Yesterday, when I was fortunately still too ill to engage extensively, I ran across someone on Twitter who was waxing mournfully (in one of the comments on a post about there being no such thing as noble savages) about why can’t all humans be peaceful and eschew war and aggression. When I pointed out that that if we were peaceful and non-agressive, we’d not have got where we are, he then came back with hopes that we might someday all live in peace and non-aggression and said that was something worth working for. At which point I said this would imply killing all humans and went off to do other things.
What shocks me about what he said and my reaction is that this is the sort of thing people kept saying, writing about — moaning about — in novels and books when I was little, and, being thoroughly immersed in this, if someone had said this to me when I was 20 or so I’d have said “yes, of course.”
But now all I can feel towards such pap is impatience.
I’m sick and tired of people who whine, moan, and throw themselves on the floor like my kids when they were two, about why oh why humans can’t be peaceful and non aggressive.
Sure, okay, maybe humans could be…. I don’t know. I’m having real trouble coming up with an Earth animal who isn’t aggressive. Because most animals who aren’t aggressive and don’t seek to expand their range, sooner or later go extinct.
Even sheep and for that matter bunnies are aggressive to an extent.
But on the serious side, if we were non-aggressive and non-violent, and if we had evolved in the kind of world where a species like that could survive…. we might be very peaceful, but we would not be human.
And the same goes for us all living in peace and harmony, someday. I truly can’t imagine everyone in the world living in peace and harmony. It’s a variant of “if only everyone” and there’s absolutely no chance of that happening, ever.
I don’t see any point hating on humans for being what they are. And I don’t see any point waiting for humans to be completely different, unless there is some kind of transformative religious event.
Do I hope for a future in which fewer innocent humans are killed? Yes. Do I have hope that life will get better for everyone. And yes, I’ll work for each human to be as free and capable of pursuing happiness as possible, because free and prosperous societies tend to maximize safety and health for innocent humans and the powerless.
But … working for peace for everyone — EVERYONE — would mean working for human extinction.
And that I’m not willing to work towards.
Aliens might be very well, but they’re not humans. And humans are as we are and there’s no use willing us to be something completely different. That way lies hatred of humanity because we can’t be perfect, and then crazy crap like voluntary extinction.
Humans are not perfect. Again, absent some religious transformative example, we will never be perfect. But as we are, this is my species, and as such I’m going to root for it.
And you know what, if some alien shows up promising us peace forever, I’m going to assume they want to kill us all.
In fact, if there are aliens, I recommend that we stay just as fractious as we are. Because I will bet you money no species climbed to the top of the evolutionary chain in some other planet, and built a space ship to come here without being at least as aggressive as we are, and possibly more.
And again, I’m going to to side with the humans.
Aggressive apes we might be, but look how far we’ve come. And everything we’ve built, just the way we are.
If I have to pick, I’ll pick humans being as they are and colonizing the stars.
Until someone gives me a believable version of world peace that doesn’t mean we’re all dead or lobotomized.
According To Hoyt 
LikeLiked by 3 people
“By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man—man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition.”
Without that competition we would stagnate, and something else would displace us eventually.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even sheep and for that matter bunnies are aggressive to an extent.
You’re right. Take a look a medieval illuminated manuscripts. Those rabbits were downright bloodthirsty!
And of The Rabbit of Caerbannog, we will not speak.
LikeLiked by 7 people
>Those rabbits were downright bloodthirsty!
Every bunny was kung-fu fighting…
LikeLiked by 6 people
“LOOKIT TH’ BONES!!!“
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Death In the Long Grass”, Peter Capstick.
LikeLike
Human eyes key on motion above all else.
We are a biological targeting computer and weapon factory.
When we finally hit the starlanes, we are probably the things that give Klingons and Kzinti nightmares.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Note that certain brands of toothbrush are banned in prisons, because they can be readily hardened and sharpened into quite lethal shanks.
Cons make shanks out of turkey thighbones and dental floss. Bludgeons out of soap bars and socks. Even Paper Mache can be weaponized.
LikeLike
I came to the comments to mention Kzinti. Space orcs, bigod.
I also find myself remembering the tripe that someone named Tepper published under the title “The Fresco.” Essentially, aliens come to earth and fix everything. The ideal under her pen is one where nanites control everything, right up to and including whether to have a beer. (Yes, *A* beer. If you’re a mean drunk, they trigger autoemesis on the first swallow. Like antabuse, but nastier.) Naturally firearms are disallowed unless you have never even once thought about sh00ting another human.
But hey, it was PEACEFUL. Facium solitudinant, or however it’s phrased.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So true, so true.
I would be shocked if we didn’t all have at least one topic where we have seen lefties go, “If only everybody would do THIS, the world would be great.”
Mine isn’t whirled peas, but there is just as much stubborn ‘if you don’t agree with me, yOu mUSt noT UndErstAnD!’ repetitive arguing.
I need to just preemptively block people when they bring up a topic.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Let us also decline to mention medieval snails.
The cats, however, are as they ever were.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Dreaming of Eloi.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Eloi are great!.
Barbequed, stewed, poached, roasted, fried, heck, they even make good sushi!
