Many Rousseauistic thinkers, such as the ones that signed the Seville Statement on Violence, which we covered in the opening post of this series regarding violence, base their arguments that humans are naturally nonviolent on the hunter-gatherers’ allegedly nonviolent life style. According to them this lifestyle was corrupted by civilization.

One of them is the eminent anthropologist Ashley Montagu, who wrote a very influential book called The Nature of Human Aggression, which in a way is an expansion and explication of the Seville Statement‘s main ideas. Montagu argues that humans are not naturally violent but are peaceful cooperative beings in a violent world dominated by an aggressive culture, and he focuses on pre-state societies (mainly hunter-gatherers) to prove that.
Since similar arguments can be heard from time to time by many environmentalists and more importantly by many animal rights activists, we find it important to address the issue specifically and expansively, through one of the most Rousseauistic modern thinkers.
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Last year we marked October the 2^nd – the international day of nonviolence, with a series of posts about non-violence.
In the first post we argue that the allegedly historical success of non-violent struggles is a myth and a non-relevant approach when it comes to the animals’ struggle.
In the second post we argue that the allegedly non-violent approach is principally, philosophically and ideologically a violent and speciesist approach.
In the third post we argue that non-violence is even theoretically impossible, since practically there is no way to avoid violence in this world.
If you haven’t read these posts please do.

This year we ask to mark October the 2^nd with a series of posts about violence.
Obviously violence is a too extensive issue to seriously cover in several posts, so our focus in this series is primarily addressing the main corner stones in the modern discussion regarding violence. A good place to start is the “scientific” statement that humans are not naturally violent. Continue reading →