http://www.metafilter.com/tags/HumanNature Posts tagged with 'HumanNature' at MetaFilter. Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:00:32 -0800 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:00:32 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/65353/Hearts%2Dof%2DDarkness <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html?_r=1&amp;ref=todayspaper&amp;oref=slogin">This article,</a> about rape in the Eastern Congo, (nytimes, bugmenot <a href="http://bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com">here</a>) makes for hard and disturbing, yet important, reading. In addition to the stories reported, one paragraph from the article stayed with me: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper">"Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. 'If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,' said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu."</a> I understand the work these sentences are trying to do, allowing the <em>Times</em> to bear witness to rape without letting its readers draw easy conclusions about the "savagery" of distant, alien Africans. But I wonder if a better way to do this, though beyond the scope of a newspaper article, might have been to reflect on the ubiquity and ineradicability of violence in all times and places, from the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/04/25/050425fa_fact4">Mongols</a> to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RNHI7G5&show_article=1&image=large">John Atchison</a>. My hope is that, if we all hold the possibility for so much evil within us, that the places that seem most wretched must also hold the seeds of resilience and recovery. tag:metafilter.com,2007:site.65353 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:00:32 -0800 congo humannature rape violence sy http://www.metafilter.com/62686/Ten%2DEvolutionarily%2DObvious%2DTruths%2DAbout%2DHuman%2DNature <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070622-000002.xml">Women won't sleep with random attractive strangers? Damn.</a> tag:metafilter.com,2007:site.62686 Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:04:16 -0800 humannature psychology Science! Citizen Premier http://www.metafilter.com/34462/Killing%2Dthe%2Ddead%2Delephant%2Din%2Dthe%2Dliving%2Droom <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-killing18jul18,1,2167720,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world" title="U.S. troops are trained to respond instinctively during combat. But the lessons do not prepare them for the emotional distress that may arise.">'Enemy Contact. Kill 'em, Kill 'em'</a><strong>. </strong><a href="http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040712fa_fact" title="''When he was coming home, the Army gave us little cards that said things like 'Watch for psychotic episodes' and 'Is he drinking too much?' '' she said. ''A lot of wives said it was a joke. They had a lady come from the psych ward, who said--and I’m serious--'Don’t call us unless your husband is waking you up in the middle of the night with a knife at your throat.' Or, 'Don’t call us unless he actually chokes you, unless you pass out. He’ll have flashbacks. It’s normal.' ''">The Price of Valor</a><strong>.</strong> <a href="http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-40381sy0jul18,0,6684772,print.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials" title="The experience is horrifying. Among soldiers and Marines from combat units involved in the early stages of the war in Iraq: Nine in 10 had been attacked or ambushed and had been fired upon. More than half had killed an enemy fighter. Eighty-six percent knew someone who had been killed or seriously injured. Almost all had seen death, and half had handled the dead. Most saw ill or injured women or children they could not help. Twenty-eight percent of Marines had killed a civilian.">Invisible Casualties</a><strong>.</strong> <a href="http://www.killology.com/print/print_psychological.htm" title="THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT OF COMBAT is a concept which encompasses a wide variety of processes and negative impacts, all of which must be taken into consideration in any assessment of the immediate and long term costs of war. This entry will address the wide-spectrum psychological effects of combat, to include: Psychiatric casualties suffered during combat, Physiological arousal and fear, The physiology of close combat, The price of killing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) ">The Psychological Effects of Combat</a><strong>.