![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans
for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be
limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI
all over again?
    (3783 previous messages)
rshowalter
- 09:35am May 13, 2001 EST (#3784
of 3800) 
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Dawn Riley and I did a thread on your point, Almarst -- maybe
you only want to look at these few words -- but we tried to carry
the matter farther -- and think the issue matters for
peacemaking.
Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human
goodness? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0
"Looking at the world, there are so many cases of "unthinkable"
and "unexplainable" evil and negligence, that the mind and heart
recoils. People recall such behavior among the Nazis, and recoil, as
well they might. How could "civilized, aesthetically sensitive,
cultured people" ALSO act so monstrously, and with such clear and
sophisticated murderous intent.
"But is this behavior so strange? Or is it the NATURAL state of
people, dealing with outsiders, outsiders who they naturally
dehumanize, and deal with as heartless, exploitive predators? Is it
civilization and mercy that are the "unnatural" things - the things
that have to be taught, and negotiated into being, and strived for?
"I'm coming to think that it is just as natural for people to
act "inhumanly" - that is cruelly, and in a dehumanizing way,
towards OUTSIDERS, as it is natural for people to act warmly, and
with accommodation and mutual support, for people WITHIN their
group.
b"I'm coming to the view that, just as there is an instinct for
language, and an instinct for becoming a part of a group, inborn in
humans, there is an instinct to exclude outsiders, to dehumanize
them, to withhold cooperation from them, and to treat them as
animals, subject to manipulation an predation. I'm coming to believe
that this treatment of outsiders is an instinctive species
characteristic, evolved over the millions of years when people lived
as gatherers and team hunters.
"If this is true, we all have the basic instincts to be kind,
sensitive, and good, within our groups, but at the same time are
naturally "monsters" in our behavior toward outsiders.
"If this is right, the role of civilization is to find ways of
peace and effective cooperation where isolation, conflict,
duplicity, and merciless manipulation, including murder, might
otherwise occur.
*****
Just for emphasis, let me repeat something I've come to believe
very strongly:
A major and essential role of civilization is to
find ways of peace and effective cooperation where
isolation, conflict, duplicity, and merciless manipulation,
including murder, might otherwise occur.
rshowalter
- 09:58am May 13, 2001 EST (#3785
of 3800)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
I dealt with Steve Kline's complexity theory in the following NYT
Missile Defense posts. People can be both good and bad, and
we need to arrange things so that we don't see them at their worst.
And that takes discipline, and the rule of law, and sometimes force.
There are plenty of valid reasons to keep militaries in business.
But balance is necessary.
1127: rshowalter
3/17/01 5:06pm ... 1128: rshowalter
3/17/01 5:31pm
1131: rshowalter
3/17/01 6:02pm ... 1132: rshowalter
3/17/01 6:10pm
1133: rshowalter
3/17/01 6:13pm ... 1134: rshowalter
3/17/01 6:17pm
almarst-2001
- 10:36am May 13, 2001 EST (#3786
of 3800)
rshowalter
5/13/01 9:35am
"I'm coming to think that it is just as natural for people to
act "inhumanly" - that is cruelly, and in a dehumanizing way,
towards OUTSIDERS, as it is natural for people to act warmly, and
with accommodation and mutual support, for people WITHIN their
group."
True. But the crucial question to ask is How the "group" is
defined?
After all, we as a human being have much more in common then
distinct. And the differences of a basic human nature within and
between any random sample will not be that significant around the
world.
Therefore it takes a "skill" of a shrwed magamaniacal politician,
the demagog, the media manipulators, the propaganda masters, the
money and organisation to "make the enemies" from the ordinary
people so much so they will be willing to kill each other before
having even a chance to discover they are no different. All for the
benefit of the few.
To wake an Evil in an ordinary person, much greater Evil is
needed.
And the Western Civilization in particular was able to produce
such of plenty.
rshowalter
- 10:41am May 13, 2001 EST (#3787
of 3800)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
You're saying something important. I'll respond within 90
minutes.
almarst-2001
- 11:41am May 13, 2001 EST (#3788
of 3800)
Robert,
Here is in my view another interesting paradox:
The need to wage an "ethical" warfare from the "high moral
ground", initially invented, in my view, by the Cristianity, denies
the solders even the smallest benefit from the participation in the
war.
To motivate the solgers in this condition, an
ideological/religious/dehumanised/monstrous enemy and the culture of
the glorification of the warier was needed and created.
However, unlike the fighting for the material benefits which has
its clear and logical conclusion and the end as well as a clear
sense of the cost-benefit in mind of every actual participant on the
ground, the new "morality" has to portrate the "enemy" as an
ethernal one, worth of and due to total extermination.
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