from "Dark Nature" by Lyall Watson.
Watson, Lyall. 1995. "Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil." New York: HarperCollins.
147 -- The fact that that humans are, on occasion, both aggressive and violent presents the Asmat with no problem and requires no heart-searching or remorse. They have stereotyped and ritualized such tendencies, allowing them full and satisfying play in headhunting, while at the same time resolving a pressing environmental problem. Without denying their nature, they seem to have found a way of using it to their own advantage. I have never been amongst people more consistently good-nauted, or less prone to unregualted personal violence. By giving aggression a socially approved form, a license to practice, with rules an appropriate displays, they have hit on a very effective strategy. Another of the universal by which our species may be recognized is our love of such regulation and ritual. And given half a chance, as in headhunting or football, we are often quite content to minimize killing or aggression in favor of its alternative--the ritual display.
164 - One survey of 130 social systems found just six that could be described as peaceful in the sense that they were not involved in collective violence and provided no special role for warriors. And at least one of these sic ought to be excluded on the grounds that feudlike killings sometimes take place. The numbers involved may be small, but for a population of "peaceful" !Kung Bushmen in which twenty-two such deaths have been reported, this is a high percentage, as high as any recorded for homicides in our "violent" societies.
169 -- War, despite what the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz might have believed, is not just a continuation of policy by other means. War represents a major change in human history, a shift
170 - from hostility to something far more organized and more lethal. A venture beyond what American anthropologist and cavalryman Harry Turney-High has called "the military horizon."
[. . .] Making it quite clear that primitive man already had blood on his hands, but also pointing out that none of this mattered when it came to looking for the origins of our current military and political systems. The state, he suggested, only emerged when society moved from primitive conflict to something quite different, to what he called "true" or "modern" war. The transition took place, he concluded, with the appearance of an army under the orders of appointed officers. Then, and only then, was it possible for a state to come into being [. . .]
There is a simple functional difference between Yanomamo skirmishes and Zulu war, between Asmat raids and campaigns of the Austro-Hungarian army. The Yanomamo and the Asmat are interested in women and food, in simple resources; and their conflicts, while undoubtably bloddy, are strictly and severely curtained by ritual and custom
172 -- Pastoralists had the military advantages of polished cooperative hunting routines, a familiarity with the techniques of slaughter, and an unsentimental attitude toward their flocks.
173 - [. . .] rugged footsoldiers who were also farmers of small holdings they could not afford to leave for too long. They favored settling matters as quickly and decisively as possible. So it was through and for them that the Greek phalanx--a tightly massed rank that fought in a very narrow field--came into being, producing a terrifying, short-lived clash of bodies and weapons at the closest possible range. This, for the first time ever, was war without quarter, battle without ceremony, in which flags and uniforms counted for nothing. It was cutthroat and back-stab conflict, hand to hand, hard and short, with a swift follow-up designed to dispatch the wounded and to lay waste to the land.
Such fighting, face to face, with death-dealing weapons and without restraint, defies nature. There was no precedent for it in human or natural history, and no possible defense in Persian ranks accustomed to more procrastinated conflict, in which ritual and restraint were as common and time-consuming as actual combat.
283 - I have [. . .] looked closely at some of these [Satanic] cults and their
284 - rites, and have to say that most represent nothing more than desperate and misdirected attempts to find some personal significance; to create some sense of belonging, in otherwise very dreary lives. They appear, I believe, largely as an artifact of a western religious and ethical tradition that insists incorrectly on condemning everything that seems antisocial, and consigning it automatically to the realm of evil.
285 - Genes are the enemy only when their selfishness interferes with greater happiness. Evil is undesirable only when it prevents us from being as good as we can be. Trying to rid the world of genetic or evil influences is impossible and as pointless as trying to keep weeds out of a garden. A "weed," anyway, is little more than a flower that happends to be growing in the wrong place. [. . .]
Gardeners choose, as we all must, from a catalog of options; letting these selections be acted upon in turn by weather, nature and a little judicious pruning. [. . .] We give a little, take a little, try to find the best accommodation we can between mindless biological pressures and thoughtful cultural restraints. Most ordinary, decent people succeed in reaching some kind of compromise, but the fact remains that it is exactly such people, those like you and me, who have in this century alone been beguiled into the massacre of well over 100 million other ordinary, decent people.
