But Matthew

(and I remember you mentioned your heritage)

How would you solve the Palestinian issue? If those people had never been displaced, would this mess have evolved? And it wasn't the Israelis alone who displaced them because it took alot of English-speaking help. The US brought some of this on itself. We were wrong to take people's homes away from them. There are no simple answers because we got here by a complex path.

BTW I have alot of colleagues who are ethnic Moslems and, well, the women certainly don't wear the veil! Islam is as diverse as any of the other religions. This is too complex to solve here.

I was reminded of the complexity of this situation a short while back. I was visiting a discussion group (no particular topic) and one of the regular members is a former ambassador from Iran...era of the Shah. He mentioned that the real religion of Iran is Zoroastrianism (or whatever you call it). Followers of Zoroaster. I thought that was interesting. There is a large Iranian immigrant community in CA. He indicated that the Zoroastrianism is the preferred faith of many of this community, the real traditional religion of Iran. I didn't know that.

Dave

I thought about your question and I think my answer is that I'm not impressed by either A or B.

I think we're not getting the answer (to war etc) right because we are somehow missing the right question.

I think the right question will involve asking why we are here (as animals) and what are we to learn from that. What is this conciousness and what is it for?

Last night caught a rerun of a PBS show..Deep Jungle. I always assume since you are in social sciences that yu know about stuff like what I am going to bring up. The episode had information from primate researcher David Watts. It went into the stuff about the chimps who apparently band together to kill and tokenly eat colobus monkies even when they don't need the food. It was hard to not think of it as ritual male bonding. Well that's what it was. Then the chimps banded together and killed another chimp. It almost seemed premeditated.

Here's a little info on that show:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/deepjungle/episode3_watts.html

I don't know Dr. Watts but I somehow doubt he falls back on models of reincarnation to explain any primate karma that's developing here. But if the chimps can do this, then is there something in what makes the chimps do this that is also operant in us humans?

If we are here to experience conciousness then that must also mean its down side too.

Or maybe the problem is we just aren't so highly evolved after all....

Lucy and Doc-
OK, I'm in basic agreeement, and of course there's very little to be said about useless killing.  Except for the chase and killing of Colubus by chimps I had the impression that only Man was the only critter that kills for sport. Are we setting a bad example to our longer tailed friends? The idea about simian macho bonding makes some kind of sense. It also fits territorial and caste concepts. And, very unfortunately, it fits right in with observed behaviors in oppressive regions where rape is used as a social weapon to dispossess people of their social status, and where the husband blames the wife for getting raped.

It seems that the nature of males is rejecting, isolating and destructive. The  moose in rut, elephant in must, and similar animals are examples. This clearly points to mating behaviors and competitions. However, in matriarchies we are not free from violence either. Although the competition that comes to my mind at the moment is more the Soap Opera type, my wife has many stories about tough girls in school, fighting and so on.

These ideas are reflected in many urban areas in territorial gangs. Presumably, as we get socialized we are able to accept the idea of a larger and more valuable social purpose for which we create a social contract of unity. Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, arising generally in lush areas in which wild food was not uncommon, seem to have incorporated some of this unity into their general outlook as a beneficial quality of social living. The world offers us the opportunity to be social, and from this we have the gains and joys of social living. How fortunate that we can do this.

The Arab social historian Ibn Khaldoun, in his Muqqadimah, pointed out that the world is a fierce and hostile place, that the survival chances for a single person are quite minimal, so we're forced to live together in social groups in order that we do not perish. This is an enforced socialization, and not at all a matter of being fortunate. Instead, it is a matter of dire compatition. Evidently the mullahs, who are the present mouthpieces for Islam, find that life is like a caravan moving across an endless desert, in which all interference is a lethal threat, and not an offer of companionship.  Couple this to macho territoriality and it is an incendiary situation.

