where is the "humanity?"

CDAKIAHONDA

No matter how you feel about this Administration, this war, or terror in general, DO YOU BELIEVE that the same capacity for barbarism shown in Iraq, by Iraqis against Iraqis, exists in every man, every culture, or every religion? Prejudices anyone?

limerickman

Interesting question.

I recall reading an excellent book about the Balkan Wars 1989-1995, in which it detailed how normal civil societies literally disintegrated.
People who had lived together as neighbours, for decades, in some cases, were at the forefront of commiting atrocities against those very same neighbours once civil war broke out across Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia.
This same experience was also found to be the case in Spain during their civil war during the 1930's too.

The capacity for barbarism lurks beneath the surface of every society.

Edmund Burke put it rather well when he said that evil prospers when good men do nothing.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

CDAKIAHONDA

"The capacity for barbarism lurks beneath the surface of every society."

"Edmund Burke put it rather well when he said that evil prospers when good men do nothing."


Yes, good examples you give....Also: Darfur, Cambodia, Stalinist Russia and on and on, what I find interesting is that many blame religion (Bosnia, Iraq, Crusades etc..) others blame Political ideology,(that may border on Religion of a sort) like Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam and again Iraq... Others blame economic interests (Imperialistic expansions by Spain, England,The US with the American Indian wars AND Iraq, AGAIN, etc...) Is it BEYOND Societal, and actually a HUMAN trait on an individual basis (or does it take a Villiage?) Is it inescapable? Is it surmountable through reason?

We got rid of a bad guy in Iraq, even if we did it for the wrong reasons, didn't we give them something of a chance? It seems to me that the fight isn't really with us anymore, we're in the way of the real fight now. Is it better than before, worse than before, or is it just the same with different players and rules? Is this really any different than any other period in history? Change the names, and the weapons, but the story reads the same?

EoinC

I would say, as a generalised answer to a generalised question - "Yes". It's Lord of the Flies stuff, really. Most of us live in a degree of comfort, whether we recognise it or not. Comfort equates to apathy - We all might take our turn at having a rant about something, but we're unlikely to lay our respective lives on the line in order to back up our respective rants.
When the situation changes, however, and people move from the realms of comfort to the realms of survival, there is a stage in between where scapegoat mentality steps in. Religion and Politics are not always the root-cause of barbarism, but they are often the catylist. It is basically set off when someone in a position of power (ie. has a voice that others can hear) declares that the woes we (Group A) are suffering are caused by them (Group B). This is generally taken by Group A as being inspirational stuff - "It's their fault" is a much more appealing catch-cry than "It's our fault", or "It's no-none's fault - Shite happens".
How many times in your daily life do you see yourself, or others, blaming someone else for the current state of affairs (no coffee in the jar etc)? You don't go out and kill someone for it because (a) the crime does not appear to fit the punishment, and / or (b) you don't want to receive the social punishment meted out to those who kill others for not leaving any coffeee in the jar. The thought ("he's an utter bastard"), however, is still there, and you may entertain fantasies of being Bruce Lee and doing a flying kick at the offender, ramming his hot cup of (your) coffee down his throat. Therein lies our "barbaric" trait.
Interestingly, lynch mob mentality (as I see it) operates in the realms between comfortable living and survival living. Once it gets down to true survival, no-one has time or energy for hate - everything is focused on survival only.
This may suggest that the barbaric-tendency kicks in as an evolutionary mechanism to prevent a group (stronger than an individual) reaching a level of straight survival. In other words, the hate that appears to be at the heart of the barbarity, and the target of the barbarity itself, may be completely irrelevant - they are no more than the outward expressions (gruesome as they may be) of a social group that has moved into that chaotic realm between comfort and survival.
So, in answer to your question, I think that, yes, given the right combination of circumstances, we may all be capable of barbarity. The circumstances that would see us take this turn may differ between individuals, but the capability appears to be there. Fortunately, few of us ever find ourselves in the circumstances that bring about the shift (as long as there is some coffeee left in the jar, that is).
Disclaimer - All of the above thoughts belong to the Author. They are not allowed to used for lynchings, decapitations, rubber necklace parties or any other barbaric operations unless specifically authorised by the Author.

CDAKIAHONDA

I like that quite a bit, something of a take on Maslowe's hierachy of needs. So then the more noble of traits (compassion for example) are simply an "evolution" of the groups barbarity, when that barbarity becomes so bad that it threatens the the group itself, turns inward as it were?