— Morlock Chef
LikeLike
The Morlocks were the good guys. They kept the food coming, they kept the Eloi healthy.
The Eloi? Dumb as a box of rocks, individually or collectively. Human-shaped pigs, without the pig’s or the human’s innate intelligence and common sense.
LikeLike
“These are just a few of the images we’ve recorded. And you can see, it wasn’t what we thought. There’s been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It’s the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There’s 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.”
-Serenity
LikeLiked by 9 people
One of the first things that came to mind while reading this post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Same. You beat me to posting it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people…better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.” — Mal Reynolds
It is a fixed belief among Leftroids that they can force people to be ‘better’ and if we resist, then obviously we are Eeevul and more force is needed. The world is littered with the mass graves which are all that remain of their failed utopias.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Quoting you over on another platform. Well-phrased, pithy even.
LikeLike
Then there’s the variant, “Of course, everyone wants peace!” which works out to, “We want peace, so obviously, everyone wants what we want!”
And the business of projecting one’s 21st century assumptions back into the Old Testament. I’m afraid I made Sunday School rather….upsetting….last week.
LikeLiked by 4 people
“It takes two to make peace. Only takes one to make war.”
If anybody doesn’t want peace, you’re gonna have war. A one-sided war of subjugation and extermination if you don’t fight back, but war none the less.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ah but everybody “like peace”, it’s just that to some people “peace” means control of everybody else and/or everybody else being dead.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“If one would have peace, one must be eternally ready for war.”
And convince your potential enemies that you’re better at war than they are.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or at least good enough to make it too painful for them to try it.
LikeLike
All I want is Peace! A piece of Czechoslovakia, A piece of Poland…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a lot easier to collect tribute if you’re at peace.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Every nation or group that has achieved peace has had someone come along and try to take it away from them. Every, single, time.
LikeLike
You are absolutely correct Sarah humans like other species are hard wired to be aggressive, but we can control it and channel the aggression into building and creating a society and civilization that will benefit the population. All we have to do is say we will not kill today or be destructive and instead be the artist, builder, healer and move civilization forward it is hard but we can do it if we try.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And there will be conflict wherever people with differing opinions about what constitutes moving civilization forward actually means. Clash of cultures exemplifies this concept.
LikeLike
At least one of us failed in reading comprehension.
It doesn’t matter if you choose not to be aggressive if the guy standing next to you chooses otherwise. Your options, at that point, are to either give in, and become complicit in their aggression (aggression rewarded is rarely satisfied,) or to fight back to keep what’s yours.
The destructive, aggressive, taking desires are part of what makes us human. Sure, some of us can channel those impulses in useful directions. Others don’t care to, or just don’t see enough to go around.
So, no we can’t do ‘it’ if we try. The most we can do is try to convince the covetous and ambitious that stealing and looting and the like are dangerous and unlikely to succeed. Both by prospering cooperatively and by proving ourselves able to stop their depredations.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No. We can’t. That’s the “If only everyone” fallacy.
LikeLike
“If only everyone would…”
Not going to happen. Never has. Never will.
What they want is “If you just surrender, we will have Peace!”
No. No I wont. No they wont, either. Because you are quite provably wrong, about a great many things.
No. No I wont. No they wont, either.
LikeLike
The catalyst was the opening section, where the author told of seeing a bumper sticker saying, “I dont care about your (redacted) feelings!” The author then speculated – was the man angry and at what? Was he insecure and unable to face questions to his worldview? Etc. I commented the author was being passive-agressive because his theories postulated some character flaw in the other driver, when it might be a statement by someone who had been beaten up about what he “ought” to feel and believe until he blew up.
Then the author stated the author of the Psalm that was the lesson source would have said, “I do care about your feelings,” and I said he might want to ask the Samaritans about that.
We never got past the first part of the lesson.
(We didn’t disaffiliate, so we’re getting United Methodist literature and it’s slowly moving back toward social justice lessons after a period of more traditional devotions. It will be interesting how the next set of lessons go).
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yeah, I’ve been eyeing askance the liturgical word-choice and rhetoric from time to time. I hear things like ‘equity’ sneaking back into sermons.. and pretty sure this is being softly, softly ‘fluenced downward.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve even been wondering if there is a theological trap in changing the beginning of the Lord’s Supper from “On the night Jesus was betrayed” to “On the night Jesus gave himself for us”.
Both are true, but considering the way the Methodists were going I don’t trust it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Could be. This sort of thing can be insidious. For example, I’ve heard that there’s a version of Acts out there that’s basically the same as the one now in common usage among Christians. But every time a woman is identified in the version we use (and it probably happens more in that book than any other book), this other version just identified her as a generic member of the Church.
Is it a big deal? It’s doubtful anyone would become an apostate due to using it. The principles of the Gospel found in it are the same. But it suggests that somewhere along the line, someone was pushing an agenda that was possibly aided by downplaying the role of women in the Early Church. And anyone pulling crap with a translation or transcription of holy writ should be smacked down hard, regardless of the reason why.
LikeLike
Oh no.
LikeLike
Not engaging in denomination bashing.
