Are we getting meaner as a culture?

[drdigi420]

It seems to me that the US has become a culture of mean people. There are many exceptions to this rule, but I believe the majority of Americans have become mean. Granted, most people are nice to each other, but, given the anonymity of an automobile or an electoral vote, they lash out at what they do not understand. And, as our world gets more and more complicated, there is more and more that they do not understand.

People that call themselves 'Christians' support the murder of children that don't look like them by voting for a lunatic. Mild-mannered housewives watch the bombs fall on innocents in Iraq and feel proud to be an American. Children learn hate from the President right down to their crazy redneck uncle that swears all drug dealers should be shot while drinking a beer, and, of course, completely misses the irony.

When did we become such a mean-spirited, hateful society? Were we always like this? A case could be made that the 50s and 60s were a very mean time if you werent white. The late 1700s were not very nice if your neighbors thought you might be a witch. Is violence an unremovable characteristic of being an American? This is the image that more and more people around the world have of us. In the words of an unlikely prophet: "can't we all just get along?"

We declare war on Saddam Hussein, we kill children in the name of this war. Then our leader have the audacity to claim our troops are risking their lives to protect our freedoms, even as they work behind closed doors to erode those very freedoms.

We declare a war on drugs, which is really a war on people. We ignore the damage it does to our cities and our children. The war on drugs is very mean. War is mean. Why don't we declare war on things that need to be fought, such as homelessness, undereducation, poverty, starvation, or domestic violence?

Maybe people arent really mean, maybe most are just stupid, or maybe ignorant, just waiting for someone to show them the light. Are the enlightened among us willing to inform and educate and enlighten those around us that need it? Won't we be met with the same mean hostility that runs through our culture?

It's not the guns, it's not the weapons. It's the culture. A culture of reactionary violence that permeates every facet of our society. We trade our education and humanitarian resources for the implements of destruction and hate. Is it ignorance? Is it evil?

I think maybe it's fear. Fear outsells sex since 9/11/2001. Fear is what makes nice people hate. Fear is what makes otherwise peaceful people accept the murder of innocent children as an unfortunate side effect of war. Fear stems from ignorance. Can we cure fear with knowledge and understanding?

I've raised more questions than I have answers for, what are your thoughts?

[kanrok]

1. Screw you buddy

Just kidding.

[salinen]

2. I always come back to the same questions

myself. The sentence you made "We trade our education and humanitarian resources for the implements of destruction and hate," is the most confounding. If I've learned anything it is that I cannot project into this mindset. It is probably rooted in the DNA.

[kanrok]

5. To be serious

I think your perception is valid, if we judge by popular culture. the wing-nuts who have taken control of the media are fostering a culture of "us" versus "them." The Hannity and O'Reilly school of "journalism" has taken hold, to our detriment.

[arewethereyet]

3. perhaps

with the encroachment of the third world upon us, we may well have been slapped awake. 40 years of Ozzie and Harriet life made us forget what the rest of the world is like.

If smarter is a little meaner, it may be a good thing.

[Maccagirl]

9. In that case

Smarter doesn't mean better. I wasted my time on another message board today and the discoarse (subject:diversity in public schools) made DU look positively Victorian.

[GreenArrow]

4. yes

meaner, more selfish, and more deeply in denial.

[wanderingbear]

6. Its not America as a whole..Just the conservitives..

[SharonAnn]

8. But it's affecting the rest of us, too. We look for ways to

differentiate ourselves from others (especially foreignors) instead of any attempt at understanding their point of view. I can actually remember a time (not THAT LONG AGO) when occasionally one would hear a newscaster or commentator say something that tried to describe the thought process or concerns of the OTHER.

Well, maybe it was a long time ago.

[wanderingbear]

15. I dont think thier going to give us any options..

[Robbien]

17. I think Rush was the instigator.

He made it okay for his followers to openly express hatred and bigotry.

[calimary]

42. You're onto it. The timbre and tone of human discourse has

deteriorated completely because the angry, rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth, liberal-hating fringe-right-wingers finally got a voice. That was Limbaugh, and, as his ratings and influence increased, more Limbaugh Wannabes. Success begets more success. Like reality TV. One show succeeds, and suddenly you have umpteen more like it or a take-off of it. There's a pile-on. As soon as we get some widely-acknowledged liberal successes, a pile-on will start there, too. But Rush, and subsequently, the Rush-clones, encouraged people to get in-yer-face, nasty, interruptive, confrontational, and VERY mainstream about it. Instead of finding that crap on the airwaves only during campaign season when you expect mud-slinging, this was/is on the radio 24/7, year-round. It permeated the popular culture and completely body-snatched it.