Our religions, and our civil systems become a societal check that would seem to need to be "re-newed" from time to time? Evolutionarily speaking, that is?

The barbarity reaches a climax where it threatens the group itself, the group finally mobilizes to check it or face extinction. The excercise of group moderating power initially benefits everyone and stability insues for a while, until the next period of inequity evolves. All men are NOT created equal after all, and some rise and gain advantage and bring others of like mind with them, "charisma." A vs B.

Would then the more barbaric, so to speak, the behavior becomes lead to a "faster" renewal of civility? Do we need to step back and allow these groups free reign to experience their own evolution? We had a brutal "Civil" War after all in America, as have most societies.

If we are to step up control efforts in Irag for example, do we only serve to prolong the inevitable evolutionary process? Is this perhaps what is exacerbating the entire Middle East situation now?

Could the "let 'em fight it out themselves" crowd be right? Where should we, who are in some part of the "stability stage" (another debate topic!) draw the containment line? Does the entire planet need to evolve at the same rate for any global period of stability to develop now that technology and global media highlight inequity so profoundly on a bigger scale than ever before? It's not cave vs cave, or villiage vs villiage any more. Would that portend an evolutionary necessity for a global conflict, followed by another such cycle until...?

limerickman

It's an interesting thought that you express (above).

I am not sure where the "check" comes in to things.
We're all supposed to know right from wrong.
Yet when society begins to disintegrate, the concept of right and wrong, goes on the back burner as EoinC seems to suggest.
The question should be asked as to why the check (knowing right from wrong) is suspended and why people ignore those checks?




Again you raise soem interesting questions.

The decision to invade Iraq is as good a place to start.
The decision as to whether Saddam was a good or evil man, was not Americas to make.
That decision was for the Iraqi people to make.

Setting that aside, the removal of Saddam brought to the surface many conflicts.
At one level, you had the occupied (rightly) fighting the occupier (USA/Britain).
This is perfectly normal behaviour and totally justified.

However also in that vacuum though another trait surfaced - that of inter-occupied tensions.
Age old tensions between Sunni and Shia came to the surface and some on each side are fighting with the other side.
This is far harder to justify and far harder to explain.
Why do societies implode? Why do people who'd lived as neighbours suddenly turn on each other because they happen to be "different"?

You saw this same scenario in the Balkans : where a vacuum was created (after the death of Tito) age old tensions were stoked between Serbians and Croats and Muslims in Bosnia.
Again, far harder to jusify (in fact one cannot justify anything in those circumstances) and to explain.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

CDAKIAHONDA

I would say the "check" fits your "evolutionary" theory. Those societies that don't develop the "check" in whatever form, religeon, government etc..., fail to survive (or become integrated.) Those that do succeed in creating a check, survive if not prosper, at least for a time.

I also wonder if we really do "know" right from wrong, devinely gifted so to speak? Could that again, simply be another cog in the evolutionary wheel? Too much Wrong and you simply don't continue, as an individual, or as a society. You choose to join another group, or you get clubbed into oblivion.

With respect of course, I believe that you make the point that it was up to the Iraqis to decide if Saddam was the "Bad Guy." I believe they had done that in innumerable ways, from the Kurds to the Shia, from the exiles living elsewhere. Were they in a "position" in the evolution you speak of to place their own "check" yet? Did we perhaps create a disruption in that "evolution" by artificially inserting OUR check. But is the "evolution" inevitable anyway? Are perhaps then BOTH ideologies expressed today right, Saddam (insert any historical catalyst) had to go, and instability had to insue?

Where does the ability do extend our "Barbarity" in greater capacity through more powerful weapons, and through greater dissemination of information leave us? We can see the inequities like never before. Will the continued acceleration of both lead to a faster "evolution" and more conflict, rather than less?

limerickman

Presumably knowing right from wrong, is what's called conscience.
How is conscience derived?

Because we have minds, that is what makes us different to every other species on this planet, supposedly.
However, no animal would inflict the kind of barbarity which man has inflicted on his fellow man throughout time.
Therefore, I am not sure that even having the ability to know what is right and what is wrong (having a mind), ensures that we don't descend in to barbarity.





Let's look at Iraq : what validity has an American/British check in Iraq?
It has no validity, I would say, because the decision to invade that country is in itself invalid and the invasion is an act of barbarity.





