The Ever-unfolding Marriage of
Loewenmensch and Venus of Hohle Fels
The “cradle of civilization” rocks – and rocks again
During my lifetime there have been well over 250 military actions around the world, from incidental incursions to a world encompassing war, a war during which, alone, an estimated 50,000,000 people lost their lives. That is the same number as the population of the entire world in 1000 BC.
Except for Mesoamerica, where, of course, there was a paradigm of institutionalized violence, and some parts of China, the thing that occupies most of one’s attention about the so-called cradle of civilization between 1700 and 600BC is that there was almost continuous war.
What is it about the issue of war, and particularly attaining control and possessions through violence, that is so confusing to me? Compare the 50 million people that populated the world in the 2nd millennium BC to the approximately 7.7 billion people that occupy the Earth today. What was the problem? Was there not enough land and resources to support everyone? I know some authorities actually state, as an explanation, that some of that land was not as productive, but still . . . . .
There are so many theories that hypothesize why folks, and these theories mainly, but not exclusively, attribute to men, initiate and participate in wars that it is embarrassing to try to repeat, or to summarize, or even to rationalize all of them. These theories try to explain why people obtain control and attempt to seize what others have by invoking Darwin’s name, or Freud’s name. There are the intra-personal and intra-communal power theories, the sexual power theories, and the “they have more than us” theories. All of these theories try to explain the tendency to acquire possessions through violence. While most of these positions I have read seem to have a rational and convincing basis, the aggregate of all of these theories causes one to consider that we are still in an area of rampant speculation about why people decide to go out and maim and kill and corral more slaves – particularly why farmers and artisans agreed to become soldiers and hoof it out there for tens and hundreds of miles, crossing rivers, climbing over mountains, and particularly getting exposed to life-threatening harm.
While there is some very new, but uncorroborated, evidence of a possible gene related to empathy in humans, that potential was not in evidence in the political leaders of the late bronze age. Any tendency to share was overwhelmed by the attitude of taking.
Is there an actual human penchant toward violence and war within us; that killing others is an inherent part of our being, and that trying to alter that propensity is a wrenching and perhaps improbable achievement? If so, I must consider the possibility that I have had it wrong all these years; that peace may not be a viable option. Perhaps I have to look at this from the other side – that war is natural and acceptable, and that violent taking, in the final analysis, is a status quo of relating. Perhaps it is only the fear of personal loss that inhibits me from accepting the positive aspects of gaining through violent action – though changing that, for me, is probably another improbable achievement.