Then, too, we had pop cultural reinforcements like Madonna and others who were also WAY in-yer-face. How many times have you seen the word "provoke" in People and Us magazine, as applicable to the latest MTV star or movie person? Same thing. Just not political.

[AliceWonderland]

48. You've hit the nail on the head

by saying that discourse has deteriorated. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and while it doesn't explain all the issues brought up in this thread, I think it's key. It's as if we, as a society (and it isn't just "conservatives"), have no idea how to have an exchange of ideas or words. There are exceptions, but they're so exceptional that they tend to prove the point. Instead, we have a whole society built around bombastic, emotional polemics... and as a result, we become more and more apathetic and alientated. I mean, dear god, I've been to boards where posters honestly believe "why don't you go live there, raghead loving pinko America hater!" is an argument. Or even a coherent statement. I've come to the point where I'm not really sure what you can do in a society filled with people like that.

[sandnsea]

25. Bull

The meanest comments directed at me in the last year have come right off of this board. Liberals are no nicer than conservatives in many ways. Sometimes I think if we were detaining Baptists instead of Muslims there would be no outcry whatsoever.

Somewhere along the line comedy went from laughing at imperfections together to making fun of weaknesses. Daytime TV went from compassionate understanding of people such as with Donahue and Oprah to laughing at people such as with Springer and Rikki Lake. People are meaner, all people.

[BiggJawn]

34. You're assuming those who were mean to you actually are "Liberals"

But you summed it up. People ARE meaner.
All people. What, as Liberals we're supposed to have this piety about us? It'd be nice, but most of us get beat on by a mean, ugly world to the point of despair, too.

It must be genetic, and not just a feature of americans. Remember, the Romans wrote the book on man's inhumanity to man.

[gmoney]

7. Internet amplifies it...

If you spend much time on "boards" like DU or Yahoo or Fark (where I've been spending WAY too much time), you'll see so much hateful speech, it would make a Klansman blush. The anonymity of the internet emboldens people so the real id shows through. Sadly, I think that's going to start spreading into bad behavior in public, and in the voting booth.

Compassion is the real measuring stick of a civilization, and the American public is losing compassion at an alarming rate, replacing it with greed and hatred. Greed and hatred are fueled by fear. So in that regard, maybe the terrorists are achieving their goals...

[Knoxville_Bob]

20. I think you hit the nail on the head

It's the anonymity of the modern world that makes it possible to be as mean or rude as the modern world has become. But, from my experience, it's not the internet alone.

I work in a call center for a pharmacy benefits manager - I work primarily with retired school teachers, firefighters and police officers from one specific state. On the whole, they are the greatest people to work for (I consider that while my check comes from the company, I work for the members). However, if everything doesn't go precisely as they want it to, despite federal and physical law - they can become as mean as snakes. I've been cussed out and cursed by 70-80 year old people because we didn't refill their prescription when they wanted it. Of course, the fact that the script expired four months ago, and they could have had it refilled 7 months ago has nothing to do with it. They'll call you every name in the book and then some. I'm pretty certain that if we were face-to-face, it would never happen.

Other than that, they're great to work for, and I love them to death - but let something be wrong, and they go beserk.

Oddly enough, it's more the teachers than the firefighters or police officers that go off like that though. And more often than not, you never get a vile or violent reaction from any of them over about 80 years old.

[Nikia]

54. We can be anonymous everywhere

I live in a small town, but have lived here for only two years. I feel anonymous most of the time. When I go to the nearby small city, there anonymity is amplified even more. I know none of these people and they don't know me. If I am mean to them, I will not suffer even indirectly through their suffering as I might if we lived together in a close knit community. We don't have roots. Everything and everyone is just transient. We are anonymous to a great many people.

[Kanary]

10. Yup. Fewer and fewer of us feel belonging anywhere

I hear elderly friends of mine say they are glad they're at the end of their lives, because they don't want to be around as it gets meaner and meaner. That is about as sad as it gets.

I see it here at DU. I have been stunned by some of the unabashed meanness, and no, I don't mean "freepers".

Time to look at ourselves, and decide where we really want to go with all this.

