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Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World
As news of war and terror dominates the headlines, scientist Malcolm Potts and veteran journalist Thomas Hayden take a step back to explain it all. In the spirit of Guns, Germs and Steel , Sex and War asks the basic Why is war so fundamental to our species? And what can we do about it?
Malcolm Potts explores these questions from the frontlines, as a witness to war-torn countries around the world. As a scientist and obstetrician, Potts has worked with governments and aid organizations globally, and in the trenches with women who have been raped and brutalized in the course of war. Combining their own experience with scientific findings in primatology, genetics, and anthropology, Potts and Hayden explain war's pivotal position in the human experience and how men in particular evolved under conditions that favored gang behavior, rape, and organized aggression. Drawing on these new insights, they propose a rational plan for making warfare less frequent and less brutal in the future.
Anyone interested in understanding human nature, warfare, and terrorism at their most fundamental levels will find Sex and War to be an illuminating work, and one that might change the way they see the world.
Malcolm Potts explores these questions from the frontlines, as a witness to war-torn countries around the world. As a scientist and obstetrician, Potts has worked with governments and aid organizations globally, and in the trenches with women who have been raped and brutalized in the course of war. Combining their own experience with scientific findings in primatology, genetics, and anthropology, Potts and Hayden explain war's pivotal position in the human experience and how men in particular evolved under conditions that favored gang behavior, rape, and organized aggression. Drawing on these new insights, they propose a rational plan for making warfare less frequent and less brutal in the future.
Anyone interested in understanding human nature, warfare, and terrorism at their most fundamental levels will find Sex and War to be an illuminating work, and one that might change the way they see the world.
457 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2008
29 people are currently reading
616 people want to read
About the author
Malcolm Potts
22 books3 followersDavid Malcolm Potts was a British human reproductive scientist and professor of public health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was the first holder of the Fred H. Bixby-endowed chair in Population and Family Planning and founding director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability at the School of Public Health.
He was the first holder of the Fred H. Bixby-endowed chair in Population and Family Planning and founding director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability at the School of Public Health.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
April 4, 2014
A long and thoughtful book with the takeaway that giving women control over their reproductive choices will solve more world problems than pretty much anything else. Yes, that simple.
Other things I learned:
* War, terrorism and chimpanzee attacks are all basically the same thing and are called "team aggression against an outgroup"
* Believing your own BS is an evolved trait in males, the benefit being that it makes you a more convincing leader, and thus increased success in your team aggression against outgroups
* We probably have more to fear from a nuclear armed Pakistan than a nuclear armed Iran.
* Unfettered access to birth control reduces birth rates (straight from the department of obvious facts)
Other things I learned:
* War, terrorism and chimpanzee attacks are all basically the same thing and are called "team aggression against an outgroup"
* Believing your own BS is an evolved trait in males, the benefit being that it makes you a more convincing leader, and thus increased success in your team aggression against outgroups
* We probably have more to fear from a nuclear armed Pakistan than a nuclear armed Iran.
* Unfettered access to birth control reduces birth rates (straight from the department of obvious facts)
March 22, 2009
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in history, sociology, psychology, economics, and biology. It is the most complete explanation of warfare I've ever read.
The first few chapters seem like misandry but the authors make a convincing argument that men (not women) are biologically programmed to compete for resources such as land, food, and women. The examples of primitive aggression are violent, gross, and upsetting. The good news is that our world has become significantly less violent since the enlightenment. The bad news is that science has enabled an entirely new level of violence with weapons of mass destruction.
The authors are optimistic that we can be smarter than our ancestors. Men can choose to stop abusing women for hegemony, stop blindly adhering to religious doctrine, allow women control of their reproduction, and start reacting to threatening situations with more judiciousness and less bravado. After all, men don't really want to kill each other, as this example from Chapter 4 proves:
"After the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, in which 7,000 men died and 33,000 were wounded, 27,574 muskets were picked up from battle. Ninety percent were loaded and one musket had twenty-three powder charges and pieces of shot. How many men were killed before they could pull the trigger, and how many could not bring themselves to fire on an enemy that had been, until the start of war, part of their national ingroup?"
The first few chapters seem like misandry but the authors make a convincing argument that men (not women) are biologically programmed to compete for resources such as land, food, and women. The examples of primitive aggression are violent, gross, and upsetting. The good news is that our world has become significantly less violent since the enlightenment. The bad news is that science has enabled an entirely new level of violence with weapons of mass destruction.
The authors are optimistic that we can be smarter than our ancestors. Men can choose to stop abusing women for hegemony, stop blindly adhering to religious doctrine, allow women control of their reproduction, and start reacting to threatening situations with more judiciousness and less bravado. After all, men don't really want to kill each other, as this example from Chapter 4 proves:
"After the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, in which 7,000 men died and 33,000 were wounded, 27,574 muskets were picked up from battle. Ninety percent were loaded and one musket had twenty-three powder charges and pieces of shot. How many men were killed before they could pull the trigger, and how many could not bring themselves to fire on an enemy that had been, until the start of war, part of their national ingroup?"
August 10, 2023
A must read. This books takes evolutionary psychology to a whole other level.
When it comes to human warfare, this book is the one to read. I mean, it tackles warfare using arguments previously made by Richard Wrangham, Frans deWall, Steven Pinker, Jane Goodall, Jonathan Haidt and many, many more. The main basis for this book is the following word: violence. It clearly states that violence is dominant in males, and this applied to the growth of civilization and many other factors, creates warfare (large scale war), meaning that it is mostly a "male" thing. People sometimes do not like to hear truths (veritas odium parit) said the ancient texts, and it is still true nowadays. Progressive ideology and wokeness states that EVERYTHING IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, this is why we have men giving birth and menstruating grandpas, another argument is that something called -the blank slate- is true, and that men are encouraged to be vile, manly and toxic. Sure, there are many things that can become role models, such as Rambo and violent movies, but, turns out that biologically primate species behave like that, and at some point, we have reasons for having inherited those behaviors, the only truth is that evolutionary baggage exists.
The author tackles down rosseaunean-thinking, delivering a final blow to the Statement of Seville, which said that "there is nothing violent in human nature", what a load of crap and what an irresponsible thing to say. I mean, if you want the cure for something, you need to understand the virus, or the bacteria, and then do something for that. You do not negate it and that would be all. Violence must be understood, as it is in evolutionary psychology, that way, we can do something about it. One of the pillars the author gives also as advice, is letting women be a part of these decisions. Women have this innate talent to appreciate life, and we have documented evidence that there was not a single woman who has committed genocide, on the other hand, men like that.
Yesterday, august 1oth, Fernando Villavicencio was killed. He was the runner-up against the left tyrant Rafael Correa. Socialism in Latin America is directly linked to carteles, and in Ecuador we now have a bunch of criminal organizations that kill every hour, just like in El Salvador before Nayib Bukele. The gangs are among many others, Los Choneros, Chonekillers, Las Aguilas, Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos. Most of them have "animals" as the name of the gang, due to reasons that go beyond 10000 years. During most of human history, even though we lived in small groups, there was no law, just behavior that could be frowned upon. Violence was the main vehicle. When women were abducted, males inflicted violence in order to being peace, once again, and this was repeated until our days. This is why a part of that evolutionary baggage that men (precisely men) carry is made up of violent behaviors. When it comes to gang members, they inflict what Richard Wrangham calls "coalitionary proactive aggression". What is that? Well, people (mostly males) that get together and coldly plan an assasination. Our past is reflected too in chimps, and other primates, we ARE primates.
