pafret Loc: Northeast

“The Military instinct: The Human Race as Feral Dogs”


“The Military instinct: The Human Race as Feral Dogs”
by Fred Reed

"As Washington bombs Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria, militarily threatens Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, and China, sanctions Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Iran...one may wonder: Why? Are wars about anything, or just wars? In modern times, a reason of sorts is thought decorous, yes: Ruritania is threatening us, or might, or does something wrong, or Ruritanians don’t think rightly about the gods. We must kill them. And yet everywhere in all times, almost miraculously, some reason for a war is found. It would seem that wars are not about anything, but just what we do.

Recently the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared to offer a prospect of extended peace. There seemed nothing left to fight about, at least on any scale. Yet the United States quickly launched a half dozen wars of no necessity and threatened others. Why?

Because wars are what we do.

It may surprise many people to learn of evidence for a genetic foundation of human behavior. This should not be surprising. Dogs form packs, mark territory, and bark furiously at strange dogs. So, it seems, do people. An empire is just the result of these canine instincts.

Consider conservatives, as they are more relevant to the fighting of wars. (Liberals appear as genetically determined) Conservatives tend to be tribal, intensely loyal to their group– race, country, ethnicity, religious faith– which in national terms becomes patriotism. They lack empathy. They see the world in terms of threats, conflict, and dominance. They favor capitalism and the Second Amendment, revere the military, speak of blood and soil, oppose taxation of themselves to give to the less fortunate.

An important point here is that these traits clump together, although there is no logical connection. For example, one might rationally favor ownership of guns as necessary to self-defense yet oppose having a large military as unnecessary. One might favor a large military in what appeared a dangerous world, yet favor extensive governmental charity as what one might see as common decency.

Yet this almost never happens. If you tell me that you oppose abortion, with confidence I can predict that you fit the description above of a conservative. If you tell me that you oppose the Second Amendment, I can be pretty sure that you favor abortion, acceptance of immigrants, marriage of homosexuals, and so on.

We all have access to the same information about the world, to the internet, the same books and newspapers, and we all live in very much the same society. Yet liberals and conservatives arrive at sharply differing conclusions from identical evidence. This suggests an innate predisposition.

Soldiers invariably fit the conservative pattern, prizing loyalty to their units and to their country, seeing threats everywhere, and becoming alarmed easily. For example, if an ancient Russian prop-driven recon plane, technically a bomber in the Fifties, flies near England, fighters will leap into the air to intercept it, grrr, woof, though the idea that the Russians would send one ancient bird to bomb Britain is lunatic. It is very like dogs barking frantically at a passing pedestrian.

People in general seem designed to think about small groups, not countries of millions of people. It is impossible to think of, say, Russia as millions of individuals, especially when we have never seen even a single Russian. The almost invariable response is to compress a whole nation mentally into a sort of aggregate person. As I write, America is barking at North Korea, said to be a rogue state threatening several other countries. Countless men from the President through Congress to growling patriots in bars are saying angrily that “We can wipe North Korea of the face of the earth.” We’ll show the bastards.

North Korea consists of twenty-five million people of whom perhaps fifty might want to attack anybody at all. The let’s-nukem men– almost always men, who are genetically more truculent than women, which is also true of dogs– think of the whole country as one pudgy man with a bad haircut. “We must punish North Korea” makes sense to them in these terms. Exactly why several million children in kindergarten need to be burned to death does not enter their minds.

A great deal of international behavior makes sense, or at least makes no sense but does it in a consistent manner, if you look at the history of empire. This too appears to be instinctive, and therefore presumably genetic. Throughout history men– again, always men– have formed armies and set out to conquer, usually at the price of unspeakable bloodshed, lands they didn’t need. Sometimes the plunder brought a degree of benefit, seldom commensurate with the cost, but often not.

Over and over and over, one country conquers its neighbors, sometimes forming large empires but often small ones almost lost to history. Then a new one arises and bursts the bubble of the first. This is instinctual as a dog peeing on a hydrant.

We see this now. The United States has no need for an empire of perhaps eight hundred military bases around the globe or to fight constant and exhausting wars for places it doesn’t need or even like. America has no need of Afghanistan, for example, and is there only to keep China out– that is, from the instinct for empire. Again, peeing on hydrants.

