Do "war-mongers" have a genetic predisposition?

[Just Me]

Have studies been conducted on those who gravitate towards destruction and violence?

I'm curious.

Can we create bugs that will get rid of them *giggle*. I figure I might give some focus to a defense department's creation of other creative destructive means against their "enemies". Maybe, just maybe,...their bent upon destruction ought to be focused upon those who want to perpetuate destruction. BUT, I guess that idea would present a conflict of interest *LOL*.

[rucky]

1. Yes, and it's called a penis

before anybody tries to take me too seriously...

yes, I'm a guy
no, I'm not a war monger (computer games don't count).

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I turn republican when I play computer games

I starve my peasants and raise my taxes and raze the fields and build the fanciest castles I can.

Really, it worried me that I have the capacity to do that. *l*

---------------------
An open letter to John Kerry and the DNC:
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm

[DebJ]

2. I believe appropriate medications can often be found for this

type of genetic brain damage. Or we could just put them all in a room together with guns.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Great question

Kirk Vonnegut did an interview in In These Times that can be read here:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=38_0_4_0_C

War mongers policy wise are war profiteers...in this article, he points out that the people currently running our country are psychopathic personalities...he references a book called THE MASK OF SANITY which is the bible of pschopathis personality disorders..I read it several years ago..it's now available online...don't know that I would call it genetic so much as environmentally induced and spread through Harvard Business School..and the like

[Just Me]

6. Well, that is, shall we say, "validating",...to my perspective.

I just,...

I am a thinking, a rational, an explorative person,...and spiritual, too,...in my own right,...without "religion",...

,...and,...I just wonder, sometimes, whether people are being induced into a pathology,...or, I am totally out of touch.

One "truth" I have certainly learned is that, "reality" is something very relative,...even among the most "sane" of people who function quite well.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. No I really think our entire culture is at risk

I'm no historian but I have read many a post by historians here (in fact there is a poster I am really missing that was a history buff) and I think there'sprobably some comparisons that are valid with the Greeks at the height of their empire with their excesses to the sort of sickness our society suffers from..and it isn't one thing inducing it...it's multifactorial...it's in the TV...it's in the supersize and in the purchasing and credit habits...in fact...those excesses (without bringing up the whole mess again) were present in the threads we've viewed the past few days...

Don't know if I'm communicating here..but based on your posts that I've read...i think you can relate to what I am saying.

[seventhson]

5. Yes, and it is a "Necrophilia" gene: lust for death

That's what I believe. I think it could be bred out of them or altered by training, but with MaBush etc. rocking the cradle the bloodlust just gets worse and worse every day of their pampered lives.

They ENJOY the torture and I suspect it is the deviant genes which eugenics promotes.

[Jade Fox]

7. Its psychological....

They need enemies to project all their inner bad stuff on. When they
don't have an enemy to focus on, their inner demons tend to turn on them.
They need an other--foreign, totally bad, inhuman--to be their enemy.

[x-g.o.p.er]

8. They lust for war because they have never been in it.

Once you are in combat, your fervent wish is that no one will ever have to experience it again, and your heart is heavy knowing that many, unfortunately, will.

[immune2irony]

10. It's a part of human nature

Men have been at war for the sake of war since before we could write. Ever hear of the Illiad? All we can do is work for change and make sure these maniacs never get in any position of authority to satiate their bloodlust.

[Columbia]

11. It's in the genes of all humankind

We are all just animals at our core after all. Territorial and clannish. Violence will always exist as long as the species persists.

[HEyHEY]

12. No- cause if they did - they'd all be dead by now

[eridani]

13. A form of psychopathology at the extreme end of a continuum?

The empathic distress response is real biology--we really do, literally, feel other people's pain. We also have to have the capacity to suppress this response for self-defense and in response to emergencies (put the fire out, stabilize vital signs, then relate to the patient as a human being). It inevitably follows that some will be a little too effective at this suppression. The worst cases are fullblown psychopaths.

I'd describe the continuum thusly--

Psychopaths-->soldiers/emergency workers-->normal empathy-->hearts profusely bleeding all over everything