Correismo is a left-wing ideology, that can be considered a parasitic ideology that embraces Castrismo, and Chavismo, both of them ideologies that completely fragmented and destroyed countries.
When it comes to human warfare, this book is the one to read. I mean, it tackles warfare using arguments previously made by Richard Wrangham, Frans deWall, Steven Pinker, Jane Goodall, Jonathan Haidt and many, many more. The main basis for this book is the following word: violence. It clearly states that violence is dominant in males, and this applied to the growth of civilization and many other factors, creates warfare (large scale war), meaning that it is mostly a "male" thing. People sometimes do not like to hear truths (veritas odium parit) said the ancient texts, and it is still true nowadays. Progressive ideology and wokeness states that EVERYTHING IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, this is why we have men giving birth and menstruating grandpas, another argument is that something called -the blank slate- is true, and that men are encouraged to be vile, manly and toxic. Sure, there are many things that can become role models, such as Rambo and violent movies, but, turns out that biologically primate species behave like that, and at some point, we have reasons for having inherited those behaviors, the only truth is that evolutionary baggage exists.
The author tackles down rosseaunean-thinking, delivering a final blow to the Statement of Seville, which said that "there is nothing violent in human nature", what a load of crap and what an irresponsible thing to say. I mean, if you want the cure for something, you need to understand the virus, or the bacteria, and then do something for that. You do not negate it and that would be all. Violence must be understood, as it is in evolutionary psychology, that way, we can do something about it. One of the pillars the author gives also as advice, is letting women be a part of these decisions. Women have this innate talent to appreciate life, and we have documented evidence that there was not a single woman who has committed genocide, on the other hand, men like that.
Yesterday, august 1oth, Fernando Villavicencio was killed. He was the runner-up against the left tyrant Rafael Correa. Socialism in Latin America is directly linked to carteles, and in Ecuador we now have a bunch of criminal organizations that kill every hour, just like in El Salvador before Nayib Bukele. The gangs are among many others, Los Choneros, Chonekillers, Las Aguilas, Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos. Most of them have "animals" as the name of the gang, due to reasons that go beyond 10000 years. During most of human history, even though we lived in small groups, there was no law, just behavior that could be frowned upon. Violence was the main vehicle. When women were abducted, males inflicted violence in order to being peace, once again, and this was repeated until our days. This is why a part of that evolutionary baggage that men (precisely men) carry is made up of violent behaviors. When it comes to gang members, they inflict what Richard Wrangham calls "coalitionary proactive aggression". What is that? Well, people (mostly males) that get together and coldly plan an assasination. Our past is reflected too in chimps, and other primates, we ARE primates.
Correismo is a left-wing ideology, that can be considered a parasitic ideology that embraces Castrismo, and Chavismo, both of them ideologies that completely fragmented and destroyed countries.
November 16, 2008
The big idea of this book is that human evolutionary biology helps explain why human beings - almost alone in the animal kingdom - organize groups that go out and intentionally kill other members of our species. But this doesn't mean we are condemned to fight each other endlessly; in fact there are a few major things we could do to stop global violence - such as giving people access to family planning all around the world.
The authors - one of whom is my husband, journalist Thomas Hayden - draw on evidence and examples from history, animal behavior studies, and personal experience to make their case, and the lively, broad-ranging nature of their discussion is the real strength of the book. The authors visit all kinds of places in world history, from chimpanzee raids in Africa to family planning clinics in Bangladesh and the battlefields of ancient Greece. They use their case studies and examples to argue that human males have a genetic predisposition to engage in what they call "team aggression" - the destructive behavor that can lead to war and terrorism.
But the authors are not genetic determinists; they do not believe this means men must always behave this way. They acknowledge that men inherit other, competing drives, as do women, and that by giving women a larger voice in society we can moderate the violence. That's the link to family planning; without the ability to decide when to have children, the authors argue, it's difficult for women to play an equal role in their families and communities.
It's an interesting and provocative argument. And I found some of the book's examples of the destabiliing effects of unchecked population growth very telling - for instance, in the recent eruption of violence in Kenya. But whether you agree or disagree with the authors' ideas, the book is a fascinating read, thanks to its wealth of examples and its engaging, reasonable tone.
I wish there were more books like this - adventurous and well-written, integrating all kinds of information from so many areas of human knowledge and applying them to seemingly intractable problems. I know I'm biased, but Tom is a seriously talented writer and he has done a beautiful job with this book. And his coauthor, Malcolm Potts, is venturing into territory broached by far too few scientists, by trying to synthesize his own expertise with other types of human knowledge to better understand the world. Together they have written a far-reaching and engrossing work that will change the way you think about humanity.
The authors - one of whom is my husband, journalist Thomas Hayden - draw on evidence and examples from history, animal behavior studies, and personal experience to make their case, and the lively, broad-ranging nature of their discussion is the real strength of the book. The authors visit all kinds of places in world history, from chimpanzee raids in Africa to family planning clinics in Bangladesh and the battlefields of ancient Greece. They use their case studies and examples to argue that human males have a genetic predisposition to engage in what they call "team aggression" - the destructive behavor that can lead to war and terrorism.
But the authors are not genetic determinists; they do not believe this means men must always behave this way. They acknowledge that men inherit other, competing drives, as do women, and that by giving women a larger voice in society we can moderate the violence. That's the link to family planning; without the ability to decide when to have children, the authors argue, it's difficult for women to play an equal role in their families and communities.
It's an interesting and provocative argument. And I found some of the book's examples of the destabiliing effects of unchecked population growth very telling - for instance, in the recent eruption of violence in Kenya. But whether you agree or disagree with the authors' ideas, the book is a fascinating read, thanks to its wealth of examples and its engaging, reasonable tone.
I wish there were more books like this - adventurous and well-written, integrating all kinds of information from so many areas of human knowledge and applying them to seemingly intractable problems. I know I'm biased, but Tom is a seriously talented writer and he has done a beautiful job with this book. And his coauthor, Malcolm Potts, is venturing into territory broached by far too few scientists, by trying to synthesize his own expertise with other types of human knowledge to better understand the world. Together they have written a far-reaching and engrossing work that will change the way you think about humanity.
November 4, 2012
Sex and War is about -- wait for it! wait for it! -- sex and war. In this book the authors attempts to prove that all our violent tendencies were inherited from way back yonder.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a fast and interesting and, as such, I feel rather bad at giving it three stars. I couldn't give it more because the research was just terrible. It's so utterly terrible that it makes the read of this book so fun. I kept thinking "what batshit crazy thing are they going to throw out next?"
The authors never really explain the stances they take. They'll start a topic of discussion and throw out really random and useless bit of information that everyone probably knows already (such as, men are more violent than women. Really? Didn't know that. That's for informing me...) and then they'll say really off the wall before moving on. There isn't a whole lot of actual scientific information in this book. It's almost totally anecdotal information. It's mostly a) authors state what they believe, b) give "proof" in random and generally known stories, c) throw in some really wild idea that is not supported by the above and never discussed again afterward before they d) give you such an extreme and insane example of this crazy theory that it makes your head spin.