Is your church bending its will to G-d’s Word, or attempting bending the Word to their own will?
If the latter, and you call them on it, do they repent? Or defy?
If the latter, it is time, and quite Biblical, to knock the dust from your sandals and depart.
LikeLiked by 1 person
People are not ever going to go along with the “if everyone” concept, it’s just not compatible with our nature. We can manage to get along fairly well when we set (and enforce) limits on what we will tolerate from others (don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you sort of thing). As to aliens? I kind of doubt any species would manage to get off the planet they were formed on if they weren’t at least somewhat aggressive about life and determined to advance themselves and that means competition for whatever they need. I wouldn’t trust them if they showed up here either.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Peacefully submit to their betters, they mean.
No. You first.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Humans need to strive. Ergo, we have a “warrior nature,” to use the words of my favorite anime. We need to fight something, if only the environment, or we just shrivel up and fade. Go extinct.
The world’s not perfect. Wars are a fact of life. We don’t need to like it – “It is well war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it” – but we cannot “improve” it without making it worse. What we need to do is to stop thinking that peace means no more fighting or fractious nature. Our nature will always be with us. All we can do is prepare, pray, and hope we endure the test with honor. Is that so much to ask?
For some, apparently it is. There but for the grace of God….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Even mostly peaceful writers fight words on a page (or screen). Sure, you can pretend it’s non-violent, but… 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
Years ago, I read a review of a book collection with a theme of “how to create Utopia”.
The reviewer was shocked that many/most of the stories involved Mind Control.
While I don’t know the title of that collection, I’m not surprised about the Mind Control aspect.
Of course, for me the question is “who is doing the Mind Control” and “who keeps the Controllers from being evil (besides the evil of Mind Control).
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is no completely peaceful organism that is alive today. Every organism is in competition. Sometimes the competition is quite overt and violent, an sometimes it’s more subtle and almost seems like nothing because the timescale is so long. What these people are asking for is not just the elimination of humanity, but the elimination of all life on earth.
LikeLike
LOL. I actually wrote a story, The Last of the Morons, that resembles that remark, but not in quite the same way.
When I was in college, way back in the stoned ages, I observed that many of the students I knew who did marijuana had known people who were mentally retarded and seen how they always seemed to be happy and decided that the path to happiness was to become retarded. After all, they didn’t call it dope for nothing.
LikeLike
Today’s Quote of the Day on Wikiquote is from Horace Mann: “Let but the public mind become once thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off the canker-worms.”
Note that he mentions property first. Because if we don’t have the right to own property, bought with our labor, we don’t own our labor either. We used to call that slavery.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The right to Property is the canary. If that isn’t respected, Liberty and Life soon go too.
LikeLike
Early posting. Haven’t read Sarah’s post yet. But, likely off topic but couldn’t resist.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HHlMJlVWgAII4HP?format=jpg
LikeLike
And …
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HHlReC6XgAU3SI-?format=jpg
LikeLike
Both are images trolling the usual suspects on PJ Media and Townhall, to X JPG links, for “NICE”. The articles state and executive order won’t do it, requires act of congress to rename agency. The concept of “Defund NICE”, just tickles.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course its “NICE”. The bird is facing the olive branch, not the arrows.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Take a gander at that plant in the picture. See those tendrils in the foreground? Those things will wrap around other plants and strangle them.
So even pea plants are militant a-holes. 😧
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s the PAX, Mal. (The PAX caused the Reavers, and everyone else to just lay down and die.)
That’s what these morons are really asking for. And whirled peas.
LikeLike
As many respondents have already alluded to, most forms of “peace” in human history involved the extermination of one or more of the disputing parties.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t recall exactly who said it–it was on Tumblr, after all–but I can remember what they said: “If your idea of Utopia begins with, ‘If everybody would just ____,’ shut up. Everybody will NOT just. Whatever it is. Never, in all of human history, has everybody just, and they’re not gonna start now.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
“To Serve Man.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
You, too, huh?
LikeLike
If I could, I would drop Rousseau into the middle of a Yanamamo village. Noble Savages, my ass.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Every science fiction story I’ve seen where the Benevolent Aliens™ promise us peace, it turns out to be either slavery or extinction.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A truly benevolent alien would just leave us the heck alone. Which argues that if we ARE being visited by aliens, per all these claimed UAP sightings, then it’s not for OUR benefit, but theirs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOOK UP the Greek idea of thumos, the “spirited” part of the soul and its role in Plato’s thought. The attempt to eliminate thumos for the sake of peacefulness produces people without the capacity for a sense of honor or for holding oneself to a standard (because impulse control takes thumos too). It confuses peace with sedation.
LikeLike
Funny, the side that wants ‘peace for everyone’ and ‘gun control’ are the very ones causing all the violence and unpeace.
LikeLike
They demand Peace, no matter how many people they have to kill to get it. 😡
LikeLike
Harry Turtledove came up with a plausible model for how a humanity where everybody just gets along might happen in “It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and We Feel Fine”.
The alert reader will note that his characters are “Homo familiaris” not Homo sapiens, but his idea becomes scarier every time I pass a phone zombie on the street. Highly recommended.
LikeLike