Kanary

[NJCher]

11. it's a sick culture

This is something I think about a lot. I am glad you have raised the issue for discussion. A poster here at DU uses this as a sig:

"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

We are, IMO, a very sick culture. It has been that way for a long time. I can remember that even when Clinton was president, I thought many elements of our culture were deplorable. A few examples: endless celebrity worship, anti-intellectualism, lack of civic participation (re the last two, Clinton at least showed a good example).

A sick culture cannot possibly foster kindness, goodness, civility, empathy, consideration and other positive human behaviors.

Then one looks to the causes of the meanness. They are results of what RichM once called a "mutant form of capitalism." That is what we have now--a rapacious form of capitalism that is uncontrolled because of the takeover of the republican party by corporations and the weakness of the Democratic party. Capitalism can be a somewhat workable system but it has to be mitigated, much like what the European countries do.

Certain industries have influence on social behavior. Examples of industries that cry out for some form of restraint are the media companies who show violent programs and the computer game industry, which invents games that encourage violence. There absolutely is an effect on people's behavior from watching this programming or playing such games.

Republicans and their values have been in effect for about 30 years now. Sure, we've had Democratic presidents but not long enough to effect a cultural change. In Clinton's case, we had eight years but the junkyard dogs fought him every minute of his presidency. Trying to do his job and fighting off Ken Starr is a full plate in anybody's book. While Bill and Hillary Clinton did provide us with good examples of caring citizens, that was about all they could do, given the circumstances.

So to sum it up, I think the meanness is the result of a sick culture. The culture reflects the values of the political party that has fought tooth and nail to be in control, the Republicans. They fight so hard for control because there is a lot of money at stake. So the root of all this is a) the capitalist system and b) Republicans and their values.


Cher

[NJCher]

16. another example

When you do get a model for goodness in the White House...

Jimmy Carter. I recall when Carter walked to the inaugural ceremony. He was criticized for being so "common." In fact he was doing it to show the value of physical movement instead of pushing a button to burn fossil fuel to move one's own fat ass. Boy that was a message that escaped America.

Now look at us. People get out a leaf blower to move a couple leaves off the driveway.

Carter had other human qualities that made him a mensch. For this he was castigated, criticized, ridiculed. That's the Republican way.


Cher

[Karenina]

30. Great posts, Cher!

:loveya:

[worldgonekrazy]

32. I prefer the term "cancerous culture"

I think that really sums it up. Our culture has mutated into something awful that can only destroy itself. God it depresses me to write that, but its just fucking true.

[Malva Zebrina]

38. I enjoyed that post and I am inclined to agree.

Whatever can be traced--whatever lack of concern, whatever Randian selfishness or greed or obssession with things "trendy" instead of the more stabilizing, societal strengthing things, can be attributed to the mindless striving of people who have been brain washed by corporations. They have honed their appeal with the most sophisticated approaches ever seen to rope in the people--the old rope a dope.

The country , full of people, twenty percent of whom are illiterate, striving for "things" and declaring at the same time they are GLAD they have those "things" is really to me, an indication of deterioration instead of progression.

[mithnanthy]

50. NJCher...Very well stated

My husband (who is in the night club, entertainment business) and I were discussing this, this morning. I agree with you.

[mitchum]

12. Yes, thanks to diminishing actual economic opportunity and television

desperation and non-reflection

[Beaker]

13. Competition is more important than cooperation in America.

It's just a natural progression- spiraling Society downward- every man for himself, survival of the fittest, the winners write the history books...that sort of thing.
As the number of people on the Earth grows, and the available resources dwindle, it will only get worse.

[kentuck]

14. Only as mean as we have to be to survive....

They mean to destroy us...even if they smile, they are still holding a dagger.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Our society started getting meaner during the Reagan administration

I think the mean streak was always there, but the Reaganites made it socially acceptable.

It was during the mid 1980s that I noticed the proliferation of hostile, pointlessly nasty bumperstickers and T-shirts.

[worldgonekrazy]

33. One word: vapid

It sums up 80's culture in general, IMO. We recovered from it a bit in the 90's but now it seems W is determined to take us even farther than Reagan.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kentuck]

21. Are you sure that quote was not by Saddam Hussein ?

Or are they the same person??