Off the top of my head, in a section about male violence, they tell the tale of two friends at the bar. A police officer comes up to the lady and annoys her. The trio run into each other later on and finally the cop pisses the woman's friend off. The man beats the cop into unconsciousness and then flips him onto his back, straddles his chest, and sucks the cops eye ball out. He popped the eye with his teeth.
This is a billed (by the authors) as a typical example of male aggression. I couldn't help but think: really? Well, there are now more men than women alive today and yet I almost never see a person that doesn't have a eye.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a fast and interesting and, as such, I feel rather bad at giving it three stars. I couldn't give it more because the research was just terrible. It's so utterly terrible that it makes the read of this book so fun. I kept thinking "what batshit crazy thing are they going to throw out next?"
The authors never really explain the stances they take. They'll start a topic of discussion and throw out really random and useless bit of information that everyone probably knows already (such as, men are more violent than women. Really? Didn't know that. That's for informing me...) and then they'll say really off the wall before moving on. There isn't a whole lot of actual scientific information in this book. It's almost totally anecdotal information. It's mostly a) authors state what they believe, b) give "proof" in random and generally known stories, c) throw in some really wild idea that is not supported by the above and never discussed again afterward before they d) give you such an extreme and insane example of this crazy theory that it makes your head spin.
Off the top of my head, in a section about male violence, they tell the tale of two friends at the bar. A police officer comes up to the lady and annoys her. The trio run into each other later on and finally the cop pisses the woman's friend off. The man beats the cop into unconsciousness and then flips him onto his back, straddles his chest, and sucks the cops eye ball out. He popped the eye with his teeth.
This is a billed (by the authors) as a typical example of male aggression. I couldn't help but think: really? Well, there are now more men than women alive today and yet I almost never see a person that doesn't have a eye.
March 8, 2009
This is a careful work in evolutionary psychology. It makes the case that same species outgroup team aggression by males is an inherent characteristic of Homo sapiens. It spends a lot of time comparing this phenomenon in humans with a similar phenomenon reported in chimpanzees. It also contrasts the human phenomenon with the much more pacific bonobo to make the case that there are things humans can do to mitigate this response. A major mitigating response to our tendency to go to war is to empower women in a variety of ways. Another is to reduce population growth so that a society's population demographic has a higher percentage of older people and a lower percentage of young adult males. The book does not deny the importance of culture though it does a good job of torpedoing the Social Science Standard Model caricature. Personal anecdotes by the main author do a good job of adding a sense of concreteness to the arguments. Neither the thesis nor the synergy is new. The authors acknowledge that the book is a followup to Demonic Males. I would also add that Homicide by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson also add to the arguments made here. All and all this is a book that social scientists interested in this subject need to read.
Want to read
February 8, 2010From an interview with the author in Shambhala Sun on Facebook:
"Women will fight very bravely if they or their children are threatened, but we could not find a single example in the whole of human history where women have banded together spontaneously and systematically and deliberately gone out to kill other human beings."
How do reproductive rights play a role?
"We must have energetic efforts to support reproductive autonomy. When women can control their own fertility, family size begins to fall. As family size falls, education and development increase, as does the advancement of women’s role in society. Throughout the world there is plenty of demand for family planning on the part of women, but the evolved male drive to control female reproduction often stands in the way. Male theologians, male legislators, and conservative male doctors create and maintain the barriers to family planning. All in all, then, energetic efforts at empowerment of women will mitigate the effects of the warring nature we have inherited. Peace breaks out when women have more control over their bodies and more influence in their societies."
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/n...
"Women will fight very bravely if they or their children are threatened, but we could not find a single example in the whole of human history where women have banded together spontaneously and systematically and deliberately gone out to kill other human beings."
How do reproductive rights play a role?
"We must have energetic efforts to support reproductive autonomy. When women can control their own fertility, family size begins to fall. As family size falls, education and development increase, as does the advancement of women’s role in society. Throughout the world there is plenty of demand for family planning on the part of women, but the evolved male drive to control female reproduction often stands in the way. Male theologians, male legislators, and conservative male doctors create and maintain the barriers to family planning. All in all, then, energetic efforts at empowerment of women will mitigate the effects of the warring nature we have inherited. Peace breaks out when women have more control over their bodies and more influence in their societies."
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/n...
December 14, 2008
I read this for an essay on new books about violence. This one left me underwhelmed. The authors argue that violence is the result of male efforts to reproduce; women, of course, are empathic and peaceable.
Unfortunately, Potts and co-author Hayden seem not to have read some important books about violence (e.g., Dave Grossman's On Killing) or fully digested certain lines of research into male violence--as a result, they make some sweeping and debatable generalizations about the roots and persistence of violence. For example, at one point they looking at rising firing rates through fifty years of U.S. warfare and suggest that this is the result of the increasing "otherness" of America's enemies, but that fails to take into account the evolution of the American military's training techniques. (Plus, were the Vietnamese actually more "other" to black, white, and Latino U.S. soldiers than Japanese?)
They also seem to have missed the main thrust of research by Robert Sapolsky and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and they totally ignore research that might contradict their case, such as work by Douglas Fry, Joan Roughgarden, or Frans de Waal. All in all, a weak effort.
Unfortunately, Potts and co-author Hayden seem not to have read some important books about violence (e.g., Dave Grossman's On Killing) or fully digested certain lines of research into male violence--as a result, they make some sweeping and debatable generalizations about the roots and persistence of violence. For example, at one point they looking at rising firing rates through fifty years of U.S. warfare and suggest that this is the result of the increasing "otherness" of America's enemies, but that fails to take into account the evolution of the American military's training techniques. (Plus, were the Vietnamese actually more "other" to black, white, and Latino U.S. soldiers than Japanese?)
They also seem to have missed the main thrust of research by Robert Sapolsky and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and they totally ignore research that might contradict their case, such as work by Douglas Fry, Joan Roughgarden, or Frans de Waal. All in all, a weak effort.
January 26, 2009
...it should also say "Thomas Hayden" wrote this - I did a fellowship with him last year. He's obviously at least partly responsible for this thoughtful read. It's interesting the link they propose between women and ending warfare - I won't spoil it for you, but I can think of another very different book I read about the roots of violence that failed to address women intelligently at all, so this was really refreshing. I've had some great discussions about this book's ideas with people who don't read enough, so if you read, it's well worth your time.
April 5, 2023
بالنسبة لمعظم التاريخ وعصور ما قبل التاريخ ، انتهى الأمر بمجموعات صغيرة من الرجال - الذين كانوا على استعداد لمهاجمة جيرانهم وسرقة مواردهم ، والذين أمكنهم إغواء النساء أو إجبارهن على ممارسة الجنس - بإنجاب المزيد من الأبناء. في هذه الأثناء ، كانت النساء أكثر عرضة لتحسين نجاحهن الإنجابي - لإنجاب المزيد من الأطفال على قيد الحياة وإعادة إنتاج جيناتهن - من خلال مواءمة أنفسهن مع الرجال الذين مارسوا العنف بنجاح بدلاً من المخاطرة بموت الأطفال وفناء المجتمعات، فهن على عكس الرجال ، لا يبدو أنهن يتحدن معًا بشكل تلقائي ويخرجن ويهاجمن ويقتلن الآخرين.