Weapons and information in themselves are neither right or wrong.
The use to which weapons and information are put, derives whether the decision is right or the decision is wrong (in ethical terms) to use weapons and information.

An analogy.
One could say that the storing and the threat of nuclear weapons by the USA, prevented the spread of Communism.
The argument could be put that the "means" ( US weapons ready for use), justified the "end" (prevented the spread of Communism and ultimately forced the Soviet Union in to a weapons race which it could not afford to fund and which loed to the collapse of Communism).
The decision to adpot weaponry in this case, derived a "good" outcome.

They're complex (and interesting) issues which you raise.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

CDAKIAHONDA

It's snowing like mad outside, and that probably has me in this contemplative state (no wheels today, except on a trainer) edging my thoughts toward the "how can we do this to ourselves?" (in the collective sense) "Burning people alive?"

What you state is why I like your "Evolution" theory so very much. I believe that's why the "rights" and "wrongs" are so fluid as to be (almost) indefineable. Evolution is not one or the other in the absolute conceptually, and is subject to itself (evolution.) I believe it explains a lot of "why?" It just doesn't offer any solution. The solution is the sum of the process, and we don't necessarily have to like the outcome (not good, not bad...just "IS"..), and with hope, we're still some way from the finale of the process.

Before the integration of the "evolutionary process" of society that you propose, my thinking on Iraq followed this analogy:

A wealthy man goes back to his childhood neighborhood. He "escaped" the crime-ridden, poverty stricken area and became a success. In an effort to "give-back" a little, he built a wonderful playground, and donated all the equipment needed for the youth to play baketball and baseball etc... A year later he went back, found the backboards ripped down, and found out from a local that the equipment had either been stolen, or taken away because the youth had turned the bats on each other.

I would've asked then, "How can you blame the man..." The "gift" was perverted, and how can that reflect poorly on the giver?"

With "evolution" I would NOW ask "What needs to happen for the community to accept the gift, or better yet, what would it take for them to "evolve" to the point where they create the gift for themselves." Whether or not it was a "good" gift, or "bad" isn't REALLY the issue...

Life's not a b-ball court, and certainly freedoms, and the lack thereof are not games, but as a hypothetically unaffected bystander, the questions are easy to ask. But what if the "youth" in the example can get on a subway, and bring the bats to MY neighborhood?

The man's good intentions certainly won't help those already beaten, nor perhaps fail to inspire even one "youth." Time (evolution) will tell.

EoinC

Your analogy is a good starting point. Let's up the cadence by expanding upon it...
What if the reason the housing was decrepit was because the previous Estate Manager was a nasty fellow, and he was installed in that position by the Wealthy Man?
What if the people hated basketball, but the Wealthy Man said "You WILL play basketball, and you WILL enjoy it"?
What if the Wealthy Man, in making the repairs to the basketball court, had reached an arrangement with the newly-installed Estate Manager, establishing rights for the Wealthy Man's access to the basketball court to the exclusion of all others, so the upcoming basketball stars were not allowed to play with other teams?
What if only a few members of the community, selected by the Wealthy Man, were allowed access to the court?
What if the Wealthy Man's contractors' bodyguards shot a few people while the contractors worked at repairing the court?
Could this lead to some of the Community wishing that the basketball court had been left alone?

