Dear all,
When I was likkered up at my retirement party ,I agreed to write a chapter for
a Peace Handbook (!) on what the "topography of human nature" *had to tell us
about peace making and conflict resolution. I wrote the enclosed grandiose
statement which, it seems to me, has been edited to make it even MORE
grandiose. So now I am stuck writing it, just when I was beginning to get into
the flow of doing nothing at all.
I am trolling for co-authors here. Hell, I am trolling for AUTHORS. Anything
to actually breathe some CONTENT into this idea. If anybody has some text
floating around they would like to kick in, let me know. I have to stay pretty
much within the frame of the abstract below. Merle? Carl? Roger? Steve?
There might be some lovely ideas here that involved gradients of ideology and
the capacity of especially steep gradients to produce structures of conflict
such as feuds, terrorism, wars. etc.
Anybody who is out there who is sucker enough to touch this tarbaby, should
get in touch with me. Oh me and my big mouth. Alternatively, you could tell me
about any sources you might think would be helpful.
Nick
* It must have had three drinks to mouth this whopper!
3. Evolutionary theory: The constraints and possibilities of human nature
Nicholas Thompson and the Coalition of the Willing.
The UN has defined cultures of peace as social structures and communication
systems that foster cooperation and dispel conflict. Until recently, the
relevant evolutionary writing has mostly focused on a fruitless debate between
those who think that violence is inherent in human nature and those who think
that people are fundamentally nonviolent. The debate is futile because we
already know that both forms of behavior are possible, and arguing about their
"innateness" gives no purchase about how to promote the one at the cost of the
other. Contemporary research has greatly extended our understanding of the
environment of human evolution and the behavior of humans and similar animals
living under similar conditions. These findings stress that human nature has a
complex topography with knife-edged ridges that meet at the center: between
self interest and ingroup interest, between ingroup interest and outgroup
interest, and between outgroup interest and self interest. They also suggest
social structures and communication patterns that might help us navigate the
complex topography of our natures.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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