The lack of empathy usual in conservatives, in soldiers, appears all through military history, from the practice of putting cities to the sword to today’s indiscriminate bombing. It results from the tribal instinct. A fighter pilot will in time of peace be a good citizen, perhaps a good father, obey the laws and, should an earthquake occur, work tirelessly to save the trapped. Yet order him to bomb a crowded city in a country that has done nothing to deserve it– Baghdad, for example– and he will do it and pride himself on having done it.

The behavior is innate and immutable, unchanged over the millennia, but today we seem to need to pretend to decency. Militaries and “intelligence” agencies, the chief vessels of brutal behavior, have become very sensitive to revelations of what we now call “atrocities.” Actually atrocities are what militaries normally do. The norm now is to employ euphemistms– collateral damage- and to insist that atrocities are “isolated incidents.” Today governments, to maintain public support for the wars, or as least to discourage attention, carefully censors photos of disemboweled children or the CIA’s torture chambers. But the butchery continues as it did among stone-age savages. Pilots still bomb cities. The CIA tortures and probably enjoys it. Plus ca change, plus ca doesn’t.

There is a slight difference. Militaries now know they are doing wrong, This is why soldiers become furious when persistently asked about atrocities. They would rather you not know. Yet the bombing continues and from the less politically careful conservatives come cries of, “Untie the hands of our soldiers,” and “Let the military do its job.”

It is innate. We do what we do because it is how we are.”
- https://fredoneverything.org/

Ricktloml

Gee, just from reading this scree, I can determine that the author is a leftist who has a bias against conservatives

PLT Sarge Loc: Alabama

Don't really know how to start to reply to this. I spent 11 years active and 27 reserve. Not because I wanted to be Macho, but because I love this country. I do not look at civilians as Feral Dogs. I look at civilians, the great people of this country that need people like us, the military to protect the rights under our great Constitution, including the Second. These are young men and women that are not forced to sign, not by transcript, but wanting to serve this country and what they feel in their hearts. Understanding that this is something that is more than them, something they believe. They sign knowing that they will probably be deployed. Knowing that they may be put in harms way. But they are willing to do this, knowing that they may have to give their lives, to give you the right to disrespect them.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

That is a good definition of Democrats.

2bltap Loc: Move to the Mainland

Hey there Mongo, its been awhile how have you been? My reply to this writer is that every single Marine I faught with had tears of anguish as well as anger when we came across eith er the ramins of a child or those that were damged physically and or emotionally. We cared about the kids nad tried whenever possible to protect, medicaly treat and comfort them. We were angered by the whole sale slaughter of babies, toddlers and those who are unable to protect themselves for a variety of reasons. The human depravity of the adults who used them as either shields or play toys made for that feeling of revenge onnthose that would do this to children. YEAH! WE CARED AN AWFULL LOT BRO!!!! Again in all honesty it was very dificult at times to look at the enemy as human beings. I also joined the Marine Corps for one single reason. LOVE OF THIS COUNTRY. Many will say why do we have to be the police of the world and on some level I understand this view. However, many do not realize that if the United States military do not intervene on behalf of other countries the sickness can of that enemy can and has come here to our shores. Seriously mna, can you even imagine if the shit that has been ocurring in all of Europe as a result of those so called refugees (MOST OF WHICH ARE FIGHTING AGE MALES), were happening here due to progreessive ideology oF MULTICULTURALISM, and the need to be understanding of others beliefs which quite frankly clash with ours? You know, the bombings, beheadings, migrant rape gangs, acid attacks, the running over of innocent civillians, mass stabbings and so on and so forth. The feel gooders and the rest would either be saying, its our fault for not understanding or trying to apologize on the migrants behalf frotheir behavior, or would they be screaming, where is law enforcement or where iss the military that they seem to disdain. Sorry Brother Man for going off on a tangent here but Ifeel the neeed to try and educate not you but those who will never understand the military mindset or for that matter the human need of self preservation until they are faced with it. It really is in our DNA to protect ourselves individualy as well as our own sovereinty be what ever means necessary. The world has never been a happily peaceful place. Only instances during periods of time that in the big sceme of things fleeting at best. It is difficult at times for me to actually share my thoughts and feelings with those who dont and will never understand. As I have told my family and the few friends that I care to have that in order to be and thrive in a miitary enivironment one must have a bit of the wolf in their blood as we are like the article stated pack animals be it with a higher thought capability. Actually, if everyone were to be honest with themselves that spirit of the wolf is in them nad when push comes to shovethey will do what they need to do if able. Some times Mongo, I wonder id predatory animals arent the smarter of us. Animals hunt out of neccesity where as humans (Not talking about hunters) have this notion that we must conquer others and force their will and beliefs on others. At this time in history it is the Islamic ideology that is that is the major threat regardless of the whats going in North Korea. I know. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH MIke Imranting now but you catch my drift. Damn I havent been on this big of a soap box in awhile.
Semper Fi

