War: Good God! What is it good for?

[copied from a post to a newsletter. I think that's kosher..]

ISTM on the face of it that war, xenophobia, and a whole bunch of socially negative human traits evolved for the simple reason that if I kill you and your children, there's more scope for me and my children (and our genes) to propagate. It's a simple zero sum game: even in the case where there's enough resources for us to live in peace without population growth, it is clearly in my sociobiological interest to simply kill you and yours, and allow my genes to dominate the entire available niche.

In practical terms, this seems mapped onto territorial aggression. Practically all wars today are fundamentally about place, homeland, and the right to dominate the politics and social discourse of places and people. Genocide appears to be the rational end product of displacement and ethnic cleansing [note: I don't mean to imply that genocide is 'rational' in any ethical sense!!!] I challenge someone to mention a conflict of today or recent history that wasn't essentially about removing people from some place, through banishment or slaughter. It's justified a hundred different ways, but it always comes down to something like this:

"My God(s) and traditions tell me this land is our rightful homeland. Get the f**k out because we're the chosen people here. And BTW, we're going to expand all over your supposed homeland because you keep threatening us, and you are discriminating against our people who moved into your lands because you or some other bad people pushed us out of our ancestral lands so-and-so many years ago. Amen, hallelujah, Heil Elmer, Go Jihad, etc."

The most enlightening thing I ever read about war was Jane Goodall's "Through a Window", where she outlines the way the chimps occasionally just go completely berzerk on another tribe, tearing babies limb from limb, etc. As I recall she seemed quite shaken herself, having perhaps bought into the image of the chimps as relatively peaceful beings unsullied by the errs of human civilization.

My father was an actor. He developed a one-man show based on Kafka's "Report to an Academy", about a 'humanized' ape. The savage beast lives within us all.

-dbm

father's day

Brax & I biked around Stanford. Really quite something to see a little mind mature. Brought back memories of hanging with my Dad. I remember walking from our old place on 91st and Riverside, down to our just-rented, empty apartment on 79th and Columbus. I insisted on walking, and boy was I tired by the end of the trip. I had just turned 5. I was sure we were moving to the third world.

A friend commented re: an earlier blog (she refuses to sign in & comment publicly) that perhaps for most of us, our life project is our children. Even the twisted Jihadists (on all sides) probably think they're doing it all for the kids.

Herbal Excuses

I keep misreading my "Herbal Essences/Nourishing Palm Shampoo for Fine & Limp Hair" as "Herbal Excuses".

I think Herbal Excuses are the bullshit rationalizations we make for ourselves that we've done something good for society/the environment/poor people/people of color/disabled veterans/the whales/nukes, etc. Face it, we haven't done shit.

What's that about?