لحسن الحظ ، لدى البشر ثقافة بالإضافة إلى الضغوطات البيولوجية. قد تزودنا جيناتنا بدوافع عنيفة ، لكن عقولنا وقلوبنا وقوانيننا ومعاييرنا الاجتماعية غالبًا ما تكون جيدة جدًا في تلطيفها. بينما ربط التطور بين الجنس والعنف على مدى ملايين السنين ، فقد منحتنا الحضارة الأدوات لفصل الاثنين عن بعضهما مرة أخرى ، وهذا يفتح طريقًا مهمًا نحو جعل العالم مكانًا أكثر أمانًا. لفهم الكيفية ، يجب أن ننظر عن كثب إلى الحرب وتأثيراتها من منظور بيولوجي.ما نراه عندما نفعل ذلك يمكن أن يكون قبيحًا بشكل مؤلم. من بين زملائي الأجانب في بنغلاديش ، بقي الدكتور جيف ديفيس من أستراليا لفترة أطول بعد الحرب . زار كل مستشفى في البلاد ، وقدّر أن 100 ألف امرأة تعرضن للاغتصاب خلال الصراع الذي دام تسعة أشهر. وكان العديد منهن من الفتيات ، بالكاد تجاوزن سن البلوغ. كن يعانين من سوء التغذية وكان حملهن متقدمًا بحلول الوقت الذي وصلنا فيه لمحاولة مساعدتهن ، وللأسف كان لدينا نوع من المضاعفات الطبية التي بدا أنها تتطلب سيارة إسعاف. أحيانًا عندما يموت الجنين في الرحم ، إما تلقائيًا أو أثناء الإجهاض المحرّض ، يتراكم البروتين ليصنع جلطة دموية حول الأنسجة الميتة. يسمي الأطباء هذه الحالة أفبرينوجينيميا ، وهذا هو السبب في أن إحدى النساء اللواتي كن نعالجهن بدأت تنزف بغزارة بينما كنا نحاول إخراج جنينها الميت. كنا بحاجة إلى سيارة إسعاف - بسرعة. لكن السائق اختار تلك اللحظة بالتحديد لتناول طعام الغداء والتجول في مكانه حاملاً معه مفاتيح سيارة الإسعاف. بعد بحث طويل ووقت ضائع ، وجدنا السائق والمفاتيح وانطلقنا إلى المستشفى ، وكنا في حاجة ماسة إلى نقل الدم لمريضنا ... ماتت الفتاة الصغيرة بينما كنت أحتضن رأسها ، في الطريق المليء بالحفر من دار الرعاية إلى المستشفى.
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Sex And War
Malcolm Potts
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
لحسن الحظ ، لدى البشر ثقافة بالإضافة إلى الضغوطات البيولوجية. قد تزودنا جيناتنا بدوافع عنيفة ، لكن عقولنا وقلوبنا وقوانيننا ومعاييرنا الاجتماعية غالبًا ما تكون جيدة جدًا في تلطيفها. بينما ربط التطور بين الجنس والعنف على مدى ملايين السنين ، فقد منحتنا الحضارة الأدوات لفصل الاثنين عن بعضهما مرة أخرى ، وهذا يفتح طريقًا مهمًا نحو جعل العالم مكانًا أكثر أمانًا. لفهم الكيفية ، يجب أن ننظر عن كثب إلى الحرب وتأثيراتها من منظور بيولوجي.ما نراه عندما نفعل ذلك يمكن أن يكون قبيحًا بشكل مؤلم. من بين زملائي الأجانب في بنغلاديش ، بقي الدكتور جيف ديفيس من أستراليا لفترة أطول بعد الحرب . زار كل مستشفى في البلاد ، وقدّر أن 100 ألف امرأة تعرضن للاغتصاب خلال الصراع الذي دام تسعة أشهر. وكان العديد منهن من الفتيات ، بالكاد تجاوزن سن البلوغ. كن يعانين من سوء التغذية وكان حملهن متقدمًا بحلول الوقت الذي وصلنا فيه لمحاولة مساعدتهن ، وللأسف كان لدينا نوع من المضاعفات الطبية التي بدا أنها تتطلب سيارة إسعاف. أحيانًا عندما يموت الجنين في الرحم ، إما تلقائيًا أو أثناء الإجهاض المحرّض ، يتراكم البروتين ليصنع جلطة دموية حول الأنسجة الميتة. يسمي الأطباء هذه الحالة أفبرينوجينيميا ، وهذا هو السبب في أن إحدى النساء اللواتي كن نعالجهن بدأت تنزف بغزارة بينما كنا نحاول إخراج جنينها الميت. كنا بحاجة إلى سيارة إسعاف - بسرعة. لكن السائق اختار تلك اللحظة بالتحديد لتناول طعام الغداء والتجول في مكانه حاملاً معه مفاتيح سيارة الإسعاف. بعد بحث طويل ووقت ضائع ، وجدنا السائق والمفاتيح وانطلقنا إلى المستشفى ، وكنا في حاجة ماسة إلى نقل الدم لمريضنا ... ماتت الفتاة الصغيرة بينما كنت أحتضن رأسها ، في الطريق المليء بالحفر من دار الرعاية إلى المستشفى.
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Sex And War
Malcolm Potts
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
December 28, 2008
Sex and War is an insightful look at male humans behaving badly in sex and war, particularly fun to read if you're a guy into history and war and sex. But I wouldn't characterize this book as groundbreaking, but rather as a helpful reminder of our evolutionary ancestry and an intelligent rehashing of some fairly widely accepted ideas. At times it overreaches, claiming to offer a solution to the problem of terrorism, and while it provides some helpful thinking as well as possibly helpful foreign policy suggestions, this book does not offer a "path to a safer world" as the subtitle promises.
The authors build from a model of chimp aggression, showing how bands of young male chimpanzees raid rivals' territories, and how this is beneficial biologically. They build on a Darwinian model of survival of the fittest -- successful gangs get to promulgate their seed whether by raping conquered women or surviving to inseminate women from their own tribe. The authors extrapolate from chimp to human behavior, to tribal war, to street gangs, to large-scale warfare with underreported systemic raping, to suicidal terrorists. What's fun is watching the authors try to maintain a neutral academic tone when describing battles and raids and other guy stuff, but their affection for this stuff keeps bursting through. This is a masculine book, but with a pro-feminine agenda? The authors notice over-population is often a factor in war, particularly when there are surplus numbers of young, unemployed males. This leads them later to suggest that helping unstable nations lower their birth rates through planned parenting, birth control, and abortion would have a long term positive effect in reducing the risk of war and terrorism. They have a point.
And the authors have a good handle on why men go to war, why they're willing to risk death on distant battlefields, how courage glues them to defend their buddies, how it becomes permissible to kill enemies of an "out-group" because they've been reduced cognitively to nameless targets. And the authors correctly point out that rarely in history have women been combatants, and shows the sexual links here. My sense is these ideas are generally correct but not ground-breaking.
The middle section is more scattered, without a central focus but it allow the authors to show off their extensive knowledge of how sex and biology and war interrelate with government, religion, crime, technology, slavery, and disease and so forth. And here the author's world-wise expertise and wide-ranging knowledge shows to good effect. The book meanders into their thinking of how to avoid war and prevent terrorism, which offers some worthy points but which tend to be somewhat left-leaning, feminist-oriented, somewhat naive. For example, in a sidebar entitled "How to make peace break out", the authors recommend more education for women, increasing feminine representation in legislatures, encouraging birth control & abortion & unwanted pregnancies, encouraging scientific education. These are worthwhile proposals which may, indeed, help lessen the chance of war and reduce a long term risk of terrorism.