PLT Sarge Loc: Alabama

Brother. You are so right, people do not know of what these wars have done and are doing to the children. My heart cries everyday. Civilians have no idea of what we have had to Police and have had to clean, only way I knew to say that. I see their innocent faces when looking at these children now that I'm stateside.

Ricktloml

I think I like this better:


"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannons or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against a tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice,-- is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing he is willing to fight for, nothing he cares more about than he does his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

John Stuart Mill

pafret Loc: Northeast

2bit and Sarge, it seems your personal experience has given you insights to the thoughts expressed by this author.

Rick, it seems to me that John Stuart Mill, while sounding noble, still advocates the feral dog mentality. Wars to give victory to your ideas? Man has used that as justification in endless conflicts even though no one has ever been harmed by an idea. Self-defense is a just reason for combat but this presumes you have been attacked. All too often, the concept of defense is used as an excuse for preemptive warfare.

In the attempt to find cause for the wars with which we have been involved or instigated, we inevitably discover some resource that needed to be protected. In modern times, oil, earlier we fomented revolutions to protect the assets of United Fruit in South America. Earlier yet it was to acquire lebensraum or to secure access to known sources of wealth; spices, gold and silver. Significantly, the wealth was needed to finance wars.

In medieval times, robber barons maintained their fighting forces to plunder each other and held the populace in serfdom or outright slavery to support their war machines. While Mills talks about defense against unjust aggression he conveniently overlooks the fact that the defender is in his turn the unjust aggressor. His thesis of aiding those who are attacked unjustly has merit but ultimately the question must be asked, "Who made me the guardian of peace and tranquility?"

To refuse such aid is craven but the taste for imposing our will on others is seductive. The justifications become flimsier and as with this last administration, insane. What possible benefit could be derived in destroying nation after nation and unleashing a horde of refugees as well as opportunist invaders on the world? What self-defense strategy was served by this series of actions? Who were we protecting?

Wars beget wars. We are now faced with historic enemies Russia and China and newer enemies North Korea and Iran all of whom possess the means to end all life on this planet. North Korea and Iran have stated it is their intention to destroy us and Iran will destroy our ally, Israel as well. The only reason such nuclear conflict has not erupted is that men of sanity have stopped it in the past. What happens when those few men are not on duty when the provocation occurs, as it inevitably must?

The feral dog mentality reigns in human interactions. Everyone is familiar with the dolt who practices intimidation by standing in front of a mirror chanting, "Are you looking at me" in various threatening cadences. It is the threat, which is practiced, not the smile or the open handed welcome. We would rather be feared than loved, so what does that say about us and our imperative to dominate?

As individuals we are protective of those around us, compassionate and caring for the well being of others. Soldiers are compelled to willingly participate in the destruction of innocents, the maiming, dismemberment and brutality of all sorts toward enemy combatants. Is it any wonder that the psyche rebels, and these soldiers return from war broken individuals who suffer from every kind of mental torment?

ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

PoppaGringo: That is a true statement! I would like to add an additional four asterisks! ####

Ricktloml

Perhaps it is because I don't see the human race as feral dogs. And I believe there are absolute rights and wrongs. And both good and evil.

I do agree that we owe so much appreciation to our soldiers, not only for risking their own lives, but for their courage in having to make the decisions necessary to deal with evil and ugliness, and then bear the costs of those decisions, which can at times be brutal.