War

[Fire Empire]

Just nit-picking. Humans actually don't have instincts.

~Victor

Please explain. This is new to us.

 

[michel]

I have to say that I have learned something, I am rarely speechless to the point that I have nothing better to say such as this moment. Frubals your way.

Are you not yet used to our Friend Seyorni's wisdom?

 

[Darkdale]

Just nit-picking. Humans actually don't have instincts.

~Victor

Yes they do. You've been taking too many Psych 101 classes. No instinct by default of absolute definition? It must be present in ALL members of a specie? By such definitions no animals have instincts.

Humans have instinct. Pleanty of it.

Just to nit-pick.

 

[Sunstone]

Just nit-picking. Humans actually don't have instincts.

~Victor

That was the conventional wisdom before Konrad Lorenz.

 

[Quiddity]

Please explain. This is new to us.

I'll try. I got this from my Sociology class. Instincts are genetically-programmed from birth. An instinct is not something that we could choose not to do. Since humans have the choice to say "no" to practically everything, this alone would make humans not to have instincts. The closest we get to having instincts is when an infant is born to learn how to suckle. But even that goes away over time, thru choice.

That make sense?

~Victor

 

[Fire Empire]

I'll try. I got this from my Sociology class. Instincts are genetically-programmed from birth. An instinct is not something that we could choose not to do. Since humans have the choice to say "no" to practically everything, this alone would make humans not to have instincts. The closest we get to having instincts is when an infant is born to learn how to suckle. But even that goes away over time, thru choice.

That make sense?

~Victor

Thanks. We understand but we don't buy it. Your teacher might have been reading from some outdated manuals. The current thought on the subject is that the "motivational forces" that psychoanalysts named in place of instinct, are now referred to as "instinctual drives". Therefore, people are driven by instinct towards a certain behavior (war in this case), but they can choose to ignore or overide the instinct (because of memes).

 

[Quiddity]

Thanks. We understand but we don't buy it. Your teacher might have been reading from some outdated manuals. The current thought on the subject is that the "motivational forces" that psychoanalysts named in place of instinct, are now referred to as "instinctual drives". Therefore, people are driven by instinct towards a certain behavior (war in this case), but they can choose to ignore or overide the instinct (because of memes).

Then your beef will be with him. The books were rather new. If you find something you can't say "NO" to, let me know. Good Luck.

~Victor

 

[Darkdale]

Then your beef will be with him. The books were rather new. If you find something you can't say "NO" to, let me know. Good Luck.

~Victor

That's a very poor definition of instinct. An Instinct is a drive, not a purely uncontrollable impulse. Our ability to reason and our faculty for peremption allow us to consider our drives before acting, but that makes them no less a reality. Beware Sociology professors. They tend to be the least competent professors (at least in my experience). Most of them are simply social activists, using the university to further their own philosophical goals.

 

[Valjean]

I completely agree that schools and governments should remind us that our instincts can mislead us. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening too often. Governments have a vested interest in playing to our instincts when they (the governments) wish to go to war. And when governments do so, the teacher that dares to contradict the government's line is usually called a fool, an idealist, and even unpatriotic.

The rhetorical debate over drives, instincts, &c is all well and good, but, returning to the subject of war, let's consider Sunstone"s point.

It is our Pleistocene psyche/instinct/drive toward intense in-group loyalty and co-operation and our facility in dehumanizing the "other", that facilitates warfare.

Government recognizes this and organizes militias into "tribes" -- platoons, units, wings, &al. Trainers put these tribes through "accelerated vicissitude training" to cement solidarity. Soldiers fight for their comrades more than for abstract political principles. People find it liberating to abdicate moral agency to a strong leader and follow him uncritically.Thereafter, these small groups can be manipulated toward whatever ends their masters choose. Their socialization and religious training are entirely replaced with re-indoctrinated belief in the goals of the regime/country in power. Right and wrong are replaced with expediency under the rubric of End justifies means.

Our natural tendency to abdicate our personal values when dissolved in a tribe/militia must be must be repeatedly taught and retaught. Milgram and Zimbardo need to replace Freud in psychology classes. The incompatibility of socio-religious vs military values must be drummed into every schoolchild.

Unfortunately, as long as regimes and politicians depend on military backing; as long as the military is portrayed as an honorable, necessary and even glorious profession, we are doomed to endless war, strife and insecurity.

 

[almifkhar]

war is about thinking that this guy has divine right over this land and its resources. no matter how one wants to slice it, war is about greed and greed alone (meaning for the one who instagates it in the first place)