[solinvictus]

22. American Culture

Look at the most popular mode of modern entertainment; the "reality" show. Most of them involve participants committing acts of subterfuge and deception at another's expense for personal gain. "The Simple Life" is a blatant exploitation of classism to show two vapid and ultimately spoiled young women interacting with the yokels who live in flyover America."Average Joe" shows the shallow and image obsessed nature of our popular media. "Survivor" is a cut throat interaction whose operating model is the art of lying and the betrayal of personal relationships. "The Bachelor" and other programs of its ilk cheapen intimate relationships by transforming them into contest based interactions that are again, founded on deception. Players lie, deceive, slander, and even imply sexual favors for competitive advantage. Face it, as a country, we're embracing and rewarding deplorable behavior. It's no surprise that civility and concern for others are vanishing traits.

[NJCher]

23. essay

There's an essay written by Sarah Coleman, a NY freelance writer, entitled "The Distorting Mirror of Reality TV." She thinks reality shows are like the "ancient Roman fight to the death between gladiators and lions."

The shows that eliminate one contestant a week encourage us to think that "annoying people can be banished from our lives."

She points out that these shows have hijacked human decency in the name of entertainment.

A favorite quote from this essay:

"Flimsy people in search of money and glory: Is that what we humans are all about?"


Cher

[salinen]

24. Faux entertainment

is looking for mean.

[The Undertaker]

26. Yes, we're getting meaner and more inconsiderate...

with others, especially those who are much different than we are.

I think the main reason behind this is that Bush and Republicans spew out their hate towards the sheeple of this country, and in turn, the sheeple of the country eat that hateful spew and spit it out towards others different from them, and so on. :(

[hyeary]

31. In turn...

Just like spew it out at people different from you. What a demented conversation this is. It's no wonder we're losing one election after another. Adolescent self-flagellation just won't sell to people who make the country run. Until this type of trite nonsense gets set aside and we offer rather than constantly point our fingers, it's hopeless.

[G_j]

27. yes

& todays "heroes" make a sadistic joke after dealing with the "enemy."
Even John Wayne didn't do that.

asta la vista baby! << spell check didn't cover that one... :shrug:

[Piperay]

28. Yes, sadly

I believe people are getting meaner and incivility is running rampant. I think people are under more stress and on edge more often and so they are always on the border of being mean, angry, rude and ready to jump on anyone. :-(

[Dover]

29. Anybody see the movie "Love Actually"? The first five minutes

answers your question. It's great.

[Breezy du Nord]

35. I'd say the ignorance thing

Not only are many people ignorant, they enjoy being ignorant. It very easy and quite fashionable nowadays. But, I wouldn't say it's that much different from any other time in American history. They was plenty brainwashing of children throughout history, every culture does it.

Perhaps you're right, it is fear, but it is not evil. Evil is what people do, not what they are.

[durutti]

36. I definitely agree.

I think it has a lot to do with the dog-eat-dog competitiveness encouraged by American society.

[gulliver]

37. We are divided.

The country is divided, the world is divided, the different religions are divided.

Personally, I think people need a humane culture, something that can support and nourish the spirit. As traditional cultures collide on TV, we are forced to witness a range of options and approaches to life that we can't handle. Too complicated. Too relative. Too unreliable. Too transient. Uninhabitable.

To quote Don Henley, "It's a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, post-post-modern world."

George W. Bush as (technically) president of the United States is both a symptom of ignorance and meanness and a primary cause for much more of the same. Bush is like grain alcohol to a drunk. His personal meanness, his lying, his arrogance, and his world class inability to unite people make him really bad medicine for our times. We live in a world of plenty, but Bush makes it seem like the Donner party.

No one has emerged to "still the waters" as yet. Personally, I think that's Clark if he can only get his message out.

[dawn]

39. I agree, and it's not just the U.S.

I see it everywhere in the news. Sure, we here in the USA thrive on competition, and I do think it is fundamentally a mean culture.

But all we can do is start a revolution against it. What about a revolution of kindness?

As a liberal who is not happy with Bush, I try to make peace with my conservative friends. However, I don't seem to get it in return. Because I am nice to them, they just tell me that I somehow agree with them and will change one day.

I feel angry inside when they say that, but I refuse to continue to show it. I don't want to be a part of the hateful rhetoric in this world anymore.