But here the authors have wandered into a problem which they think they understand, but don't. They think they've figured out how to prevent terrorism. They don't. I do. But don't take my word. Judge for yourself. Check out my book on Amazon. It's "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism". It prevents smuggled nuclear bombs and all other types. The Potts/Hayden book doesn't. Theirs is a typical mistake made by intellectuals who think they can apply their far-reaching and considerable expertise to a dangerous problem, but their expertise blinds them, and they fail to think through the problem.
Regarding the title "Sex and War", is there a more titillating title? How long did they take to dream this up? Two seconds? The title writers, no doubt, watched the movie Bonnie & Clyde and know Americans love sex and violence, and wow, this stuff sells. And the combination of an academic authority with a journalist is a good one. Together they're the "Dr. Phil" of primate biology, wagging fingers at men behaving badly, entertaining women, except both have more hair. After all, aren't women the ones who buy books today? It reads well & entertains but the book could have been more focused, tighter.
Still, this book is a worthwhile read, enlightening, will be helpful to students of biology and war and primatology and anthropology and will be quoted by feminists ad nauseum.
The authors build from a model of chimp aggression, showing how bands of young male chimpanzees raid rivals' territories, and how this is beneficial biologically. They build on a Darwinian model of survival of the fittest -- successful gangs get to promulgate their seed whether by raping conquered women or surviving to inseminate women from their own tribe. The authors extrapolate from chimp to human behavior, to tribal war, to street gangs, to large-scale warfare with underreported systemic raping, to suicidal terrorists. What's fun is watching the authors try to maintain a neutral academic tone when describing battles and raids and other guy stuff, but their affection for this stuff keeps bursting through. This is a masculine book, but with a pro-feminine agenda? The authors notice over-population is often a factor in war, particularly when there are surplus numbers of young, unemployed males. This leads them later to suggest that helping unstable nations lower their birth rates through planned parenting, birth control, and abortion would have a long term positive effect in reducing the risk of war and terrorism. They have a point.
And the authors have a good handle on why men go to war, why they're willing to risk death on distant battlefields, how courage glues them to defend their buddies, how it becomes permissible to kill enemies of an "out-group" because they've been reduced cognitively to nameless targets. And the authors correctly point out that rarely in history have women been combatants, and shows the sexual links here. My sense is these ideas are generally correct but not ground-breaking.
The middle section is more scattered, without a central focus but it allow the authors to show off their extensive knowledge of how sex and biology and war interrelate with government, religion, crime, technology, slavery, and disease and so forth. And here the author's world-wise expertise and wide-ranging knowledge shows to good effect. The book meanders into their thinking of how to avoid war and prevent terrorism, which offers some worthy points but which tend to be somewhat left-leaning, feminist-oriented, somewhat naive. For example, in a sidebar entitled "How to make peace break out", the authors recommend more education for women, increasing feminine representation in legislatures, encouraging birth control & abortion & unwanted pregnancies, encouraging scientific education. These are worthwhile proposals which may, indeed, help lessen the chance of war and reduce a long term risk of terrorism.
But here the authors have wandered into a problem which they think they understand, but don't. They think they've figured out how to prevent terrorism. They don't. I do. But don't take my word. Judge for yourself. Check out my book on Amazon. It's "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism". It prevents smuggled nuclear bombs and all other types. The Potts/Hayden book doesn't. Theirs is a typical mistake made by intellectuals who think they can apply their far-reaching and considerable expertise to a dangerous problem, but their expertise blinds them, and they fail to think through the problem.
Regarding the title "Sex and War", is there a more titillating title? How long did they take to dream this up? Two seconds? The title writers, no doubt, watched the movie Bonnie & Clyde and know Americans love sex and violence, and wow, this stuff sells. And the combination of an academic authority with a journalist is a good one. Together they're the "Dr. Phil" of primate biology, wagging fingers at men behaving badly, entertaining women, except both have more hair. After all, aren't women the ones who buy books today? It reads well & entertains but the book could have been more focused, tighter.
Still, this book is a worthwhile read, enlightening, will be helpful to students of biology and war and primatology and anthropology and will be quoted by feminists ad nauseum.
August 9, 2009
The thesis of this book, co-authored by Malcolm Potts and Thomas Hayden, is summarized thus (Page 2): "This book is about war. It is about terror, and cruelty, and the biological origins and long, brutal, vicious, and destructive history of organized aggression. Perhaps most importantly, it is not just about the depths to which human beings can sink, but also how we came to be this way and what we can do about it."
In short, the book addresses the human nature of violence, why it came about, and what tools might be available to us to reduce the carnage coming from our evolutionary background. Up front, I will simply note that there is not much in this book that is new. Arguments such as this have been around for some time. What is positive about this book is that it is well written and accessible to wider audiences than some of the more academic works. As one example of "déjà vu," Potts and Hayden argue that having more women in positions of power would likely reduce state created warfare and violence. The argument follows from the arguments presented, but Glendon Schubert made a similar argument a decade and a half ago (I did not see Schubert's work mentioned, although I could have missed the relevant footnote--there are over 500, after all!).
The book provides a perspective based on reproductive success being the key to evolutionary change and the understanding of what behaviors any species deploys. Among humans, team aggression (groups of males working together) and reproductive success are linked to make intergroup violence a default option for humans. The book notes the analogy with intergroup violence among Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee), humankind's closest relatives in nature, further suggesting an evolutionary background to this behavior.
The chapter titles summarize key points made: "We band of brothers" (human males "bond" with one another in warfare and cooperate to protect one another), "Terrorists," "Women and war," "Raids into battles," "War and the state," "War and technology," "War and the law," "Evil," "The Future of war," "Women and peace," and "Stoner age behaviors in the twenty-first century."
The last chapter explores what might be done to reduce the extent of human violence and warfare. On page 368, some suggestions are summarized in a table. Among these: increase the number of women in parliaments and legislatures, empower women (including preventing unwanted pregnancies), ensure universal science education, encourage knowledge of history and evolution, maintain a free media, and don't supply potential enemies with weapons. Would some combination of these actually work? That's a good question. I am not so optimistic, but the listing (and the discussion of these in the final chapter) at least gets readers to reflecting on the subject. If that leads to broader discussion--whatever the reader thinks of the book's arguments--then it has made a contribution.
In short, the book addresses the human nature of violence, why it came about, and what tools might be available to us to reduce the carnage coming from our evolutionary background. Up front, I will simply note that there is not much in this book that is new. Arguments such as this have been around for some time. What is positive about this book is that it is well written and accessible to wider audiences than some of the more academic works. As one example of "déjà vu," Potts and Hayden argue that having more women in positions of power would likely reduce state created warfare and violence. The argument follows from the arguments presented, but Glendon Schubert made a similar argument a decade and a half ago (I did not see Schubert's work mentioned, although I could have missed the relevant footnote--there are over 500, after all!).
The book provides a perspective based on reproductive success being the key to evolutionary change and the understanding of what behaviors any species deploys. Among humans, team aggression (groups of males working together) and reproductive success are linked to make intergroup violence a default option for humans. The book notes the analogy with intergroup violence among Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee), humankind's closest relatives in nature, further suggesting an evolutionary background to this behavior.