147 -- The fact that that humans are, on occasion, both aggressive and violent presents the Asmat with no problem and requires no heart-searching or remorse. They have stereotyped and ritualized such tendencies, allowing them full and satisfying play in headhunting, while at the same time resolving a pressing environmental problem. Without denying their nature, they seem to have found a way of using it to their own advantage. I have never been amongst people more consistently good-nauted, or less prone to unregualted personal violence. By giving aggression a socially approved form, a license to practice, with rules an appropriate displays, they have hit on a very effective strategy. Another of the universal by which our species may be recognized is our love of such regulation and ritual. And given half a chance, as in headhunting or football, we are often quite content to minimize killing or aggression in favor of its alternative--the ritual display.
164 - One survey of 130 social systems found just six that could be described as peaceful in the sense that they were not involved in collective violence and provided no special role for warriors. And at least one of these sic ought to be excluded on the grounds that feudlike killings sometimes take place. The numbers involved may be small, but for a population of "peaceful" !Kung Bushmen in which twenty-two such deaths have been reported, this is a high percentage, as high as any recorded for homicides in our "violent" societies.
169 -- War, despite what the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz might have believed, is not just a continuation of policy by other means. War represents a major change in human history, a shift
170 - from hostility to something far more organized and more lethal. A venture beyond what American anthropologist and cavalryman Harry Turney-High has called "the military horizon."
[. . .] Making it quite clear that primitive man already had blood on his hands, but also pointing out that none of this mattered when it came to looking for the origins of our current military and political systems. The state, he suggested, only emerged when society moved from primitive conflict to something quite different, to what he called "true" or "modern" war. The transition took place, he concluded, with the appearance of an army under the orders of appointed officers. Then, and only then, was it possible for a state to come into being [. . .]
There is a simple functional difference between Yanomamo skirmishes and Zulu war, between Asmat raids and campaigns of the Austro-Hungarian army. The Yanomamo and the Asmat are interested in women and food, in simple resources; and their conflicts, while undoubtably bloddy, are strictly and severely curtained by ritual and custom
172 -- Pastoralists had the military advantages of polished cooperative hunting routines, a familiarity with the techniques of slaughter, and an unsentimental attitude toward their flocks.
173 - [. . .] rugged footsoldiers who were also farmers of small holdings they could not afford to leave for too long. They favored settling matters as quickly and decisively as possible. So it was through and for them that the Greek phalanx--a tightly massed rank that fought in a very narrow field--came into being, producing a terrifying, short-lived clash of bodies and weapons at the closest possible range. This, for the first time ever, was war without quarter, battle without ceremony, in which flags and uniforms counted for nothing. It was cutthroat and back-stab conflict, hand to hand, hard and short, with a swift follow-up designed to dispatch the wounded and to lay waste to the land.
Such fighting, face to face, with death-dealing weapons and without restraint, defies nature. There was no precedent for it in human or natural history, and no possible defense in Persian ranks accustomed to more procrastinated conflict, in which ritual and restraint were as common and time-consuming as actual combat.
283 - I have [. . .] looked closely at some of these [Satanic] cults and their
284 - rites, and have to say that most represent nothing more than desperate and misdirected attempts to find some personal significance; to create some sense of belonging, in otherwise very dreary lives. They appear, I believe, largely as an artifact of a western religious and ethical tradition that insists incorrectly on condemning everything that seems antisocial, and consigning it automatically to the realm of evil.
285 - Genes are the enemy only when their selfishness interferes with greater happiness. Evil is undesirable only when it prevents us from being as good as we can be. Trying to rid the world of genetic or evil influences is impossible and as pointless as trying to keep weeds out of a garden. A "weed," anyway, is little more than a flower that happends to be growing in the wrong place. [. . .]
Gardeners choose, as we all must, from a catalog of options; letting these selections be acted upon in turn by weather, nature and a little judicious pruning. [. . .] We give a little, take a little, try to find the best accommodation we can between mindless biological pressures and thoughtful cultural restraints. Most ordinary, decent people succeed in reaching some kind of compromise, but the fact remains that it is exactly such people, those like you and me, who have in this century alone been beguiled into the massacre of well over 100 million other ordinary, decent people.
posted by jlhart7 at 3:31 PM
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