World Peace In Prehistory (5)

Rebuttal: Human Nature Leads to War: You state that man only kills when out of necessity, and if there were disputes between territories between tribes over territory they would have a clean fight and the victor will keep their claim to the land. This is partly true, when tribes or groups of people lives in close proximity of each other they would often raid each other in fear of being raided first. It's a common scenario take this as an example, a robber enters a house with a gun, the home owner wakes up and (being a good american) get's his gun from his nightstand to see what the noise is, it is at this point which the robber and the home owner meet each other in the hall way, neither of them want to shoot the other but they are both thinking that if they don't shoot the other they will get shot themselves. This was the mentality of tribes, it wasn't until treaties and the trading of surpluses (mutual relationship) that tribes had a reason not to strike another without reason. You argument of social inequality being developed by surpluses and wealth, i still stand by my conclusion that wealth is only a tool used by the ambitious to find obtain advantages over their fellowman. For truly ambitious men will find a way to achieve their goal even when they lack the resources to do so, in order to place themselves higher in a man made society. The idea of ownership pre-existing. I would like to take this time to agree with you that before agriculture that there was little to no wealth. However one must consider the use of hunting to prepare for war. Through out time hunting has been used as a way to train children for the horrors of war, teaching them to be patient and never to hesitate to deal a striking blow when the time is right. This has proven to be an effective training from ancient times to modern times. For example Vasily Zaytsev the hero of Stalingrad was a adept hunter killing his first wolf at the age of 5, he lived in the Ural mountains allowing for plenty for practice, during Stalingrad he had a confirmed 242 kills within 4 months.[1] As for you're references to the mongol conquests, one must understand the reasoning of which why Mongolia would seek to invade, historians believe that the combined drop in annual temperature (causing growing seasons to be shorter), trade disruptions with china, and Tenggeri (sky god) granting Chinggis Khan permission to unite the world under one sword were all factors which drove the Mongols to mass conquest. [2] Thus as you stated earlier in round 3 "Man is natural competitive, and sometimes savage like, but only a savage when need be in order to survive. ", the Mongols savagery was justified. Agriculture allowed for human control of population (as a good thing): As response to the quote "Armies march on their stomachs" thus leading food being taken by others. I will give you two example in which armies did not take locals(or condemned this action). George Washington of the United States and Hannibal of Carthage. Washington knew that if he was to win the war he must have the support of the local population, thus he did not allow for his troops to force quarter upon the locals and condemned the taking of foods and supplies from the locals. As a result his army was often under supplied (of course foraging parties were allowed to hunt and gather) to and during winter campaigns the soldiers ate mostly fire cake (water and flour cooked on a rock over a fire). However this strategy worked, the locals despised the British whom they would have to give quarter to and give they supplies and food over uncontested. Thus as the war went on more colonials favored the continental army in the way they went about the war. Hannibal of Carthage faced a similar scenario in the second Punic war, in which he tried to conquer Rome. But once he reached the Italian peninsula he could not receive any supply or reinforcements from Carthage, so he had to rely on the city states withing the peninsula to aid him. He could not have appeared to be barbaric by simply ransacking the city states for out of concern for their own safety they would seek alliances with Rome. So Hannibal went out on a shock and awe strategy, hoping to win over the favor and support of city states in the area by showing off his mercenary army and more notably the elephants that came with him. He showed the he could defeat the Romans in any engagement by winning several consecutive wins most notably the Battle of Cannae in which his army killed 70,000 Roman and Roman allies in roughly 6 and a half hours.[3] The Romans could not win in a conventional fight, so they ultimately won by strengthening their allies defenses, avoiding directly confronting Hannibal and isolating those who helped him. Although this was a slow process, Hannibal was left out to dry leaving him with no alternative besides retreating. I would not like to respond to the statement claiming that a growing population means less for everybody. Though in theory this is true advances in agricultural sciences and generic engineering allows for more the be produced quickly. In the hunting-gathering society, food was not easily available one had to spend a reasonable amount of time to obtain it. Though in theory hunting gathering communities would have a lesser rate of hunger then we have, but that is in theory and in reality several factors beyond the hunter-gather communities control could affect the community thus bringing severe food shortages. The rate of violence is declining. Steven Pinker writes a interesting perspective of the decline of violence with history in his "the myth of violence" presentation. In which he states you were 35 times more likely to be murdered back in in the middle ages then you would be now. He states that casualties suffered now are lowed to very small percents or parts of percents of a population when they go to war. [4][5] He also states that our ancestors were far more violent then we were and it's been in a steady decline since then, and today we are living the most peaceful existence in our history. He also states that in non-states hunter gathering communities men would be much more likely to die at the hands of an other man then in more recent history. A example he gives is that the Jivaro would have a 60 % chance to die at the hands of an other man opposed to in the 20th century US/Europe where a man had a few small percentage of dying at the hands of another man(this includes both world wars and the genocide of Mao,Stalin and other notorious dictators). He then goes on into his presentation four reasonable explanations explaining the decline in violence. [4] Conclusion Thus is can be concluded that man was violent even during the times of hunting-gathering societies. Agriculture can not be accused of increasing violence for as shown by Steve Pinker violence has been on a declined over time. You can not accuse the wealth created by surpluses for creating inequalities in society, for it is in human nature to try and obtain an edge over their fellow man, thus is the very reason why true communism could not work. Despite the belief that everyone is equal in a true communist society, men will always seek to have an advantage over their other fellow man. Also the myth that hunger and turmoil did not affect hunting gathering communities, can also be debunked due to the adverse conditions weather and other biotic and abiotic factors, which can bring shortages in food thus leading to immigration and disputes within the community and disputes of territory with other communities. Thus leaving us reason the believe that agriculture was quite beneficiary to the human race. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org... [2]http://afe.easia.columbia.edu... [3]http://www.roman-empire.net... [4]http://www.ted.com... [5]http://www.edge.org...