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Factors of Conflict and Conditions of Peace

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
158 Seiten
Englisch
BoD - Books on Demanderschienen am08.07.20241. Auflage
There has hardly ever been a long period of world history without wars and violent conflicts, of one or another kind, in one or another region, between larger or smaller groups of human beings, as well as fights between individuals. At the same time, the vast majority of ordinary people of the world have always desired to spend their life in peace. But they have always failed to prevent occasional outbreaks of wars and other kinds of conflicts. Also Sarkar, who came to West Germany in early 1982, at a time when the country was abuzz with the Peace Movement, witnessed the general failure of the same. He feels compelled to ask Why? We too. In order to understand that, we need to delve deep into several aspects of the human condition, and identify those that have become in the course of history of our species factors of conflict. Basing himself on the research of scholars in various fields, Sarkar has done that in the present essay. He has concluded it with his thoughts on the conditions of peace.

Saral Sarkar was born in 1936 in a village of West Bengal, India. After graduating from the University of Calcutta (Kolkata), he studied German language and literature for five years at the Goethe Institute in India and Germany. From 1966 to 1981, he was lecturer of German at the Goethe Institute in Hyderabad, India. Since 1982, he has been living in Cologne, Germany, where he has been active in the Green Movement, Anti-Globalization Movement, and all kinds of ecological and leftist movements. He was member of the Green Party of Germany from 1982 to 1987, but left the party in deep disappointment. Over the years, Sarkar has taken part in many discussions and debates in the above-mentioned areas and published widely in political journals in India, Europe, and the American Continent. His basal theoretical work "Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices" (1999, London) has also been published in German, French (in internet), Chinese and Japanese. His other major works are: "Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany", Vol. I & II (1993, 1994, Tokyo), "The Crises of Capitalism - A Different Study of Political Economy" (2012, Berkeley), which was originally published in German (2010, Neu-Ulm), "Eco-Socialism or "Green" Capitalism?: Collected Writings of Saral Sarkar" (2023, Norderstedt) and "Was ist Ökosozialismus?" (Marburg).mehr
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Produkt

KlappentextThere has hardly ever been a long period of world history without wars and violent conflicts, of one or another kind, in one or another region, between larger or smaller groups of human beings, as well as fights between individuals. At the same time, the vast majority of ordinary people of the world have always desired to spend their life in peace. But they have always failed to prevent occasional outbreaks of wars and other kinds of conflicts. Also Sarkar, who came to West Germany in early 1982, at a time when the country was abuzz with the Peace Movement, witnessed the general failure of the same. He feels compelled to ask Why? We too. In order to understand that, we need to delve deep into several aspects of the human condition, and identify those that have become in the course of history of our species factors of conflict. Basing himself on the research of scholars in various fields, Sarkar has done that in the present essay. He has concluded it with his thoughts on the conditions of peace.

Saral Sarkar was born in 1936 in a village of West Bengal, India. After graduating from the University of Calcutta (Kolkata), he studied German language and literature for five years at the Goethe Institute in India and Germany. From 1966 to 1981, he was lecturer of German at the Goethe Institute in Hyderabad, India. Since 1982, he has been living in Cologne, Germany, where he has been active in the Green Movement, Anti-Globalization Movement, and all kinds of ecological and leftist movements. He was member of the Green Party of Germany from 1982 to 1987, but left the party in deep disappointment. Over the years, Sarkar has taken part in many discussions and debates in the above-mentioned areas and published widely in political journals in India, Europe, and the American Continent. His basal theoretical work "Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices" (1999, London) has also been published in German, French (in internet), Chinese and Japanese. His other major works are: "Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany", Vol. I & II (1993, 1994, Tokyo), "The Crises of Capitalism - A Different Study of Political Economy" (2012, Berkeley), which was originally published in German (2010, Neu-Ulm), "Eco-Socialism or "Green" Capitalism?: Collected Writings of Saral Sarkar" (2023, Norderstedt) and "Was ist Ökosozialismus?" (Marburg).
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Weitere ISBN/GTIN9783759717634
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
Erscheinungsjahr2024
Erscheinungsdatum08.07.2024
Auflage1. Auflage
Seiten158 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse237 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.17032673
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Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

Chapter 1
Introduction: Aggression, Violence and War among Homo sapiens

In ethology (behavioral science), the existence of intraspecific violence is seen as a part of normal behavior of animals. It is even regarded as necessary for, at least conducive to, the survival of a species. If, as is the practice among animals, only the strongest, the healthiest, and the cleverest of the males in a group mate with the females, then the progenies, that will form the next generation, can be expected to have a better chance of survival in the wilderness. For this to happen, however, the particular male must first fight off the rival males from within and outside the group and thus prevent the weak or sickly males from copulating with the females.