The chapter titles summarize key points made: "We band of brothers" (human males "bond" with one another in warfare and cooperate to protect one another), "Terrorists," "Women and war," "Raids into battles," "War and the state," "War and technology," "War and the law," "Evil," "The Future of war," "Women and peace," and "Stoner age behaviors in the twenty-first century."
The last chapter explores what might be done to reduce the extent of human violence and warfare. On page 368, some suggestions are summarized in a table. Among these: increase the number of women in parliaments and legislatures, empower women (including preventing unwanted pregnancies), ensure universal science education, encourage knowledge of history and evolution, maintain a free media, and don't supply potential enemies with weapons. Would some combination of these actually work? That's a good question. I am not so optimistic, but the listing (and the discussion of these in the final chapter) at least gets readers to reflecting on the subject. If that leads to broader discussion--whatever the reader thinks of the book's arguments--then it has made a contribution.
March 2, 2019
Anecdotal and extremely repetitive. Also very political - I wonder how much of this book they had already decided upon before they found things that backed up what they believed? Just read War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keeley.
August 25, 2019
One of the most important books I've read in years
Potts' main thesis is that all men have the potential to kill other people to get what they want or because they are told to kill or because they have dehumanized their victims. All men--you, me, and Professor Potts himself, but for the grace of God, could be in Darfur slicing people up with machetes. All that is required is that the victims be seen as members of an outgroup as opposed to the ingroup to which we belong.
This is a startling thesis, one that sets the standard social science model, in which it is said we have to be carefully taught to kill, on its head. What Potts says is that the violence we have seen throughout human history is innate, an evolved trait that was once useful for hominids in the tribal setting. This is also the thesis of evolutionary psychology. Instead of learning to kill, or being taught to kill, we need to be taught NOT to kill. We don't usually kill members of our family or friends because they are part of an ingroup with which we identify.
Potts has a solution, which is why he has written this fascinating and exhaustive treatise on war and its causes. His solution begins with an understanding that our psyches are governed by evolved Stone Age emotions similar to what we see in chimpanzees as they conduct their horrific raids on isolated individuals from neighboring groups, ripping and tearing their victims apart with their bare hands and teeth. Potts calls this "team aggression," a strategy that has been perfected in human beings. Men bond together and use their greater numbers to kill members of other tribes so as to gain resources such as territory, slaves and women to impregnate.
In the modern world we have men with Stone Age brains in positions of power with their fingers on weapons of mass destruction. We know that they will posture and threaten and eventually convince themselves of the evil of the enemy and pull the trigger.
Understanding all this, Potts moves to the solution. Since it is men--not women--who engage in team aggression, we need to put women in positions of power since they have proven to be less likely to go on killing raids. (Potts presents a formidable amount of evidence to support this idea.) Furthermore, the average woman needs to be empowered to the extent that she can choose when and if to have children. Potts shows that countries with large and growing populations relative to resources are more likely to engage in raids on their neighbors than countries with stable populations. Additionally, it is the demographic makeup of the population that is significant. A country with a large percentage of young men relative to older men and women tends to be more violent. Women in sub-Saharan Africa for example typically do not have access to contraception and family planning. Consequently they (and women in the Middle East as well) typically have six, seven or eight children in their lifetimes. Rapid population growth is the result which strains resources and leads to a society with a lot of young men in it who have little to lose and so are easily led to acts of violence.
He adds: "Fundamentalist teachings, whether Christian, Muslim, or any other religion, end up restricting and controlling women, which in turn makes wars and terrorism more likely. The twenty-first century is seeing a clash of cultures, but that clash is not between Islam and Christendom. Rather it is between fundamentalism and reason." (p. 363)
Potts notes that "In the past fifty years the world has accommodated rapid population growth tolerably well, although as rising oil and food prices suggest, this may not be true in the future." He compares us to the "first people to cross into North America, or the Polynesians who first landed at Easter Island...Presented with vast new supplies of food, energy, building materials, and luxury goods our forbears could never have imagined, we have gorged ourselves on consumption, and we have driven our global population…to six billion in 2000… The evidence of that increase is now all around us, in our polluted environment, our warming climate, our disappearing rainforests, and our increasingly degraded farmland: We are, as a species, in the process of proving Malthus's proposition that population will always outstrip resources." (pp. 296-297)
We are Easter Island natives. We have arrived not at an unspoiled island with flightless birds and a virgin forest to ravage, but at a planet with resources still rich enough to exploit and a powerful science and technology to do the exploiting. It took a few hundred years for the Easter Islanders to deplete their resources and return to a mean and savage, poverty-stricken existence. How long will it take us?
Potts writes, "…it is highly likely that our numbers and industrial demands have already exceeded the environment's capacity to support them. Mathias Wackernagel in California, Norman Myers in England, and others calculate that we may have exceeded Earth's carrying capacity as long ago as 1975. According to these calculations, we already need a planet 20 percent larger than the one we have." (p. 299)
There are two points that Potts does not dwell on that I want to emphasize. First, wars have the ability to fix the problem of too many young men with nothing to do. Second, women make sexual choices and in doing so often choose the most violent men to mate with because they know that such men are more likely to survive and provide for their children than less violent men. Women in precarious situations do not make moral judgments. Instead they make realistic ones.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Potts' main thesis is that all men have the potential to kill other people to get what they want or because they are told to kill or because they have dehumanized their victims. All men--you, me, and Professor Potts himself, but for the grace of God, could be in Darfur slicing people up with machetes. All that is required is that the victims be seen as members of an outgroup as opposed to the ingroup to which we belong.
This is a startling thesis, one that sets the standard social science model, in which it is said we have to be carefully taught to kill, on its head. What Potts says is that the violence we have seen throughout human history is innate, an evolved trait that was once useful for hominids in the tribal setting. This is also the thesis of evolutionary psychology. Instead of learning to kill, or being taught to kill, we need to be taught NOT to kill. We don't usually kill members of our family or friends because they are part of an ingroup with which we identify.
Potts has a solution, which is why he has written this fascinating and exhaustive treatise on war and its causes. His solution begins with an understanding that our psyches are governed by evolved Stone Age emotions similar to what we see in chimpanzees as they conduct their horrific raids on isolated individuals from neighboring groups, ripping and tearing their victims apart with their bare hands and teeth. Potts calls this "team aggression," a strategy that has been perfected in human beings. Men bond together and use their greater numbers to kill members of other tribes so as to gain resources such as territory, slaves and women to impregnate.
In the modern world we have men with Stone Age brains in positions of power with their fingers on weapons of mass destruction. We know that they will posture and threaten and eventually convince themselves of the evil of the enemy and pull the trigger.
Understanding all this, Potts moves to the solution. Since it is men--not women--who engage in team aggression, we need to put women in positions of power since they have proven to be less likely to go on killing raids. (Potts presents a formidable amount of evidence to support this idea.) Furthermore, the average woman needs to be empowered to the extent that she can choose when and if to have children. Potts shows that countries with large and growing populations relative to resources are more likely to engage in raids on their neighbors than countries with stable populations. Additionally, it is the demographic makeup of the population that is significant. A country with a large percentage of young men relative to older men and women tends to be more violent. Women in sub-Saharan Africa for example typically do not have access to contraception and family planning. Consequently they (and women in the Middle East as well) typically have six, seven or eight children in their lifetimes. Rapid population growth is the result which strains resources and leads to a society with a lot of young men in it who have little to lose and so are easily led to acts of violence.
