never justified

I once read something where an historian attempted to justify war by claiming that we have evolved it as a natural strategy to aid our survival. That's just bollocks; we've evolved the capability for complex social interaction and co-operative behaviours but violence is just an unfortunate by-product. Just because we have opposable thumbs and can hold sticks to use as tools it doesn't mean we have to also use them as weapons.

I have heard it argued that the violent, aggressive and occasionally cannibalistic ways of the chimpanzee reflect humanity; that the struggle for survival occurs within the species as well as within the whole ecosystem. Whilst true that natural selection can favour any advantage game theory can demonstrate that non-aggressive strategies are the most mutually beneficial to the population as an whole and it's the population as an whole which has to survive. Look at the bonobo.

Just because our ancestors geared our civilisation(s) towards militaristic expansionism and attempted to solve conflict (which they often started) with violent means doesn't mean it's the way forward, especially now that it's so much easier for bits of the world to talk to other bits to sort out whatever issues they have with each other's religion, territory or resources. We don't need wars, we don't need the armies which fight them and especially not the misguided dingbats who command them and believe that their method is anything other than despicable.

Where one group's violence is directed against a target without the means or will or inclination to meet it with their own the result could be displacement, subjugation, opression or even enslavement of the victim population. Not clever nor necessary nor justified nor tolerable.

On a smaller scale it's equally sickening. One of the reasons I hate football and that sort of team sport is the utterly unwarranted aggression released when people submit to the control of the mindless mind of a group and the power-in-numbers feeling it gives. For some it may well be an outlet (maybe even a safe one) for their aggression but for others it just acts as an incubator. One of the reasons I hate alcohol misuse is that one of the results is violence and abuse and other essentially selfish and thoughtless behaviours.

We got where we are today by co-operating with each other. The advances in technology made alongside military pressures and funding came from people co-operating with each other and not from the conflicts themselves even if the co-operants were co-operating for the wrong reasons such as finding a way to blow people up more effectively.

As the president said in Mars Attacks: "why can't we all just get along?"

As Woody said in Toy Story... "play nice... OK?"