tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080248961176338496.post7965212731591233796..comments2024-03-11T06:48:32.094-05:00Comments on Alternate History Weekly Update: The Inevitability of Tragedy or: How Alternate History tends towards MiseryMitrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12415640801753049329noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080248961176338496.post-32444290690504029412016-06-02T02:33:03.025-05:002016-06-02T02:33:03.025-05:00The problem is that "atrocity" is, in fa...The problem is that "atrocity" is, in fact, normal. Its absence is the abnormal state. Syria is more typical that Poughkeepsie, in other words, and is always latent, always waiting to return.<br /><br />Forensic archaeology shows that prior to the development of the State, in hunter-gatherer and neolithic cultures, the most common way for adult human beings to die was to be killed by other human beings -- like Otzi the Iceman, shot in the back with an arrow. This was the default state in which we evolved. The big wars of the modern State disguise the fact that it brings an unusual degree of peace in-between times. That's why you were more likely to die violently if you were born in 1895 in highland New Guinea than if you were born in the same year in Germany or Russia. <br /><br />Archaeology tried to deny this for some time -- the myth of the noble savage dies hard -- but it's become impossible to ignore.<br /><br />Every age is an age of violence and war, in other words. At least, all the ones with human beings in them.<br /><br />Hand-wringing about this is sort of futile; it's like lamenting that human beings are omnivores, or that we're bipeds. <br /><br />Human beings are inherently tribal, hence political. And violence is the ultimate means of political action, as Max Weber summed it up. Mass violence is itself a product of our capacity for group bonding and cooperation; war would be impossible without love and altruism.S.M. Stirlinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18091131550027851275noreply@blogger.com