</strong> <a href="http://www.killology.com/print/print_onkilling.htm" title="This means that atrocities, the intentional killing of civilians and prisoners, must be systematically rooted out from our way of war, for the price of these acts is far, far too high to let them be tolerated even to the slightest, smallest degree. This means that we enter into an era of transparency and accountability in all aspects of our law enforcement, peacekeeping, and combat operations. This also says something about that those who are called upon by their society to ''go in harm’s way,'' to use deadly force, and to contend with interpersonal human aggression. These individuals require psychological support just as surely as they require logistical, communications and medical support. Thus, as our society enters into the Post-Cold War era, the fields of psychiatry and psychology have much to contribute to the continuing evolution of combat, and to the evolution of our civilization.">The Psychological Consequences of Killing: Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress</a><strong>.</strong> <a href="http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:c0RxzBo70xoJ:scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-41998-18346/unrestricted/etd.PDF+%22Soldiers,+Self-Defense,+and+Killing+in+War%22&hl=en" title="(Abstract)Just-Warists and War-Pacifists disagree on whether soldiers are morally justified in killing each other in wartime combat. Many of their respective arguments, and their contradictory conclusions, are based upon principles of self-defense. In this thesis, I examine the role that principles of self-defense play in the arguments surrounding the moral justification of killing in combat. I do so by critiquing both a Just-Warist argument that relies on self-defense from the works of Michael Walzer and Judith Jarvis Thomson) and a War-Pacifist argument (developed by Richard Norman) that condemns killing in combat based on the moral requirements of self-defense. I demonstrate that both arguments fail due to their mistaken assumptions that soldiers are not morally responsible for their actions. I conclude by arguing that--once soldiers are recognized as morally responsible agents--killing in combat can be morally justified by principles of self-defense.">Soldiers, Self-Defense, and Killing in War</a> <strong>- </strong><a href="http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-41998-18346/unrestricted/etd.PDF">(PDF)</a><strong>.</strong> <a href="http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1018.11/" title="Summary: The overall patterns of research findings demonstrate that stress--such as that which characterized the Gulf deployment, combat, and return home--is a contributing factor to many illnesses. The effects of these stresses may have made some soldiers more vulnerable to environmental pathogens, both in the theater and at home, than they would otherwise have been. This book argues that, to be most helpful to veterans, we must deal with the complexity of the symptoms and potential causes and not simply focus on a hypothecated or ''hoped for'' singular cause of Gulf War illness.">Psychological and Psychosocial Consequences of Combat and Deployment with Special Emphasis on the Gulf War</a><strong>. </strong><a href="http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE00/Kilner00.html" title="Abstract: The methods that the military currently uses to train and execute combat operations enable soldiers to kill the enemy effectively, but they leave the soldiers liable to post-combat psychological trauma caused by guilt. This is a leadership issue. I argue that combat training should be augmented by explaining to soldiers the moral justification for killing in combat, in order to reduce post-combat guilt. Soldiers deserve to understand whom they can kill morally and why those actions are indeed moral. I outline an explanation for that moral justification.">Military Leaders’ Obligation to Justify Killing in War</a><strong>.</strong> And, from last year, come <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=5938873" title="Later, he'll say that he's not sure why he even walked up to the women. In recent days, Marines have grown weary of Iraqi civilians, who have begun accosting them, begging for food, cigarettes, sometimes even chanting the one English word they all seem to be learning: ''Money, money, money.'' When he reaches them, he notices that the younger woman seems highly distraught, gesturing and moving her mouth, but no words come out. Her breasts are exposed, her robes having fallen open while she was dragging her bundle across the fields. As Bryan approaches, she frantically unrolls its contents, revealing what appears to be a youth's bloody corpse. The boy looks about fourteen. Then he opens his eyes. Bryan kneels down. There are four small holes, two on each side of his stomach.">The Killer Elite</a><strong>,</strong> <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=5937455" title="Two Marines cautiously approach the car. It is shot up, its doors wide open, lights still on. Sgt. Charles Graves sees a small girl of about three curled up in the back seat. There's a small amount of blood on the upholstery, but the girl's eyes are open. Graves reaches in to pick her up -- thinking about what medical supplies