Assumptions about War and Violence
A review by John Repp:
A review of a book written by Douglas P. Fry. The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence New York: Oxford University, 2006.
Too many Americans hold these “truths” to be self-evident: “That there has always been war and there always will be. It’s human nature.” Many of us have probably heard such words in our work for an end to war. Unfortunately, these beliefs have power and are an obstacle to achieving a more peaceful world. There is evidence for the idea that there has always been war. The history of civilization and our Western literary canon from its earliest works such as The Bible are full of accounts of warfare. But our species existed long before civilization and writing. The earliest unambiguous archaeological evidence of warfare is less than 10,000 years old while anatomically modern Homo sapiens appeared 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. War leaves definite evidence in the archaeological record, for example, a number of burials with projectile points in the bones, specialized weapons such as daggers not used in hunting, unambiguous fortifications surrounding villages and martial scenes in artwork.
This type of evidence starts to appear just before the development of agriculture with the emergence of complex hunter-gatherer societies about 10,000 years ago. The simplest hunter-gatherer societies are called “bands” by anthropologists. They are nomadic, egalitarian, do not store food, and have no political leaders. The majority of bands described by anthropologists are without war.
Archaeology confirms that these were the kinds of societies that existed before the end of the last ice age when human population was sparse and the climate was dry. To survive bands had to cooperate. There was occasional violence but it was usually between individuals not groups. Fry makes clear several points that are confusing, especially for those not well versed in anthropology. There are different types of hunter-gatherer societies: the simple nomadic (just mentioned) and the complex hunter-gatherer societies which anthropologists call “tribes.” They are sedentary and hierarchical. They store food and have chiefs.
An example is the Northwest natives who lived in our region before the Europeans arrived. These types of hunter-gatherers often made war. In addition to bands, the dominant type of society for millennia, today we have nation-states like Switzerland, Costa Rica, Norway and Sweden that do not make war. If war were caused by “human nature” it would be impossible to find societies or countries without war. There are no human societies without conflict but there are many ways of resolving conflict between individuals and between societies without violence. Peace does not mean lack of conflict but rather practicing nonviolent ways of resolving conflict. Fry describe many of the methods used by many different societies for nonviolent conflict resolution. We are really a peacemaking primate not a killer ape. His book provides a glimmer of hope that is critical to motivating individuals to work for peace.