The Evolution of War and Violence

The Evolution of War and Violence

In considering our understanding of the “Way” every moment should be seen in proportion to its cosmic context. On this our planet' existence is a fleeting event. The form we call life upon it is of even less significance. Within that a distinct human life form is barely noticeable. Within humanity's ambience modern civilization is a trivially short un-noteworthy experience. Yet here we are choosing to comment upon it.

This is written by a Britain from Reading, a city 40 miles West of London who now lives in Suzhou a Chinese city, 40 miles West of Shanghai. London could claim a history of nearly 2000 years Reading perhaps 1000. In human terms these two cities have been of socio-economic significance for only 500 and 200 years respectively. Suzhou is referred to by Confucius 2500 years ago as the capital of the Kingdom of Wu. It remains socially and economically significant today.

Americans are overwhelmed by European historical perspectives. They will be blown by China's when its 2500 year old history bursts into global focus during the 2008 Olympiad. This event has origin in a European civilisation with roots are as old as China's. Unlike China the civilisation they supported no longer exists except as ruins but its ideas are stored to permeate our lives.

Like Reading Suzhou is close to a great modern metropolis, Shanghai.was an insignificant fishing village when the British created it 200 years ago. It is now a globally significant city. From a Chinese perspective it is a recent Western intrusion of short term significance to their way of being..

In planetary terms these historical perspectives distort reality. Global warming could drown three of these cities this century. In cosmic terms this is not worth comment. To see things from these three points of view, human, planetary and cosmic, matters. Understanding the significance to humanity of our capacity to learn how to store actively can only be seen in its true depth when viewed simultaneously from all three. Our capacity consciously to plan to store the surpluses thrown up by the “Way” is highly relevant to our species perception of its integration with it.

Humans noted that seeds carelessly scattered when gathering a natural crop gave a renewed resource a year on. From this we grew to understand we had the capacity to nurture such occurrences through the process of cultivation,. Cultivating, farming, storable carbohydrates, freed us from a day to day perspective based on seasonal local availability. Crops grow on an annual, solar, cycle. Our perspective became, solar and celestial rather than lunar and seasonal.

Crops can be grown in quantity and stored. Long, now extinct civilisations, depended on this. Moses demonstrated its truths to the Egyptians in the story of the seven years of plenty followed by the seven lean years. The Assyrian's accounting tablets and the Incas knot records testify to the social significance of such know how. Recording and accounting were created to assist storing it and then became means of wider communication. Only one civilisation based on this form has lasted hardly touched and intact into the present time, China.

This approach to being requires sustainable propriety in land. This demands social institution to evolve to protect it and its produce. Wealth invested in farming, irrigation, seed grain, fertilizer, and storing its products grain silos etc. need protecting from nature and people

The wealth created and stored does violence to natural order. It exclude people and nature from its bounty. Uncultivated plants become weeds. Creatures feeding on cultivated plants, crops, become pests. People inside society seeking to acquire them other than through a market become criminals, those from outside enemies to be eliminated with the weeds and vermin.

A state with access to significant lethal force is required to protect such investment in stock and other stored accumulated value, wealth. Access by others other than those granted the privilege is thus prevented. Plants, animals and people seeking “unauthorised” access need to be ruthlessly neutered or eliminated for such a system to be successful. Authority and associated power over others is thus institutionalised. Plants become weeds, animals vermin and other peoples enemies to be eliminated ruthlessly in the survival interest of this vegetarian civilisation. So much for the pacific ideal of the arable farmer. The one thing that is simply not true is that vegetarianism and its associated activity of farming is in its substance pacific. It is instead in its essence aggressively martial. Agrarian societies do violence to the natural order and are only sustainable by doing continuous violence to the rest of nature including their own species. Cultivators both create enemies and are enemies to be feared

Societies based on cultivation differ hugely from hunter gatherer and modern societies inthis. They are based on propriety and the power over nature’s provision it seemingly provides. Violent exclusion is the means to their ends. Violence has to be practiced to sustain them.

Propriety excludes other humans from access to stored value in developed land and stores of crops. Violent acquisition is then a viable strategy. It leaves a usurper in possession of immediately usable wealth. Knowledge (intellectual property) on farming is publicly available. The written or recorded language such societies acquire for accounting purposes ensures this knowledge is stored. Such knowledge is not exclusive to those with particular local knowledge. The usurper of an agricultural developed community acquires immediately usable stored sustenance and a resource, developed land that can be exploited to future benefit.

In this system socially organised violence is thus necessary to protect what one has. For similar reasons socially managed violence, war, is a viable means of obtaining sustenance and procreating new societies based upon one’s own. The basic social entity has changed from globally diverse locally cohesive communal groups to societies, states. These are based on the use of violent ruthless exclusion. This is required to protect what they have from the understandably self righteous violence of the disposed or similarly acquisitive. There is thus a direct correlation between vegetarianism and violence. Farmers may not be violent to other humans but the institutions they require to operate are just ask the few American Plains Indians that are left about the non-violence of farmers.

In such a world war is the tool societies naturally use to penetrate others to procreate their way of being and develop new sustainable approach to wealth creation and accumulation. In such a world women move from being equal partners in power to being property to be possessed or taken.

To be sustainable such societies needed to be larger than other similar ones so they can overwhelm potential usurpers by force of arms. To be large requires an exceedingly stable and effective system of administration sustainable over time.

The West failed to discovered such a system and as a consequence was plagued by wars, rape and pillage. China found the Confucian and Taoist “Way” of providing a sustainable social stable base supporting effective agricultural. This extolled family stability and obedience. This was to be echoed in and modelled in the impartial behaviour of state officials appointed on the basis of merit not influence. It worked. China became and remained for centuries the sole continuing success story of the agricultural system. Family stability and its associated imperial administrative system dissipated disruptive social behaviour and provided a stable foundation of institutionalised authority in which agricultural could flourish to generate the wealth to support the institutional power required to sustain it.