In carnivore animal groups, sometimes it also comes to half-violent quarrels over share of the meat of the slain prey. Sometimes even a mother-animal uses mild violence to compel her own grown-up brood-children to leave her territory and seek their own new foraging ground. Such intraspecific violence does not as a rule end in killing of a fellow member of the species, does not thus endanger the further existence of the group or the survival of the species. The weaker (defeated) male animal simply withdraws from the competition.

Konrad Lorenz (1963) calls such violence the so-called evil . But he thinks, the so-called evil among animals developed into a real evil among humans, into an evil aggressive instinct. Among humans, it very often comes to intraspecific killing, even to murder, and to mass killings in wars. He thinks it came about in the thousands of years of the Paleolithic Age in the following way:

When man had reached the stage of having weapons, clothing and social organization, so overcoming the dangers of starving, freezing, and being eaten by wild animals, and these dangers ceased to be the essential factors influencing selection, an evil intra-specific selection must have set in. The factor influencing selection was now the wars waged between hostile neighboring tribes. These must have evolved into an extreme form of all those so-called warrior virtues´ ... (Lorenz 1976: 34)

We see in the above quote that Lorenz assumes, even in earliest human history, the pre-existence of violence, even war 1 among enemy neighboring hordes.

But why should they have made war at all, two autonomous relatively big groups of humans fighting against one another? This view of Lorenz was strongly rejected by what we may call the progressive or humanist camp. They suspected Lorenz of serving the political interests of conservatives. Erich Fromm, a famous representative of this camp, wrote:

What could be more welcome to people, [...] who fear themselves and feel themselves powerless to change the way of the world that is leading to destruction, than the theory of Lorenz that violence comes from our animal nature and originates from an uncontrollable drive for aggression? (Fromm 1974; quoted from Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1988/1997: 208., translated by S. Sarkar)

I find this kind of suspicion unfair. One did not blame Darwin for propounding the theory of evolution, even though his theory was misused by Social-Darwinists and racists.

However, Fromm also has some apparently cogent criticism of Lorenz´s theory of origin of war. He argues as follows: Firstly, in view of the fact that in war, particularly in primitive warfare, very aggressive individuals are killed in large numbers, it is not plausible that hyper-aggression, as Fromm calls it, developed among humans by means of positive genetic selection through war. With the dead young warriors, the gene supposed to be responsible for such aggression should gradually disappear, leading actually to negative selection. The point Fromm is here trying to make is that such a gene does not exist, at least not anymore, if it had ever existed.

Secondly, Fromm argues further, before the advent of civilization, foragers (primitive hunters and gatherers) could not have much economic motivation to wage war. For population growth was negligible, there was not much moveable property that could be carried off, and slaves could not produce any surplus. Conflicts over hunting grounds or water holes were probably settled without battle. The stronger group (horde) just gradually pushed the weaker away.

I do not actually know whether Lorenz and ethologists of his school responded to Fromm´s first objection, but I can imagine their response. They could respond by slightly revising their assertion, saying that such hyper-aggression is an innate drive and that it is present in every human male ever since humans evolved from our ancestral ape species. That is why the death of some particularly aggressive warriors cannot erase this drive from the human genome.

While we are at it, before proceeding further in the debate, let me present in short the aggression theories of Lorenz and Fromm.
Excursus (a): Aggression Theory of Lorenz (and his school)

Lorenz does not see behind aggression any interest-led drive. According to him, intra-specific aggression among animals is the result of an instinct that also exists among humans. But in this matter, there is a difference between animals and humans. Among animals, this aggression has a positive function for the survival of the species. It ensures that in the available habitat, individuals of the species are distributed at sufficient distance from one another; it guarantees selection of genetically better males (stronger, more capable of surviving), and it constructs a social hierarchical order that is useful in any group living. Aggression has fulfilled this function much better, ever since, in the evolution process, deadly aggression was transformed into symbolic and ritual threatening. Because of these positive functions, Lorenz calls the evil of aggression the so-called evil ( Das sogenannte Böse , the title of the German original, his main book).

