wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

April 12 2007

A few hours ago I heard Lenord Lopate interview Stephen Younger. At one point in the interview Mr. Younger said that he does not believe a certain anthropological view that war is inevitable because it is a school of thought that says "Humans are no good."

Mr Younger also said that slavery was thought to be inevitable but it came to be unacceptable, but not by itself, people had to make it happen.

I see a certain contradiction. If war and slavery are not inevetable (or they are avoidable as far as the entirety of human behavior and nature is concerned) then it seems that it would be natural that they (slavery and war)would not exist of themselves and humans would not have to make "non-war"or "non-slavery" happen.
Early death through disease or illness such as polio or premature birth "would happen" unless humans make them "not happen" by inventing cures. But nature has made a system in which death is part of overall survival. Physical weakness is so that not everyone is born strong and there are not so many of any one species. However, then fighting over resources (food, territory) will happen anyway. So it is a circular system, and war does seem to be inevitable because death is necessary in some way.

Also regarding the point that humans can change and not accept war. It seems that that automatically means that all people have to somehow be made exactly alike. Maybe genetically change people so that they all look alike (many people just won't be friendly with those who look different),and/or we have to make all people think alike ( many people wont be friendly with people of different religions or of no religion) and/or people have to be made to practice the same cultural practices (many people would not want to be friends with people who (let's say)
don't fast on the weekends and feast on weekdays). Would any person be willing to give up his or her values, religion etc to take up those of other people so that no one fights over what ideas are right?

War is inevitable because differences are. Is it better to have no differences as long as it means no war?

And one more thing, Mr. Younger said that he somehow helped in the conceptual development (at least) of a weapon that blinds people, and he said that he had inner conflicts about the whole idea because he does not think that killing someone is better than blinding them, but blinding them is against his concience too.

Well, if a soldier in the battlefield is blinded but not killed, what will he/she do? Can the soldier find his/her way back to his/her platoon to seek help? Can the soldier find food, or avoid falling in a pit where he or she will starve or die of exposure?