On Human Nature

In any honest survey of human history, one of the things that will stand out is the human penchant for war and violence. At the same time, the vast majority of human cultures “have invented elaborate sanctions against rape, extortion, and murder, while regulating their daily commerce through complex customs and laws designed to minimize the subtler but inevitable forms of conflict” (99). The distinction is a significant one, one that recognizes the reality of conflict and a need for self-defense of both home and tribe—and yet at the same time, a need to police violent behavior within one’s community.

In addition, it is clear that “human beings display a behavioral scale, a spectrum of responses” (101) that are exhibited or hidden based on circumstances. Violence directed at outsiders is usually always a result of attempting to defend or conquer territory, or launch a counterstrike against an enemy; violence within a community is usually due to conflict over resources, or related to discipline. The phenomenon of violence can, in a sense, be attributed to “crowding in the environment” (103). Once it seems like there isn’t enough of something to go around, the tendency toward harmony gives way to selfishness and control, often resulting in aggression or outright violence.

And yet, while violence seems innate to human beings, they are far from the most violent species. Recent studies have demonstrated that “hyenas, lions, and langur monkeys” (103), to name a few, are species with far higher rates of violence, even regularly engaging in infanticide and cannibalism—behaviors deemed unacceptable among most human cultures. Among humans, violence outside the home is largely due to territorial concerns, which each culture treats with their own set of regulations and assumptions.

Edward O. Wilson goes so far as to define war as “the violent rupture of the intricate and powerful fabric of the territorial taboos observed by social groups” (110-11). Again, this is one of the areas in which genetics play a large part: In the past, warfare was the only means by which a tribe could hope to compete with a rival tribe over resources. Natural selection ensured that those most predisposed to the capacity for aggression, cunning, strength, and daring would survive to pass on their genetic makeup, while those with “weaker” traits perished. To add nuance to the discussion, it should be noted that while aggression and violent tendencies are genetically predetermined at the individual level, the forms that violence takes within a culture are in fact learned behaviors: Culture “gives a particular form to the aggression and sanctifies the uniformity of its practice by all members of the tribe” (114).