I find it sad that the sons of Abraham can't play in the same sandbox without fighting.  We could go back to Jacob and Esau, but in the modern world, I think Adam Smith is more pertinent.  Were I able to input my opinions into the situation, I'd be inclined to suggest that the Middle East nations, most of which are Islamic, should form a commonwealth, rather like the OPEC common governance of resources, and through the economic power of their commonwealth they would begin to settle issues in the region.  But there seems to be disagreement even at that level, as between Syria and Lebanon etc. Still, when considered in the light of the entire world, Ibn Khaldoun's counsel to form a social group in order to survive still seems pertinent.

dave

Lucy and Doc-
OK, I'm in basic agreeement, and of course there's very little to be said about useless killing.  Except for the chase and killing of Colubus by chimps I had the impression that only Man was the only critter that kills for sport.
*****************
How then do you explain the behavior of my overfed, obese (21 lbs.) spoiled house cat?
He regularly drags birds, squirrels, ect. back to the house (always so badly hurt, I  usually have to put them out of their misery) and thinks himself quite the beau for doing it, to see the look on his face and the... well, STRUT he affects afterward. (He's also a bully who attacks any cat smaller than himself...)
Obviously he's hunting for the FUN of it (i.e., sport.) so I think we can't call mankind unique on this one... or chimps, for that matter. Then there's sheep-killing dogs and so on.
BTW, I doubt there is a "cat hell" (for what that's worth.)

B-man

Greetings Lucy,
Re: your idea of a balance of genderness as a means of humanity avoiding trouble--
Androgyny is over-rated, I'd have to say from experience, at least for anyone who's androgenous who lives in an area where the hunt and conquest for sexual partners is a main cause for living.  Here in the US, I'd say that includes the South, the West, the college/yuppie areas of the east and the farming/ranching areas of the midwest. Too much energy is taken up trying to define what you are in these situations.
This site has alot of great discussions with obvious male and female polarities. They usually end up understanding the topic and each other better, as we all do. I really appreciate that.
Keeping sons and daughters of the desert chaste and separate until their 20's sounds criminal to me. All that pent-up energy then becomes perverted by the State. Maybe we need a Garden of Eden where bodies can be adored instead of bomb-packed vests that destroy what's so worthy of adoration.
Racey huh?  I've never talked like this before.

Actually, B-Man, animal experts seem to feel that the cat is presenting you with food for the family, since you are in the feline role of "top cat". "Hey, Dad, Looky what I brought you!"

But I see your point. Even if, as Lucy put it, they retun to eat later, it's a love of hunting. In my early teens I used to pop off pheasants for dinner, and I admit to the having many of the same emotions as any other predator. On the other hand, Big Macs and Chicken Nuggets don't exactly grow on trees, so modern tastes are only slightly less savage.

By the way, did anyone ever figure out what part of the chicken was the Noodle? (Nope, I won't even touch the other obvious question.)

Bets- I can't really see a problem with chastity until mid twenties. China and India both exemplify the population glut that can happen when people have a huge family. The idea that "more than two is pollution" has merit, although that would leave four of my kids majorly PO'd at me for saying it.

Lucy- men like apes and women like piranaha? Maybe we can translate Doc's monkey-hell into piranha heaven? Ugh. The chilling part is that I have known people that would more or less fit that idea.

We seem to associate adulthood with sexuality. About 5 or 6 thousand years back, when the reckoning was based on the cycle of the Moon, and thus the women were the tribal rules because they "obviously" represented the forces of the Nature Gods, kids had more or less freedom to reproduce as fast as they were capable. Looking at Methuselah, for example, his first child was at about 109 Lunar Years (or "moonths"). Dividing by 13 we get about age 14 Solar Years.

That's OK for breeding, I suppose, but in fact we keep advancing spiritually through the next 13-15 years as well. About 30 years seems to be the age of spiritual maturity IMHO,  and I've noticed that it is also the age of comparative reason, and roughly the peak of intellectual function. The Eastern concept of sat-chit-ananda, menaing to get a grip on love, clear mindedness, and joy from one's lifestyle seems to be a fairly good example of the kind of adulthood that's available at that age. That also correlates with social stability.

My thinking is that we might do a little better culturally if we were to look toward a somewhat higher level of maturity than simply being old enough to diddle the neighbors, blow up the guys across the street, or bulldoze the settlement down the block.

But I see no reason that any culture needs to adopt higher standards merely because they exist and are available. Not even because a higher level of social ethics might be more efficacious in the business of life.

d