[Piperay]

40. Yeah, same here

I "cut slack" for some acquaintances who are RW repukes and let them have their say but they never return the favor to me. :argh:

[BuelahWitch]

41. It's not only the internet and cars that make people feel brave to be rude

..try talking to them over the phone for a living. I did customer service (NOT telemarketing) for years and have a very low opinion of my fellow man and woman as a result. Of course, no matter how abusive they are you have to take it, which I understood if they had a legitimate beef; if they just called an 800 number to bitch my finger itched at the "release" button many times (and sometimes didn't just itch). I once had a guy tell me I was a "goody-goody" because I wouldn't get into a fight with him. I said I'd been called worse by better and then my finger hit that old "release" button...
:evilgrin:

[SOteric]

43. I believe we are. Much like the couple who argues over

toothpaste tubes or how to hang the toilet roll, however, I do not believe the issues we rail against are the motivators in and of themselves.

Perhaps it is in part that we allow and encourage more incivility. But I believe there is in mankind a deeper more complex anger and a feeling of impotence, of unimportance of being deprived of one's due that is underlying the mean temper of modern society. If we cannot vent ourselves, we experience release vicariously even in our choices of entertainment.

Ratings and book sales seem to belong to the one who is most combative, negative and downright nasty. American Idol and the Weakest Link are popular because of the nasty comments of the hosts. Shock-jocks, and right-wing vitriol earn all the ratings in radio. This truism is so often no less reflected in these boards.

Before the Civility rules were put in place in the GD fora it was even easier to see. Those posts with vitriolic, baiting titles may well have incited like responses, - but they were also the most patronised threads in the entirety of DU.

I wouldn't argue for any curtailment in our freedom of speech or press. I would simply like to see those important civil rights used wisely and judiciously.

[devilgrrl]

44. We've always been a nasty, mean society...

Read books like 'Low Life' by Luc Sante: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679738762/qid=1072569687/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1590789-6271801?v=glance&s=books

If you think we're bad now, look at what we were like a hundred years ago...

[Mikimouse]

45. Naaahhh!, We are just suffering from Mad Culture disease

it comes from a long history of eating our own.

[opihimoimoi]

46. MikiMouse got it right

We eat our own and are estatic about it.

Then again, it might have something to do with the Compressed living.

Too many rats in a small cage called Earth.

[Astarho]

47. Here's my thoughts

and maybe a few reasons why:

When people are terrified of losing their homes possessions or being blown up they tend to focus on themselves. Fear rarely brings out the best in people.

Many people still want to feel superior to others in some way, especially when they are struggling through hard times. "My job sucks and my boss may lay me off, but at least I'm better than that asshole down the street because ______"

Our materialistic culture encourages people to want and acquire things. Only around Christmas do you hear about giving back and so forth (as you're encouraged to buy, buy, buy).

We are desensitized to suffering. We can turn on the news or log onto a webpage from the safety of our own home and see pictures of flattened buildings in Iran, but relatively little dead bodies, sometimes a crying person who lost everything. Most of the time the destruction looks like a movie anyway.

[Karenina]

49. Can't we all just get along?

n/t

[Toot]

51. Nope, always has been mean.

People in this society have done terrible things to each other for hundreds of years and haven't learned anything from the past. Now is just continuing our historic traditions.

[LeahMira]

52. Individuals can be generous and kind...

... but as a culture, I think we have always been mean.

Your brief synopsis of U.S. history pretty much makes the case, don't you think?

[Enjolras]

53. Excellent topic!!

I've been thinking the same thing. It felt like I started noticing a change in this direction right after the cold war ended.

"Why don't we declare war on things that need to be fought, such as homelessness, undereducation, poverty, starvation, or domestic violence?"

Just speculating here, but I think it's not necessarily that we are becoming meaner per se, but more ..... competitive. More business oriented. (Then again, maybe that's the same thing.) People are more obsessed with getting their money's worth, which has led to Wal-Martization, insurance fraud, increasing corporate accounting scandals, and a ruthless and ongoing assault on the welfare state. Along with this, there's the increased level of pressure that comes with an increasingly competitive environment, which tends to make people edgy.

I heard Sean KKKlannity on his radio program recently extolling the virtues of stress. What does that tell us? Conservatives consider this ever-increasing competitiveness, and the subsequent stress and self-centeredness, a wonderful thing.

