26. Why do we Humans naturally support violent men?

Dearly Beloved,

Why is it that despite huge scientific progress we are unable to manage large group conflicts involving huge amounts of violence? This is an important question because we humans now have very powerful weapons which could severely damage or destroy our “civilisation”.

A useful creature to consider to start with is the baboon which has certain similarities to early humans as it is a gatherer if not a hunter. They live in troops within an area which they guard from other troops. The order of battle is that the young males challenge one another noisily when they meet, with quite a lot of ritualised threat. When on the move the young males take the lead, the females and their young are in the middle of the group and the dominant male brings up the rear and only become involved in the fighting when things get serious. Most battles are ritualised which avoids serious injury, but that does occur when a male, normally from outside the group, challenges the dominant in the group. These are powerful animals and males will fight to maintain their access to the females in the group.

Humans of course moved from hunter gatherers to being village based as they developed agriculture. That resulted in resources being concentrated in one place which must have been tempting for the inhabitants of other nearby villages to steal, especially during times of shortage. Was the behavioural system which we have inherited, one where a dominant, possibly psychopathic, male armed with a club, led his fellow males over the hill to fight the villagers on the other side and steal their crops and stores and possibly the women too? Similarly leaders would be needed to defend every village and their assets. That would result in a system where everyone supported the dominant male not only because it benefited them directly but because they were genetically disposed to do so; it just felt good. They may also have been afraid of him.

This is a very simplistic analysis as human society comprises multiple hierarchies and one individual my be dominant in one but a follower in another. Village life became town life and technological development led to more leisure time in which thinkers thought and gradual complex cultures developed which were full of new ideas about how things might be and in which technological development continued steadily. Human beings have relatively large mental capacity which appears related to the complexity of our social interactions, especially our capacity for language. So we humans defined what we are and how we relate to others, ideas about economy, identity, survival and above all the future. Humans in one group often acquire similar beliefs, because that is all they are exposed to similar beliefs and experience. Sometimes beliefs are obsessively held and may be better termed ideologies.

That leads to a host of questions. Are ideologies simplifications of the complexity of real life which are bound to fail?  Does the human capacity to develop ideology limit an individual's capacity for compassion for other humans? If so is that because it crowds out compassion or was there little compassion in the first place? Do dominant males naturally lack compassion and find acting in the interests of others difficult? Do dominant people in society undergo mental changes as they rise up the dominance hierarchy, which makes them less compassionate? Or is just that the cannot cope with the complexity of everyday life they resort to domination and authoritarianism?

One of the most thought provoking articles I have seen during the present Ukraine crisis is by the Russian author Maria Stepanova in The Financial Times, who set out the mental state of Vladimir Putin as that of someone writing a play. In his mind it was merely fantasy but he was also promoting it in real life, but because it was fantasy he was unable to perceive that reality and the suffering he was causing to his fellow humans.

If it is indeed true that we humans naturally favour such domineering individuals as leaders excluding them from government will be difficult. Such individuals are often energetic and are seen as useful to the community in the early stages of their rise in human society.

Christianity and Buddhism both set out ways of escaping from disorderly human desire and Both promote compassion. At some point humans were able to comprehend the possibilities of the Holy Spirit in our valley of dry bones (Ezekial 37:1-14), and someone wrote that Melchizadec donated bread and wine to Abraham. These are verses full of promise for humanity. Perhaps it was no accident that Christianity evolved during a period of occupation and domination by a cruel Roman autarchy and showed that there were other, better ways to live and that more benevolent leadership than that of a Caesar was a possibility.

Peace,

Paul.

Completed 20 March 2022.

Photo: Paul Munton

Hercules, a classical hero with a violent, complex life who fathered many Children.  Boxwood figure by Francesco Pomarano (Francesco di Giacomo da Sant'Agata) Padua, 1520 in The Wallace Collection, London


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