he might need to treat her, he later says -- then the top of her head slides off and her brains drop out. When Graves steps back, he nearly falls over when his boot slips in the girl's brains. It takes a full minute before Graves can actually talk. The situation is one he can only describe in elemental terms. ''I could see her throat from the top of her skull,'' he says.">From Hell to Baghdad - The Killer Elite Part II</a><strong>,</strong> and <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=5938010" title="Despite their success in blasting their way through more than a dozen ambushes and firefights, the Recon Marines did not do the job they had been trained for: stealthy, undetected reconnaissance. ''Normally, in our jobs,'' says Colbert, ''if we get shot at, it means we failed. The enemy is never supposed to see us. We're the most highly trained Marines in the Corps. The way they used us in this war, it's like they took a Ferrari and put it in a demolition derby. We did OK, but we didn't sign up for this.'' Even so, most Marines unabashedly love the action. ''You really can't top it, Cpl. Redman says. ''Combat is the supreme adrenaline rush. You take rounds. Shoot back, shit starts blowing up. It's sensory overload. It's the thing that's not overrated in the military.'' Despite their misgivings and their discomfort, the mood is buoyant in this hellish camp. The Marines sleep through each night for the first time in weeks, boil coffee every morning fires started with C-4 explosive, run for miles each afternoon in the 110-degree heat, play cards, dip tin after tin of Copenhagen and bench-press for hours a free-weight set they assemble from gears and flywheels from wrecked Iraqi tanks. ''Man, this is fucking awesome,'' Cpl. James Chaffin, a twenty-two-year-old Recon Marine, declares one morning while blazing up his coffee with a ball of C-4 explosive. ''I can't believe I'm getting paid to work out, dip and hang out with the best guys in the world.'' ">The Battle for Bagdhad - The Killer Elite Part III</a>--Evan Wright's <em>Rolling Stone</em> articles recently published as <a href="http://cogent.typepad.com/cogent_life/2004/07/generation_kill.html" title="That's not what the book is really about, though. It is about the day-to-day life of a group of young men trained and directed to kill and be killed. It is about how they think, how they act and how combat affects them. It is, more than anything else, a resounding commendation for the training methods developed by the Marine Corps to train their men to fight and kill efficiently. On the other hand, it also makes me wonder what the hell the training these men have been through and the ideals they've absorbed means for society when they leave the Corps.">Generation Kill</a>. They are well worth re-reading in this context. tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.34462 Wed, 21 Jul 2004 02:11:40 -0800 Cruelty HumanNature Killing War y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/32747/Rwandan%2Dgenocide%2DThe%2DHolocaustAmerica <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/04/27/radio_host_says_remarks_misconstrued/">Becoming Evil : Boston WTKK-FM radio's Jay Severin advocates genocide of American-Muslims</a> - this is the advocacy of domestic terrorism. And not the mere targeting of civilians but the murder of over three million men, women, and children.<i> Why shouldn't Jay Severin be arrested and charged, under the Patriot Act, with aiding and abetting US domestic terrorist groups which advocate such violence?</i> [Scroll down towards the bottom of the Globe story for a transcript of the quote in context.] <br> <a href="http://www.whitworth.edu/News/2001_2002/Spring/BecomingEvilByWaller.htm">James Waller</a> has studied the process by which individuals and society come to commit mass atrocities , and says of his theories: <i>"...[the] explanation simply allows us to understand the conditions under which many of us could be transformed into killing machines. When we understand the ordinariness of extraordinary evil, we will be less surprised by evil, less likely to be unwitting contributors to evil, and perhaps better equipped to forestall evil." </i> <a href="http://counterspin.blogspot.com/2004_04_25_counterspin_archive.html#108308121162885913">Hesiod</a> Lists some of WTTK's advertisers : Purina, Hilton Resorts, 99 Restaurant and Pub, A.T. &amp; T. Wireless. Still, <a href="http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/">Orcinus</a> is my favorite "rise of <strike>extremist</strike> terrorist hate speech in America" news source. Germany has laws against such hate speech - which it believes to be so dangerous as to <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40669,00.html">override free speech considerations</a> - But we've got the USA PATRIOT Act, right? tag:metafilter.com,2004:site.32747 Tue, 27 Apr 2004 12:46:36 -0800 acclimation evil genocide humannature severin troutfishing