[drdigi420]

56. Thank you for your thoughtful replies

Most of you seemed to understand what I was getting at. (a few seemed to think I was talking about the fundies on this board that are always up in arms about something, but I meant the society as a whole)

[1songbird]

55. People have the capacity for great

good and great evil. I believe something has changed in our society since the civil rights struggle. During the 60's people were gaining an awareness of fairness and what was right and wrong. Great leaders taught acceptance and loving people that did not neccessarily look like you. I believe the conscious of the nation was changing for the better, but something insidious started happening. The emergence of right wing idealogues started to turn the nation back to insecurity based hate. If you listen long enough to many talk right wing talk show host you will understand exactly how we got here. These people actually make it excusable to hate. They play on insecurities that are felt by many. Religion is used to disguise malice. Just as MLK's voice was used to turn this nation towards acceptance and fairness, Coulter, Limbaugh, Fox News, Oreily, and many others are using their voice to turn this nation back towards hate, ignorance, and pure malice.

[IrateCitizen]

57. What you're tapping into here is a complex phenomenon...

... one that I've read quite a bit about lately. It is really the result of somewhere between the last 50-100 years of American "progress", and is a problem for which neither conservatives nor liberals have demonstrated they have the answers.

One major part of it is the phenomenon described by Thorstein Veblen in 1899 as "conspicuous consumption". In a phrase, it can be summed up with the "more is better" attitude that permeates our daily lives. The entire advertising agency is built on the idea of manufacturing wants that entice us to buy things we don't need. This, in turn, makes us work more and more hours in order to fulfill those manufactured wants -- only to find that the cycle never results in fulfillment. If more is better, then there is always a "more" to be had -- and therefore you never achieve "better".

Around the time of the industrial revolution and the first real gains by the labor movement, there was a push from workers to actually devote more time to rest, because they were able to provide for their "needs" by working less hours, due to indusrialized processes. This put both industrialists and moralists into a panic. Moralists were panicked due to the Protestant work ethic, and the belief that "idle hands are the devil's plaything". Industrialists saw a labor movement that would impede the endless "economic growth" that they depended upon for endless growth of their own coffers.

The results of all of this have been gradual, but quite real. Perhaps the biggest cause of the modern era is the "suburbification" of America. We created a society overly dependent on the automobile, one which actually discourages the creation and maintenance of vibrant communities, and encourages us to insulate ourselves from each other. We work longer hours, make longer commutes to and from work, and then come home to nights filled with television. While in the 1950's, the first step of this "devolution" was to take away emphasis on community and replace it with emphasis on family -- now we have even forsaken an emphasis on the family through our consumerist lifestyles.

In short, our lives have become devoid of purpose and meaning. We have substituted material possessions for true fulfillment -- with disastrous consequences. Breaking this cycle will literally require a complete transformation of our society, something that is sadly not coming very quickly -- at least not on a voluntary basis.

I would suggest several EXCELLENT books on this phenomenon: The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Koontz, The Politics of Meaning by Michael Lerner, and Affluenza by DeGraff, et.al. I'm also working my way through a rather transformative work right now, that is quite revealing in its own right: Your Money or Your Life by Joe Domiguez and Vicki Robin.

[Loonman]

58. Humans are violent by nature

We can't escape that.

[Logansquare]

59. Human beings are loving and peaceful by nature, also

We can't escape that. So, what tips the scale of human behavior one way or the other?

[IrateCitizen]

60. Overly simplistic and completely incorrect

Human beings are not "violent" by nature. Human beings are concerned with their own survival, first and foremost.

Thousands of years of evolution has conditioned us to react to immediate threats to our survival. While 10,000 years ago, that immediate threat may have been a pissed off mastodon or a tiger, that is no longer the case. However, it is still incredibly easy to tap into this instinct.

Two things accompany any push to war. First is the presentation of the "other" as an immediate threat -- tapping into the survival instinct. Second is the dehumanization of that "other" as something less than human -- making it easier to want to kill them.

Killing another human being is an extremely unnatural act. That is why there is such a thing as combat fatigue. The overwhelming majority of people (something like 98-99% of the population) have to be actively conditioned in order to be able to kill another human being up close.

That's why the armed forces train on pop-up sillouhette targets. It's also why the "other" has been referred to by disparaging names such as "gook" or "zip" or "dink" or "Jap" or "raghead" or what have you. The two combine to create a false "survival instinct" that enables us to do terrible things.

The only way out of this is to evolve past this short-term instinctual thinking into something long-term. It's not a necessity only in the realm of warfare. It's a necessity from an environmental standpoint as well. We gobble up resources in the short term without any concerns as to the long-term effects.