Blog Assignment #1

     From a historical context, I believe war is hard-wired into the human condition.  I think it has to do with Marx's Conflict Theory, that all of history can be explained by examining a scarcity of resources and how they are divided up.  In one group's push for a greater share of resources, violence will result.  Why?  Because in the natural order of human response, violence is the most potent of those responses, the pinnacle of human action.  I say this not to glorify it, but to explain that physical conflict is the strongest form of coercion available to make an individual or population submit to an outside influence.  It's like deciding who goes first in the sandlot baseball game.  Hand over hand, from the bottom of the bat, until the top is reached, declaring the winner.  The strongest survive; their hands end up on top through brute force.

     There is no life without war, as there is no life without peace.   It has been cyclical throughout human history.  The examples of cultures without war are so few that I believe they represent an anomaly rather than the basic structure of humanity.  And also, looking at it from an evolutionary standpoint, natural selection says that the strongest survive to pass on their genes.  Once again, with limited resources, those that can eat because of taking from the weaker will survive to reproduce.  From this perspective, violence and war have been selectively bred into us from the advent of man, or rather, the advent of two men.