He adds: "Fundamentalist teachings, whether Christian, Muslim, or any other religion, end up restricting and controlling women, which in turn makes wars and terrorism more likely. The twenty-first century is seeing a clash of cultures, but that clash is not between Islam and Christendom. Rather it is between fundamentalism and reason." (p. 363)
Potts notes that "In the past fifty years the world has accommodated rapid population growth tolerably well, although as rising oil and food prices suggest, this may not be true in the future." He compares us to the "first people to cross into North America, or the Polynesians who first landed at Easter Island...Presented with vast new supplies of food, energy, building materials, and luxury goods our forbears could never have imagined, we have gorged ourselves on consumption, and we have driven our global population…to six billion in 2000… The evidence of that increase is now all around us, in our polluted environment, our warming climate, our disappearing rainforests, and our increasingly degraded farmland: We are, as a species, in the process of proving Malthus's proposition that population will always outstrip resources." (pp. 296-297)
We are Easter Island natives. We have arrived not at an unspoiled island with flightless birds and a virgin forest to ravage, but at a planet with resources still rich enough to exploit and a powerful science and technology to do the exploiting. It took a few hundred years for the Easter Islanders to deplete their resources and return to a mean and savage, poverty-stricken existence. How long will it take us?
Potts writes, "…it is highly likely that our numbers and industrial demands have already exceeded the environment's capacity to support them. Mathias Wackernagel in California, Norman Myers in England, and others calculate that we may have exceeded Earth's carrying capacity as long ago as 1975. According to these calculations, we already need a planet 20 percent larger than the one we have." (p. 299)
There are two points that Potts does not dwell on that I want to emphasize. First, wars have the ability to fix the problem of too many young men with nothing to do. Second, women make sexual choices and in doing so often choose the most violent men to mate with because they know that such men are more likely to survive and provide for their children than less violent men. Women in precarious situations do not make moral judgments. Instead they make realistic ones.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
May 4, 2009
really great for a text-book type read. compares our behavior to chimps and relates them to youth budges, population, sex and, of course, war.
September 14, 2009
One of the most insightful books I have read. There is an Aha moment on every page.
August 17, 2013
I found the bits about evolutionary psychology interesting, but generally i found the book to be much too long. I had to drag myself through much of the book, and was glad when it was over.
September 23, 2025
A must read. This books takes evolutionary psychology to a whole other level.
When it comes to human warfare, this book is the one to read. I mean, it tackles warfare using arguments previously made by Richard Wrangham, Frans deWall, Steven Pinker, Jane Goodall, Jonathan Haidt and many, many more. The main basis for this book is the following word: violence. It clearly states that violence is dominant in males, and this applied to the growth of civilization and many other factors, creates warfare (large scale war), meaning that it is mostly a "male" thing. People sometimes do not like to hear truths (veritas odium parit) said the ancient texts, and it is still true nowadays. Progressive ideology and wokeness states that EVERYTHING IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, this is why we have men giving birth and menstruating grandpas, another argument is that something called -the blank slate- is true, and that men are encouraged to be vile, manly and toxic. Sure, there are many things that can become role models, such as Rambo and violent movies, but, turns out that biologically primate species behave like that, and at some point, we have reasons for having inherited those behaviors, the only truth is that evolutionary baggage exists.
The author tackles down rosseaunean-thinking, delivering a final blow to the Statement of Seville, which said that "there is nothing violent in human nature", what a load of crap and what an irresponsible thing to say. I mean, if you want the cure for something, you need to understand the virus, or the bacteria, and then do something for that. You do not negate it and that would be all. Violence must be understood, as it is in evolutionary psychology, that way, we can do something about it. One of the pillars the author gives also as advice, is letting women be a part of these decisions. Women have this innate talent to appreciate life, and we have documented evidence that there was not a single woman who has committed genocide, on the other hand, men like that.
Yesterday, august 1oth, Fernando Villavicencio was killed. He was the runner-up against the left tyrant Rafael Correa. Socialism in Latin America is directly linked to carteles, and in Ecuador we now have a bunch of criminal organizations that kill every hour, just like in El Salvador before Nayib Bukele. The gangs are among many others, Los Choneros, Chonekillers, Las Aguilas, Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos. Most of them have "animals" as the name of the gang, due to reasons that go beyond 10000 years. During most of human history, even though we lived in small groups, there was no law, just behavior that could be frowned upon. Violence was the main vehicle. When women were abducted, males inflicted violence in order to being peace, once again, and this was repeated until our days. This is why a part of that evolutionary baggage that men (precisely men) carry is made up of violent behaviors. When it comes to gang members, they inflict what Richard Wrangham calls "coalitionary proactive aggression". What is that? Well, people (mostly males) that get together and coldly plan an assasination. Our past is reflected too in chimps, and other primates, we ARE primates.
Correismo is a left-wing ideology, that can be considered a parasitic ideology that embraces Castrismo, and Chavismo, both of them ideologies that completely fragmented and destroyed countries.
When it comes to human warfare, this book is the one to read. I mean, it tackles warfare using arguments previously made by Richard Wrangham, Frans deWall, Steven Pinker, Jane Goodall, Jonathan Haidt and many, many more. The main basis for this book is the following word: violence. It clearly states that violence is dominant in males, and this applied to the growth of civilization and many other factors, creates warfare (large scale war), meaning that it is mostly a "male" thing. People sometimes do not like to hear truths (veritas odium parit) said the ancient texts, and it is still true nowadays. Progressive ideology and wokeness states that EVERYTHING IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, this is why we have men giving birth and menstruating grandpas, another argument is that something called -the blank slate- is true, and that men are encouraged to be vile, manly and toxic. Sure, there are many things that can become role models, such as Rambo and violent movies, but, turns out that biologically primate species behave like that, and at some point, we have reasons for having inherited those behaviors, the only truth is that evolutionary baggage exists.
The author tackles down rosseaunean-thinking, delivering a final blow to the Statement of Seville, which said that "there is nothing violent in human nature", what a load of crap and what an irresponsible thing to say. I mean, if you want the cure for something, you need to understand the virus, or the bacteria, and then do something for that. You do not negate it and that would be all. Violence must be understood, as it is in evolutionary psychology, that way, we can do something about it. One of the pillars the author gives also as advice, is letting women be a part of these decisions. Women have this innate talent to appreciate life, and we have documented evidence that there was not a single woman who has committed genocide, on the other hand, men like that.
Yesterday, august 1oth, Fernando Villavicencio was killed. He was the runner-up against the left tyrant Rafael Correa. Socialism in Latin America is directly linked to carteles, and in Ecuador we now have a bunch of criminal organizations that kill every hour, just like in El Salvador before Nayib Bukele. The gangs are among many others, Los Choneros, Chonekillers, Las Aguilas, Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos. Most of them have "animals" as the name of the gang, due to reasons that go beyond 10000 years. During most of human history, even though we lived in small groups, there was no law, just behavior that could be frowned upon. Violence was the main vehicle. When women were abducted, males inflicted violence in order to being peace, once again, and this was repeated until our days. This is why a part of that evolutionary baggage that men (precisely men) carry is made up of violent behaviors. When it comes to gang members, they inflict what Richard Wrangham calls "coalitionary proactive aggression". What is that? Well, people (mostly males) that get together and coldly plan an assasination. Our past is reflected too in chimps, and other primates, we ARE primates.
