response to margo

In response to Margo’s post, I disagree when you say; “We, along with other animals, have violence as a built-in instinct,” or “war would always exist because it is human nature.” Though the first statement is true for some creatures, I don’t believe that violence is a built-in or pre-existing instinct for all people. There are many different opinions about this topic but it is my understanding that everything a person grows up to be and what they do comes from the environment they grew up in and the experiences they had while a child or young adult.

I am in agreement that sometimes war is the only logical choice and sometimes it cannot be avoided. But that doesn’t mean that everyone grows up with violence as the thing to revert to when something goes wrong. I think that it may have just been the way you phrased this sentence, but when reading it, it seems as if you’re justifying some acts of violence by using the idea that we’re born with it in us. Violence should be something that is reverted to ONLY when a person has no other options what-so-ever. This is sadly not always the case and some world leaders unfortunately always turn to violence and inflict harm as their first action. But in these cases I have to believe that their damaging ways come from people’s bad influences and bad examples, not from a pre-existing idea that they were born with.

I agree with everything else you said though, about the nature of war and the superiority idea that starts it all. I especially support the fact that “Often, war is not two-sided; if it was, both would attack each other in tandem.”