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Old 01-20-2010, 12:02 PM   #30
Aikibu
Dojo: West Wind Dojo Santa Monica California
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Re: Hormonal & Psychological Responses to Combat

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Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Why so touchy? I am not making a statistical argument -- I simply pointed out certain counter-assumptions not addressed in yours.
I am not making any argument -- but an observation: people seem to have had little difficulty killing other people, wholesale or retail. It is (based on much history) the fact that men have had no difficulty engaging in killing at any arbitrary scale because there have been a terribly great number of dead ones -- correlated, oddly enough. with superficial niceties about how "civilized" and "peacable" we have supposedly become.
And I disagree... Relative to population growth People are not killing People at any greater rate than at anytime in Human History...What has changed is our perception with the growth of Media and News...Question... How many loving and compassionate acts are documented on mainstream TV News? How many Murders?

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In the 20th century -- the most "civilized" and technically advanced century of human history (bar our own) more people were killed than all the wars in all the prior centuries combined -- all the while mouthing platitudes about our "moral progress." I don't buy it. The facts don't support it. We have not changed; we are just as dangerous, fallen and reprobate as we have ever been, and it is (on the historical facts) exceedingly dangerous to pretend otherwise.
See Above...Relative to Population Growth actually killing of human beings seems to remain constant...What has changed is the Technology of Killing....It's now quite possible to wipe out the planet with the push of a few dozen buttons...So if we have this killer instinct... Why are we still here? When was the last major all out war between major powers?
One could say that Budo has found it's way to Pentagon or....That the existence of Budo predates the Philosophy of Budo...Again one more time...Human Beings inherently and instinctively do not kill other human beings. It is a learned behavior

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Only our warlike nature can control our warlike nature. If this is not the reason for martial arts as a discipline -- what is?
Well at one point you quoted Christ the Buddha and Gandhi...How many people did they personally kill?

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Survival based on love of self (your thesis), while not immoral per se -- tursn out not to be a very SAFE moral basis for violent and deadly behavior --- it is prone to errors that have little internal controls . The piles of corpses reaped in the era of 'nationalism' and 'individualism' and the many other Us v. Them "'- isms" attest this.

If it is "me versus them": I am certainly safer with 'them' ALL dead than with some surviving -- you never know, after all -- 'They" can tricksy and false.... This is plainly sufficient killing to protect me -- immediately and ultimately -- but was it necessary killing ? "Self-protection" too easily slides into a default "if in doubt -- take no chances" mode. After all, if the entire field is laid waste and I survive alone -- then self-protection worked -- but at what cost?

Psychologically, "I will protect myself", and "We will protect ourselves " are categorically different in ordering (and moral force) from "I will protect you," or "We will protect you." Sorry i assumed you had knowledge of the folks i asked you to read. Let me clarify...Protection of the "self" and protection of the "other" are one and the same

Ueshiba and Hillman (and Gandhi, Gautama -- and Jesus for that matter) posit that protection of others based on a self-sacrificing love has a better moral basis as a motivation in survival situations because it is ultimately SAFER.
Sorry I assumed you had knowledge of the folks I asked you to read. Let me clarify...Protection of the "self" and protection of the "other" are one and the same. It is only when there is a separation between me and you and you're something other than human (or 'one of us").Only then do the conditions for killing human beings exist...Aikido emphasizes this on a physical plane.

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There is just as solid a physiological and psychological basis for a survival mechanism in the oxytocin "protective instinct" hypothesis as in the adrenal self-protection mode, without losing those latter physiological functions. This mode seems to have (or to regularly produce) internal or cultural controls that the other mode does not obviously have. The striking similarities of traditions of martial honor seem to address this problem in terms little modified by culture -- so I am little unclear why there is such pushback on the point.
My point is there is no push back...I just think you need to reexamine your assumptions about the nature of Homicidal Behavior.

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I am most interested in WHY there is the pushback -- more than I am on winning any argument -- because I am not arguing a point. I am simply curious and exploring a position -- though if you choose to see it as argument, I cannot help that.
Again you simply disagree with me on one simple point...Human Beings are inherently NON-violent towards other Human Beings.

William Hazen.

PS. That is the reason I practice Aikido. It presents a way to resolve conflicts naturally without the use of learned behaviors which force me to go against my natural instincts of NON-violence.
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