But, Really... One look at history and all you see is people killing each other off

[MrScorpio]

Yes, it is shocking to see all the carnage.

But we're supposed to be civilized.

What's been happening is just proof that we've got a long, long way to go.

[Hannah Bell]

1. What you mostly see is warfare instigated & organized by elites.

Within communities, murder is the exception, not the rule.

[MrScorpio]

2. It wasn't always exclusive

Remember, this is the country of the wild, wild west and Hatfields and the McCoys.

As long as we've had guns in the country, there's always been one person who've always thought another person needed killin'.

[Hannah Bell]

9. To repeat, the overwhelming majority of murders in history were instigated & organized by elites,

via war.

In the case of the Wild Wild West, it was also the most important causal factor.

The colonization of the US was funded & organized by elites. Much of the immigration of "ordinary" people to the Americas was precipitated by the denial of resources & freedoms by established elites, as was the import of slaves & indentured labor.

The westward expansion was instigated & organized by elites, & a good deal of the violence was directly instigated by elites as well, e.g. various cattle wars, labor wars, etc.

In communities, murder is the exception, not the rule.

[tanyev]

30. I've often wondered how many family murders happened in frontier times.

For people who lived so remotely it would have been easy enough to bury them and say they died of illness or an accident. If anyone ever asked.

[aquart]

6. Yeah, because the proletariat are always kind and gentle.

[Hannah Bell]

11. No one said that. But typically, they don't have the resources to murder hundreds at a time.

The majority of murdering in history has been instigated & organized by the powerful, the rulers, the owning class. Fact.

People with a secure livelihood within a secure community can typically don't murder.

[cali]

14. ridiculous

and your second statement contradicts the first. In the vast majority of societies, those with a secure livelihood and a secure community, are the owning class. Fact.

[Hannah Bell]

21. No contradiction at all. "Secure" being not an absolute, but

a relative term. Threat for me is someone burglarizes my house. Threat for Rockefeller is someone nationalizes an oil field.

[cali]

10. total revisionism.

sorry, the noble people are no different than the elites when it comes to human nature and how humans are hardwired. It's certainly true that organized warfare has been the domain of the elites, but violence itself is not relegated to any one class. That's a completely fallacious presumption with no science to back it up.

[Hannah Bell]

13. No one said anything about wiring, people being different, or any of the extra baggage

you're hauling in.

The fact is, the overwhelming majority of murders in history have been instigated & orchestrated by elites, & the fact is, most people in settled communities with secure livelihoods *don't* murder. Organized warfare is the main venue for murder, not bloodthirsty individuals.

If murder were as *natural* & ubiquitous as you & your friends suggest, we'd never have gotten to six billion.

[cali]

15. fact is, that's bullshit.

first of all, I never said murder was ubiquitous. You are engaging in that tedious occupation of putting words in my mouth. But at times, slaughter and killing is quite common. The fact is YOU present no evidence for your claims. And most historians, anthropologists and scientists, differentiate between killing done in warfare, and murder that takes place within any given social structure. You don't and that's fine, but it's not how the majority of the academic world looks at it.

[Hannah Bell]

18. Fact is, you put words into my mouth, & "hardwired" behavior would logically be "ubiquitous".

[The Traveler]

3. There is a lot more to history than killing

But there sure is a lot of that, too. And we do have a long way to go. Good to know guys like you are along for the hike.

Trav

[MrScorpio]

4. Forty years ago, H. Rap Brown said...

That "Violence is as American as cherry pie".

It's still pretty true.

We're violent in many ways, from the state to the man in the street.


It's not that I condone it, I just admit that we are a very violent society.


Violence is something that goes up and down the ladder.


Even the president

All presidents kill

You become the Prez, you get to kill other people off

It's in the Constitution

[The Traveler]

5. H Rap Brown

was not entirely dim. He often had a sound basis for some of his more provocative statements.

Trav

[1]

7. violence is not an american invention. its a human instinct that goes back before recorded history.

h. rap brown and his ignorant quotes aside...

it will always be with us. you can deny that at your peril, but its in your dna...

[MrScorpio]

8. I didn't say that we invented it

I just say that we own it

[cali]

12. but it sure as hell ain't an exclusive- not even close

if we vanished from the annals of history, humankind would still have exercised violence. And probably not a bit less.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

16. If it were instinctual, most people would do it, like most people have sex.

But the fact is, most people *don't* murder. Most people don't even beat people up.

And rates of violence fluctuate extraodinarily, depending on social conditions, e.g. Columbia's .6 murders per 1000 people to Japan's .004.

[cali]

20. it's a bit more complex than that. Some anthropoligist s and biologists

theorize that violence is triggered by certain environmental factors It's not either/or. It's biological and environmental. But yeah, sorry, violent aggression is absolutely part of the human condition

[Hannah Bell]

22. Most people don't routinely hit, attack, & murder others. If it were the case,

human community could not exist.

[cali]

23. canard. I never said anything about routinely. But I will.

In virtually all human societies, violence exists. That does make it ubiquitous on a societal level.

[Hannah Bell]

26. On a social level, then, insanity is uniquitous, as are bestiality & foot fetishism.

Tokyo has 12 million people & under 150 murders per year (some fraction of which = manslaughter).

New Orleans has less than 500,000 & had 209 murders in 2007.

[cali]

27. you really, really need to educate yourself.

it's pretty pointless to discuss anything with someone who exhibits this kind of ignorance. You're so fastened to blind dogma that you simply don't have the room to think. It's sad.

[Hannah Bell]

29. I'm very well "educated," cali. You, OTOH, can't even keep the terms you use

in the discussion constant.

To make it clear, I've made two claims: that most of the killing we see in history has been instigated & organized by elites, & that most people with a secure source of livelihood don't murder.

So far, nothing anyone's said has refuted the claims.

[cali]

25. you need to educate yourself. human agression is absolutely part of the human

condition. There simply isn't any argument about that in the scientific community. Why we act= or don't act- on violent impulses is a combination of varying factors, some biological and some environmental.

[Hannah Bell]

28. you need to read more carefully, the OP is about "killing": & makes this claim: "all you see is

killing" in history.

aggression & killing - not synonymous.

[bird gerhl]

17. History is little more...

than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. ~ Gibbon

[cali]

24. indeed. and welcome to DU!

:hi: