The Origins of War in Child Abuse.

[MMX2010]

I'm posting a link to the free-reading of this book (by Stef) because I only today discovered its existence. 

 

Thanks very much to everyone who had a hand in making that book freely-available. 

 

So much of that book was literally nauseating - (even now I feel like I want to throw up) - but I needed to know just how bad our historical parents have been, and just how utterly important it is to not be that way. 

 

http://freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx#origins

[LanceD]

The sad thing is, the author is a fan of Obama.

 

So even the guy who wrote this book still isn't principled.

[Bedouin]

Just thought I'd necro this to repeat the same... What an astoundingly insightful, and simultaneously harrowing listen. I also felt nauseated while listening to most of it and had to take long breaks, despite being thoroughly engrossed. It has certainly had a profound effect on me, both in my intellectual understanding and my emotions.

 

I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. It's pretty much guaranteed that it'll make one feel unwell but it's just something everyone (certainly those in the voluntarist movement) should listen to as an intellectual rite of passage.

 

And @ LanceD, yeah I found that quite mind-boggling when I first heard it, and got even more confused when I heard what he had written about the state in his book as a clear instrument of war. And to decry war, plus Bush yet support Obama sure is a bit of a mind bomb.

[st434u]

It's very important to go even further, and figure out the reasons why it was this way. To treat it as an accident that our ancestors were so brutal to each other and children in particular is a big mistake.

 

Lifeforms at large don't develop behaviors that lower their life expectancy and that of their offspring in a massive way. There must be very good reasons why our ancestors acted in this way.

 

And I think by using economic theory and psychology we can come to the conclusion that they behaved this way because they evolved to behave this way, because in the socioeconomic environment that we evolved in (hunter-gatherer / tribal), it was the best way to maximize their genetical reproductive success, and that of their children and subsequent generations.

 

I've made a few other posts about it, like #5 in this thread:

 

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/36874-is-it-natural-for-humans-to-make-war/

 

Coming to terms with this fact may prove substantially harder than getting through this book and others like it.

[Josh F]

This is one of my favorite pieces of content I've gotten from FDR.  I listened to Molyneux's interview with him and he laughed often at very inappropriate moments I noticed.  I found his books super dark and depressing, but the truth is often brutal. 

[MMX2010]

Lifeforms at large don't develop behaviors that lower their life expectancy and that of their offspring in a massive way. There must be very good reasons why our ancestors acted in this way.

I accept that your argument is reasonable here.

 

But I also think that saying, "Trait X, which evolved in hunter-gatherer environments, is highly natural."  is cause for hope.  Our technologically-driven society is so unnatural that any "natural" traits can probably be over-ridden. 

[AustinJames]

 

Lifeforms at large don't develop behaviors that lower their life expectancy and that of their offspring in a massive way. There must be very good reasons why our ancestors acted in this way.

 

This is incorrect.  Life forms at large do indeed develop behaviors that lower their life expectancy.  Evidence of this is the fact that vastly more genetic material has become extinct than has survived throughout the history of life on this planet, due to some development of behaviour, or environmental accident.  Developments in behaviour always occur in response to environmental changes, and these are largely accidental by nature.

 

Logically, it would follow for a victim of sexual abuse as a child to say, "there must be very good reasons why my abuser committed this violent act.  After all, life forms at large don't develop behaviors that negatively effect future generations."  The same could be said of war, and genocide, which would be a logical contradiction.  There may be a reason for the behaviour, but it is not necessarily a "good" reason.