War in Human Civilization.

The book War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat, 2006, is 700 plus pages of the history and causes of warfare from the Paleolithic to the present. What makes this book so relevant to current warfare and terrorism is that Gat addresses the cultural changes in warfare along with evolutionary psychology—an often-ignored aspect of why humans behave the way they do. “In fact, historians and social scientists are much more prone to disregard the biological element in human culture than are proponents of evolutionary theory to neglect the cultural. The latter emphatically do not believe in biological determinism.”

War can be an objective in itself according to Gat, “…the primary motives and drives that trigger aggression are emotionally underpinned not merely by feelings such as fear and animosity; the fighting activity itself is stimulated by individual and communal thrill, enjoyment in the competitive exercise of spiritual and physical faculties, and even cruelty, blood lust, and killing ecstasy. These are all emotional mechanisms intended to fuel and sustain aggression…. Torture and humiliation of captured enemies were another widespread practice among the Indians, as elsewhere, cross-culturally. This behavior can also be explained partly as an expression of the craving for domination and superiority. To be sure, as we shall see, torture and humiliation were sometimes administered in revenge, for their deterrence effect, or to extract information.” Humans naturally like aggression and war for reasons that just feel good—but there are emotions that keep us from acting on our “blood lust” such as fear of death or injury or loss of property.

Unlike most species, early humans primarily killed within the tribe and between tribes by stealth, “…although women and children were often killed, it was mainly the men fighters themselves who suffered most of the casualties. With humans, too, deadly fighting was asymmetrical, in the sense that it was conducted under conditions in which the enemy were caught helpless and unable to fight back, mostly by surprise.” Today, we see the return of asymmetrical warfare as the only means of winning against insurmountable odds as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the rise of the state, beginning about 10,000 years ago, uprisings were more easily controlled because if the uprising failed the victor destroyed the vanquished by killing the men, enslaving the women and children, and destroying any access to food or shelter. Genocide then was a means of control. Today, that is no longer feasible.

Gat explains the proximate value of war: “The answer to the often-voiced puzzle of why people fight is that they fight to gain the very same things that constitute the objects of human desire in general. And throughout nature, including the human state of nature, the objects of desire are in short supply, while being vital for survival. People risk their lives in fighting—again the subject of widespread puzzlement in our societies of plenty—simply because loss and gain of the tangible and intangible goods that determine survival and reproductive success for them and their kin can be greater than the risks of fighting…. Evolutionary theory explains how long-cited motives for fighting—such as Sumner’s hunger, love, vanity, and fear of superior powers—came to be and how they hang together and interconnect.”

Beginning with the Neolithic revolution, “The more affluent a society was, the more power relations within it become skewed in favor of the rich and mighty and the more they could channel resources their way, while relentlessly vying among themselves—occasionally violently —for power, wealth, prestige, and all the other benefits that these entailed. A ‘predatory’ or ‘parasitic’ existence had now become an option in both inter- and intrasocial relations, not in any value sense but in that power, force, and coercion could now be directly utilized to appropriate products rather than merely to clear the ground of competitors for the exercise of production. Although coercive and productive relations were normally mixed, distinctively predatory specializations were now in evidence.”

During this time, the elite lived in greater luxury, but the common people still just barely scraped by and were eventually used by the state to engage in almost perpetual warfare, at least in the West. Kinship also meant less as groups formed for warfare alone rather than to advance or protect the tribe. “Mutual hospitality, gifts, and assistance in times of need among the elite were guaranteed by custom, honor, and self-interest.”

Gat expands on Salter’s kin theory by explaining that, “people in any kin circle struggle among themselves for the interests of their yet closer kin (ending in themselves and their offspring), while at the same time tending to cooperate against more distant circles. In this incessant multilevel game, internal cooperation tends to stiffen when the community is faced with an external threat, whereas inner rivalries variably diminish, although never disappearing (to the agony of patriots, who castigate them as being self-weakening to the point of self-destruction). Indeed, at the extreme end of the spectrum, in acts that widely arouse deep negative sentiments and bear a moral stigma, people might ally with outsiders in order to win struggles with their brethren. It should, of course, be added that non-kin cooperation and alliances for mutual gain—which do not diverge from kin interests—are commonplace, becoming only more so with the growth of large-scale organized society.”

However, shared ethnicity allowed states and empires to expand in size by ruling over other ethnicities. “Thus, contrary to a widely held view, ethnicity mattered a great deal in determining political boundaries from the very start, rather than achieving that effect only with modernity.”

Gat’s analysis of war derives from both culture and innate human behavior, and he has some interesting points that can provide insights on how war may evolve in the future. For example, the level of imminent threat and standard of living will determine the level of patriotism and a willingness to fight. Iraqis are now engaged in fighting for resources between themselves, as well as fighting against an occupying alien army. Americans on the other hand see no threat from Iraqi insurgents, and we have a high standard of living. American patriotism must be driven more by indoctrination than fear of any real dangers. Terrorism, though random and horrific, it is far less of a danger than natural disasters, automotive accidents, homicide, gang fights, industrial accidents, etc.

In addition, as Gat points out, the willingness to fight fades when a society has an excess of wealth, low unemployment, etc. The U.S. military has been able to meet its recruitment quotas, but they have also had to relax standards. And with spending over 10-billion dollars a month for the Iraq war, money that is borrowed, the economic burden will become resented along with the loss of life. As this situation and others in the future worsen, Americans may demand through the ballot box policy reforms that reflect what the people want rather than what the elite desire—immigration reform, smaller military budget, controls on when the President can go to war, a reduction in taxes and less money for the poor, etc. Gat notes, “All in all, to the extent that the industrial–technological revolution, most notably its liberal path, has fundamentally reduced the prevalence of war, the reason for this change is that the violent option for fulfilling human desires has become much less promising than the peaceful option of competitive cooperation. Furthermore, the more affluent and satiated the society and the more lavishly people’s most pressing needs are met—with all the attractions available for them to indulge in, up the ‘pyramid of needs’—the less their incentives to take risks that might involve the loss of life and limb.”

The key to peace then is for a nation to be made up of a homogeneous ethnie, controlled borders, restricted immigration, affluence with relative equality, and strict law enforcement to suppress drug wars, embezzlement, etc. Tensions of course will probably escalate between states under “universal nationalism” as many underdeveloped countries will not be able to achieve the affluence and homogeneity that leads to peace. However, this situation will not lead to lasting warfare between advanced states versus backward states because as we have seen many times over, backward countries can be easily crushed by superior forces using “total war” defensively.

If we really do want to put and end to warfare, this book has a great deal of insight into how it can be brought about. Radical egalitarianism of course will have to be reduced, and cease to be a weapon against the West for expropriating our land, our institutions, our communities and our wealth.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at 12:15 AM in Ethnicity and Ethnic Genetic Interests
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