Humans and their love of violence

[Hallucinations]

Originally Posted by Einherjar86

You mean you've been socially conditioned to be repulsed by violence.

not really

I'm not fond of acts of aggression or acts of violence on anyone or anything. I don't even kill moths anymore and god, I fucking hate moths. Though, violence is nature's method of passing on energy from one trophic level to the next sadly.

Thanks for telling me what I said though

[Möglich]

It's my opinion that we are predisposed to be repulsed by violence. I haven't done much research about it but I would guess that studies would find babies would be aversely affected by the sight of violence, and I think it says something that the most truly happy people in the world are not the violent kind.

[Einherjar86]

I disagree. We're predisposed to find little reaction towards violence. If anything, human nature is drawn to violence. All human beings are constantly at war with themselves; trying to reconcile opposing emotions and passions. War/violence is the soul made manifest. If anything, society conditions us to feel repulsed by violence (for obvious reasons).

[Möglich]

If that's the case, this is my question. How have so many pacifistic and non-confrontational philosophies survived the centuries, yielding happy individuals? With the exception of T'ien T'ai Buddhism, I haven't come across any successful philosophies that accept violence as a possible means to happiness-- and even then, the masters know that as you contemplate, even though you find it an acceptable to be violent as a means to attain nirvana, nonviolence works better.

[Blowtus]

Plenty of philosophies and religions of all sorts have survived for a long term - their continued existence is not really indicative of anything regarding violence or non violence, imho. That you know of no successful philosophies that regard violence as a useful tool in some situations says something about either your breadth of knowledge, or your interpretation of such knowledge, I think. Utilitarianism, Liberalism, Satanism, Christianity, Islam... yada yada. All have been interpreted at some point as requiring violence.

[razoredge]

However... there is still a huge difference between standing ones ground and a chainsaw massacre. How silly... if this were the case all babys would be little Bundys.

[Möglich]

Violence as a useful tool in certain situations and a human love of violence are completely different, no? Also, the success I was referring to was on a success rate as in the ability for the philosophy to produce self actualized, blissfully happy people. I don't imagine crusaders running around nearly as happy as Jesus, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Baha'u'llah, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama, etc..

Christianity was interpreted to justify slavery, which from my opinion (heavy Buddhist influence here) is an institution that naturally leads humans to suffering -- both the masters and the slaves. Similar to what some ancient greeks (for example: Aristotle and Theucidides) were getting at-- The slaves are slaves to their masters in an obvious way, and the masters are slaves to their slaves in their hopelessness without them. At least on that level, Christianity was misinterpreted in such a way to bring about suffering for both slaves and slave owners.

[jervi]

^How would you define "happy people"?

[Möglich]

In my religion, it would be a total absence of suffering and desire. That's a little far fetched for some people, so I'll say happiness with a little bit of interpretation allowed. Generally, happiness would be wanting nothing more than you already have. This is a state of existence that IS possible to achieve, and has been done for centuries.

[jervi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that answers your question
It's no wonder the philosophy produces happy people,
if it echoes its definition of happiness.

[Izzat]

I enjoy violence. i liek watching fights and i like fighting. i watch horror movies as well as slashers and i make it my business to track down every abomination on the interbutts violent or otherwise. I dont find anything disgusting .
Its funny though. i used to never be able to watch anything violent or scary. i was afraid of the cat in toy story :|