EoinC

Rights and Wrongs are, in my opinion, very fluid attributions. They are very subjective in the way they are applied. Often we may justify to ourselves, and others, a Wrong actually being a Right due to circumstance.
A basic one to look at would be the fairly universal belief that it's not a good thing for humans to kill humans. Obviously, since a lot of it seems to happen, and a lot of those who carried out the killing feel justified in their action, the view of what is Right or Wrong is tempered by the perceived situation.
Throughout the World, because of the subjective nature of this perception, Society steps in as a higher authority to determine whether the ends justify the means. This higher authority may be a parent, a friend, a referee, a teacher, a magistrate, a government, etc.
Just because they are a hugher authority, does not necessarily determine that they, themselves, are correct in their determination. In 1930's Germany, society allowed it's central authority to determine the Rights and Wrongs in a fashion that appears incredibly unacceptable to us now. If you want an answer to the question of whether we are all capable of barbarity, the rise of Nazism in Germany in the lead up to WW2 would provide a good example of "There, but for the grace of God, go I". The people who supported the rise of the fascist government were ordinary citizens. Germany had fallen from being a powerful industrial Nation into a declining one, with rapidly encroaching impoverishment. When, as your well-healed lifestyle starts crumbling, a voice is heard that blames others for your situation, it is very easy to believe them. It is so much easier to attack a scapegoat than to take responsibility for one's own demise.
Relatively few humans are wantonly barbaric when their lifestyles are comfortable and secure - such actions are liable to cause society to turn against you and, in doing so, that comfortable and secure lifestyle is likely to be curtailed.
Very few humans appear to be barbaric when they are in full survival-mode. Barbarity requires an unnecessary expenditure of thought and energy that would be better utilised in eeking out an existance.
Barbarity finds a fertile bed in those who exist in the realms between security and survival. There are certainly many voices out there who understand this, and seek out those people to be barbaric on their behalf.
Suicide bombers are an example to look at. How disgruntled with your current situation would you need to be, in order to willingly sign-on? The promise of a better after-life suggests that the now-life is nothing to write home about. I suspect that very few suicide bombers are recruited from affluent society.
The World's wealth is very unevenly distributed (and I acknowledge that I am a part of that). This means that, aside from the desperately poverty-stricken, who are operating in survival-mode, there are a very large group of World occupants who sit in the position where, if they are not disgruntled, they certainly have the circumstances to be so.
Whilst removing barbaric regimes may seem like a suitable method for ending barbarity in a society, it does not address the root cause - What is there in the society that allows the barbarity to be acceptable? It is not just down to an authority, it is down to a society that finds it acceptable due to its disgruntlement.
My 2c...

CDAKIAHONDA

J-J Rousseau said, "...that all people, put in the same circumstance, will react the same."

Inasmuch as we all seem to agree that the barbarism we speak of is a manafestation of the root cause of social and economic inequity, wherein lies ANY solution? If, as we surmise, people are too busy surviving when resources are so scarce (but equal) to be barbarous since survival is the single overiding concern. As you point out: Barbarism also seems to disappear as the baser needs are met, but only PRIOR to the re-allocation of those resources at an inequitable balance. What would be an answer? Actual Communism, not the "commie, Red, Pinko," political philosphy that proved to be as "top-heavy" as any "capitalistic" society (we do love our labels, don't we?), but ACTUAL communal sharing? And yet, who would "check" the more ambitious?" Ambitious and "pretty."

Not that such an "ideal," if not "ideal" situation is possible. I also admit to being part of the priviledged, and hesitate to renounce the dissproprtionate share of my posessions easily, even for the "common good(?)." What will the starving child in China DO with all that carbon-fibre? (I know...bad joke) Nope, actual equity seems doubtful. (boy did I cast that off casually...)

Although, as I contemplate the baser of human behavior (my own, for example, above), I think of the more altruistic. Maybe if we concentrate on the social binders that bring people together from what seem to be the certainty of inequity of resourse... People often come together from disaparate groups in response to a shared experience that trancends the basic social, and safety concerns, and it seems to bridge the perception of inequities. These events, say after 9-11, unfortunately seem to be much more short-lived than the more negative "social binders." The less negative meaning the "coming together," not he actual barbarous event of 9-11.

Now I understand that this coming together was limited to OUR culture, and the disparate groups ONLY within it. Something needs to unify a whole planet, EVERY culture. Negatives are easy, alien attack, careening asteroid, global epidemic...the global environmental crisis SHOULD do it (probably will when it's too late), but that's another rant....(?)

Positives?.........Positives??????......Positives????????????.......


Except maybe sports! I propose a complete and total effort to unify the world with a game: Rollerball! (with James Caan, forget the stupid re-make.) Oh yeah, I hear Rocky is making a comeback.

jhuskey

When the value of energy,food etc. goes up and the supply diminishes the value of human life goes down.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

EoinC

Most people in this World do not behave in a barbaric manner. Most people do get along with each other. One of the changes that has occured over the last 50 years is the increase in access to information. This, combined with the human fascination with acts of barbarity (particularly when we are not the subject of such), makes for barbaric acts to seem as common as unbarbaric ones.
It is good that we are now exposed to the existance of these barbaric acts, as it allows us to consider our position, and allows societies to voice the unnacceptability of such acts. It does not, however, mean that such acts are any more common, or widespread, than they have ever been.