It is widely believed that "war is a part of
human nature". This is simply not true. While aggression is an
innate drive, it does not necessarily follow that warfare is its
inevitable expression. Neither is it true that warfare is an
inevitable concomitant of the development; of civilization, with
large hierarchical societies needing more resources. Rather,
warfare, in the form of open hostilities between two groups, can be
regarded as a social institution, in much the same way as we view
others in our culture - marriage, funeral rites, trial by jury, and
so on. The difference is that, though this institution has grown
increasingly savage over the course of history, so universal is its
acceptance that we think of it, not as a social construct, but as
an attribute of humanity itself.
War is a social construct. It is also quite
recent. Prior to about 10,000 BC, there is evidence that human
beings engaged in ritual conflict, but not in actual inter- group
warfare. There is a possibility that early agricultural settlements
may have been raided by "marauding nomads", but the evidence for
this is very tenuous. The first walled settlement, Jericho, dates
from around 7000 BC, though most are several thousand years later.
But not until 3000 BC did resource and territorial competition
become warlike, with the first recorded "war" between Upper and
Lower Egypt occurring around 3200 BC.
With the emergence of secular power elites, and
rivalry for dominance, war became established as a social
institution. Autocrats were able to accumulate power and wealth by
encouraging its use, and for some, their armies provided an
opportunity for enhancing their prestige.
War is not a part of human nature. There is no
evidence to suggest that humanity engaged in any inter-group
violence until about 12,000 years ago. The first recorded "war" was
not until 3,200BC. It was between Upper and Lower Egypt and
concerned the acquisition of land. In hunter/gatherer societies
today, aggressive behaviour is generally ritualized, and if there
is violence, injuries are few; there is no reason to believe that
early societies were different. War is, historically speaking, a
social construct, a culturally determined phenomenon. It is
"civilized" people who kill each other with ever greater violence
as our technology and numbers increase. We are faced with a
paradox. Our very co- operative and social nature, which provides
the impetus for civilization, can also lead to war - through a
deep- rooted distortion of our society, and thus of our
nature.
When the prerequisites for sustainable peace are
not fulfilled, a society is unstable and prone to violence - either
civil conflict or external wars. These underlying causes are
aggravated by establishment control of the way in which we view
"outsiders", and by our tendency to blame an external agency for
the problems that beset our own society.