are several demographic theories about war. Malthusian theories speak that wars are caused by disproportion between growing population and lack of resources for this population. To solve the problem the confederacy starts an expansion which results in war with the neighbors.Youth Bulge theory is more sophisticated. Under it, when a society includes a number of young and physically able young males who cant find an occupation for themselves inside the community, those young men will fight for fortune outside the community . This phenomenon can be easily found in medieval Europe, where young sons of the nobility had to leave their fathers estate, which must have been hereditary only by the older son. No difference how they called themselves Vikings, Crusaders or conquist adors, they went to upstage lands to shake off war.Most of them just died, thusly solving the problem of young sons, and some of them did receive a reward in form of money, new-made lands and glory. Evolutionary psychology theories see war as a result of evolving psychological features, including fear of being attacked and beliefs that only war can make people happy or ensure their future. This includes fear, that another group of people can be dangerous, that another group can be aggravated to conflict, assertion, that other group is immoral or sinful or inherently evil, so it should be punished.Under this theory, the decision to make war can hardly be rational, and is often taken out of fear or hate . The rationalist theories assume, that both sides of conflicts have potential reasons for war which can be understood and logically predicted. Each side strives to obtain the best possible result with minimal losses. In subject area both parties could reasonably predict the outco me it would be better for them just to accept the results of war without suffering its losses. War requires both sides to accept risk. In case the desire to fight a war is stronger than fear of risk, the war is promising to emerge.Entering the war each party needs to evaluate its readiness to attack and its readiness to be attacked. Under the frugal theories war results from economic competition and in peruse for new markets and natural resources. Another possible reason is defense of existing markets and trade roots. And thirdly a war may be caused by the desire of poor people countries to benefit from plundering the rich countries . Other schools include Marxist and political science theories, however, their concepts of war remain undeveloped. It should be noted, that a single theory of war can hardly be created.Each particular war is explained by its own reasons. Colonial wars are explained by economic theories, and the conquests of Genghis Khan fall under anthropological and demographic theories. An overview has been provided not to pick out the best theory, but to find out how each theory supports or contradicts the thesis of Margaret Meade and the thesis of this paper. Meade argues, that since there are peoples, which are unfamiliar with the topic of war itself, even defensive war, it is necessary to speak of war as invention. She states that The CASE FOR warfare is much clearer because there are peoples even like a shot who have no warfare.Of these the Eskimos are perhaps the most conspicuous examples, but the Lepchas of Sikkim described by Geoffrey Gorer in Himalayan Village are as good. Neither of these peoples understands war, not even defensive warfare. The idea of warfare is lacking, and this idea is as essential to really carrying on war as an rudiment or a syllabary is to writing . Under Meade, war is s ort of response to particular events in peoples tradition. War is a traditional way of settling conflicts in most of the world, and for s ome people it is not a traditional method, so they just do not know what is war.Meades point appears to be vague simply because of lack of actual evidence. She speaks, that some people do not know about war, but the only people she manages to demonstrate as proof are the Eskimos. Perhaps it is not a proof, but an exception that proves the opposite argument. And the argument is, that all peoples fight war, except for Eskimos, and this means, that Eskimos are unusual and they break a mutual rule. And the common rule is that war is an attribute of man. The described theories summarize different factors, but in total it should be concluded, that war is a response to the situation of conflict.This conflict can be demographic (lack of territory for the population), economic (fighting for markets) or evolutional (hate to others). Of course, there is an anthropological theory, which asserts, that for some reason peoples, which are originally peaceful, shortly start to support violent lead ers, but this theory fails to explain the reasons for such support and origin of violent leaders themselves. All the reasons for war mentioned in the theories reflect usual human reactions to conflicts. When a person has nothing to eat, he or she is likely to steal. When an entire people has nothing to eat, it will fight for food with the neighbors.When a person believes, that his neighbor is an awful criminal, he or she is likely to attack the neighbor in case he approaches, even if he came to say hello. When an entire people believes, that other people is insane, a war between those peoples is likely to emerge. This analogy can be applied to each and every theory. In the light of this it is necessary to particularly consider new sorts of war economic war and terrorist war. Economic wars are ideally explained by economic theories. They are fought for resources and markets. However, they include unfriendly actions and acts of violence.They may have casualties. So they are wars foug ht in other way. Terroristic wars are even more obvious case. They are fought under instructions of charismatic leaders and with concrete purposes, explained by theories of war. Reasons for the new sorts of war are same as for the old ones. They are results of conflicts. Upon separation of conflict and the resulting war, war becomes characterized as a response to the conflict. When groups of people find no other acceptable way to resolve the conflict, they turn to war. And the more organized the community is, the more organized its warfare is.This conflict is violent, because human nature is violent. This means not that violence is necessary for a man, but that violence is available for a man, and man often uses violence. It is just a part of our nature, whether we want it or not. In case it was not true, there would not be no fights of the streets and wars between peoples. But it is true, and non-violence in the society is more unusual, than violence. As short as it is understood, that war is a VIOLENT METHOD OF RESOLVING CONFLICTS amongst GROUPS OF PEOPLE it becomes obvious, that war is a natural state for a man.It has not been invented, it existed just as long, as man existed. The war took more tangled forms, but it remained war. This does not mean, that wars are desirable, surely they are to be avoided at all costs. But even in case all wars are once finished this would not mean, that the war disappears. It will just not be used, but it will continue to exist inside us. whole caboodle cited1. Margaret Meade, Warfare is only an invention not a biological necessity. interpreted from http//www. ppu. org. uk/learn/infodocs/st_invention. html (last viewed October 16, 2007)2. Lawrence H. Keeley. War Before Civilization, Oxford University Press, 1996 3. Ashley Montagu, The Nature of Human Aggression, Oxford University Press, 1976 4. Azar Gat. War in Human Civilization, Oxford University Press, 2006 5. Fuller Gary The Demographic Backdrop to Ethnic divergence A Geographic Overwiew, in CIA (Ed. ) The Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to subject area and International Order in the 1990s, Washington 1995 6. Powell Robert. Bargaining theory and International Conflict. Annual Review of Political Science 5 1-30, 2002