Lorenz thinks that the human drive for aggression is fed by a continually flowing energy, which accumulates in the nerve center connected with this instinct. This leads to increase in pressure in a quasi-hydraulic system. For Lorenz, it is not only unhealthy to suppress aggression that wants to be released, it is also very difficult, if not impossible, to control it. When the pressure has risen too much, it can come to an explosion. Then a human being can become gruesome, murderous, even without a stimulus from outside. But as a rule, both humans and animals find some stimuli, they look for stimuli, or they themselves create stimuli. Lorenz gives the example of founding a political party, which generates stimuli, but is not really a cause of aggression.

Desmond Morris (1967/1994: 117) calls sports like wrestling, Judo, and boxing as highly stylized versions of adult unarmed combat . I could add behaviour of groups of hooligan-fans of a soccer club who go to the stadium not so much to enjoy the match as to get an opportunity to fight against the hooligan-fan groups of the rival club.

Sometimes the release of pressure from spontaneously accumulating aggression takes place at the cost of inanimate objects. Lorenz wrote (somewhere) that he once found himself attacking a beer can lying on the street to release his aggression-pressure. This also happens when there is a provocation from some opponent. Violent demonstrators, who are provoked e.g., by a government decision, by employers, or the police, smash window panes of buildings, set fire to buses etc.

Morris (1967/1994: 109) writes:

What happens is that, because the object (the opponent) stimulating the attack is too frightening to be directly assaulted, the aggressive movements are released, but have to be re-directed towards some other, less intimidating object, such as a harmless bystander [...] or even an inanimate object. [...] When a wife smashes a vase to the floor, it is, of course really her husband´s head that lies there broken into small pieces. It is interesting that chimpanzees and gorillas frequently perform their own version of this display, when they tear up, smash and throw around branches and vegetation.
Excursus (b): Erich Fromm´s Theory of Aggression

Fromm - not an ethologist, but a social psychologist, who had a deep understanding of the human psyche (soul) and had studied the relevant literature in many fields - rejected (as shown above) the ethologists' aggression theory and presented his own, which can be summarized as follows:

Aggression is an instinct2, which is nothing bad; it is even necessary. It is necessary for delimitation, self-assertion, and defense of one´s vital interests, in short, for survival, and therefore it exists both in animals and humans. But, contrary to what Lorenz asserts, it is not an uncontrollable urge. It only comes into play as a reaction to threats (challenges) to one´s vital interests. Fromm, therefore, speaks of defensive or reactive aggression, which is benign. Among animals, vital interests are the individual´s own life, care for progeny, access to individuals of the opposite sex, access to sources of food, and survival of the species.

Among humans, however, vital interests can mean much more, which is why they can be more aggressive than animals. They can also react to foreseeable and imaginable future danger. They can create symbols, idols, and values,...
mehr

Autor

Saral Sarkar was born in 1936 in a village of West Bengal, India. After graduating from the University of Calcutta (Kolkata), he studied German language and literature for five years at the Goethe Institute in India and Germany. From 1966 to 1981, he was lecturer of German at the Goethe Institute in Hyderabad, India.

Since 1982, he has been living in Cologne, Germany, where he has been active in the Green Movement, Anti-Globalization Movement, and all kinds of ecological and leftist movements. He was member of the Green Party of Germany from 1982 to 1987, but left the party in deep disappointment.
Over the years, Sarkar has taken part in many discussions and debates in the above-mentioned areas and published widely in political journals in India, Europe, and the American Continent.

His basal theoretical work "Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices" (1999, London) has also been published in German, French (in internet), Chinese and Japanese. His other major works are: "Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany", Vol. I & II (1993, 1994, Tokyo), "The Crises of Capitalism - A Different Study of Political Economy" (2012, Berkeley), which was originally published in German (2010, Neu-Ulm), "Eco-Socialism or "Green" Capitalism?: Collected Writings of Saral Sarkar" (2023, Norderstedt) and "Was ist Ökosozialismus?" (Marburg).