Correismo is a left-wing ideology, that can be considered a parasitic ideology that embraces Castrismo, and Chavismo, both of them ideologies that completely fragmented and destroyed countries.
June 2, 2025
Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World, by Malcolm Potts and Thomas Hayden claims that all men who are alive today are descended from men who for at least two million years, and probably much longer, killed their male enemies, took their land, and procreated with their females. Thus, they had many more descendants than men who avoided war.
For men during the stone age war was a win or die situation. For women war was a lose – lose situation. If their hunting band lost, their husbands and the men they knew were killed, and they became slave concubines of the men who killed them. If their side won, they had to share their husbands with captive women.
Men are the war makers. Women are the peace keepers. This does not mean that male violence is inevitable. It does mean that in a world full of nuclear weapons we need to understand our instincts and control them.
With the beginning of civilization about six thousand years ago, most men never experience combat. Male competition shifted from the battlefield to the ability to make a lot of money, Nevertheless, young men who cannot get good jobs, or any jobs at all, remain a volatile source of potential violence. They can become ready recruits for offensive, unnecessary, and immoral wars. They can also become violent criminals, or terrorists.
This problem becomes acute in countries with stagnant economies and high birth rates. Women rarely want to have large numbers of children, but men often force them to.
The authors recommend making birth control methods inexpensive and accessible, and giving women more control of their bodies, and more political power. As more women enter politics their countries become less belligerent.
For men during the stone age war was a win or die situation. For women war was a lose – lose situation. If their hunting band lost, their husbands and the men they knew were killed, and they became slave concubines of the men who killed them. If their side won, they had to share their husbands with captive women.
Men are the war makers. Women are the peace keepers. This does not mean that male violence is inevitable. It does mean that in a world full of nuclear weapons we need to understand our instincts and control them.
With the beginning of civilization about six thousand years ago, most men never experience combat. Male competition shifted from the battlefield to the ability to make a lot of money, Nevertheless, young men who cannot get good jobs, or any jobs at all, remain a volatile source of potential violence. They can become ready recruits for offensive, unnecessary, and immoral wars. They can also become violent criminals, or terrorists.
This problem becomes acute in countries with stagnant economies and high birth rates. Women rarely want to have large numbers of children, but men often force them to.
The authors recommend making birth control methods inexpensive and accessible, and giving women more control of their bodies, and more political power. As more women enter politics their countries become less belligerent.
April 14, 2019
Utter rubbish. Women = good. Men = bad. Meandering and pointless.
It’s not often that I have to force myself to finish a text - but I had to here. Meandering and pedantic, the author assaults men as the root of everything he deems a disappointment in life. It is almost as if the publisher were paying the author by the page. The book is as poorly written as it is intellectually founded.
The British-borne UC Berkeley professor, with contributions from his misandrist spouse, launch a whining complaint against male dominated western society, then male dominated African society, and again male dominated Islam. Such self loathing is rare.
Their alternative, clearly reiterated in a sophomoric chart toward the end of the book, is to have the men who supposedly control our war torn western society force a wholesale global change to a modern matriarchy. Conversely, cognitive dissonance notwithstanding, the author points to vague genetic dispositions to violence in hominids as the cause for the human drive to violence. Similarly, the author blames men for population growth, and proclaims that women have little involvement in their reproductive options, and that nation states should take direct action to support population control by increasing women’s access to abortion. The author’s claim is that rapid population growth is a precursor to war, and that Darwinian survival of the fittest forces and genetic predisposition uncontrollably forces males to fight for access to scarce jobs and inexorably defines 15 year olds as desperate combatants.
The only redeeming value of this text is as a study of the neurosis of the Intellectual Left.
It’s not often that I have to force myself to finish a text - but I had to here. Meandering and pedantic, the author assaults men as the root of everything he deems a disappointment in life. It is almost as if the publisher were paying the author by the page. The book is as poorly written as it is intellectually founded.
The British-borne UC Berkeley professor, with contributions from his misandrist spouse, launch a whining complaint against male dominated western society, then male dominated African society, and again male dominated Islam. Such self loathing is rare.
Their alternative, clearly reiterated in a sophomoric chart toward the end of the book, is to have the men who supposedly control our war torn western society force a wholesale global change to a modern matriarchy. Conversely, cognitive dissonance notwithstanding, the author points to vague genetic dispositions to violence in hominids as the cause for the human drive to violence. Similarly, the author blames men for population growth, and proclaims that women have little involvement in their reproductive options, and that nation states should take direct action to support population control by increasing women’s access to abortion. The author’s claim is that rapid population growth is a precursor to war, and that Darwinian survival of the fittest forces and genetic predisposition uncontrollably forces males to fight for access to scarce jobs and inexorably defines 15 year olds as desperate combatants.
The only redeeming value of this text is as a study of the neurosis of the Intellectual Left.
June 6, 2020
An enlightening but also disturbing read.
While I'm not going to claim it is objectively true--I simply don't know--it hypothesizes disturbingly plausible explanations for the events we are seeing today, as I write this, including why otherwise perfectly normal people can--almost gleefully--participate in grotesque acts simply because "everyone's doing it."
Something we forget all too often is that humans are highly social animals, and the tribal group has been the dominant social structure for millenia, at least. And evolution has favored activities that protect that group; why? Because it works.
This book posits chilling, simple, explanations for just about every major atrocity in history, and backs it up with arguments that are hard to deny if you're just willing to step back and review it objectively. Not that that's easy; but nature is a harsh mistress that simply doesn't care one whit about our social pretensions. Evolution relentlessly continues to mold us even as we desperately try to claim we're somehow better.
I was both fascinated and nauseated while reading this, but I still pushed myself to finish reading it; not that that was difficult. The book is well written, and a compelling read.
And I felt it was important to finish; because if we don't start accepting the reality of who we are, we'll never figure out how to move past it.
And this is the undeniable advantage we have over evolution; we can choose to overcome it, by the sheer power of our intellect, if we just care to exercise that.
But it won't be easy.
While I'm not going to claim it is objectively true--I simply don't know--it hypothesizes disturbingly plausible explanations for the events we are seeing today, as I write this, including why otherwise perfectly normal people can--almost gleefully--participate in grotesque acts simply because "everyone's doing it."
Something we forget all too often is that humans are highly social animals, and the tribal group has been the dominant social structure for millenia, at least. And evolution has favored activities that protect that group; why? Because it works.
This book posits chilling, simple, explanations for just about every major atrocity in history, and backs it up with arguments that are hard to deny if you're just willing to step back and review it objectively. Not that that's easy; but nature is a harsh mistress that simply doesn't care one whit about our social pretensions. Evolution relentlessly continues to mold us even as we desperately try to claim we're somehow better.
I was both fascinated and nauseated while reading this, but I still pushed myself to finish reading it; not that that was difficult. The book is well written, and a compelling read.
And I felt it was important to finish; because if we don't start accepting the reality of who we are, we'll never figure out how to move past it.
And this is the undeniable advantage we have over evolution; we can choose to overcome it, by the sheer power of our intellect, if we just care to exercise that.
But it won't be easy.
February 2, 2019
This is an important but dangerous book. While it highlights some critical links between human genetic makeup and violent proclivities, it presents this data with a confidence that understanding our genetic heritage will lead to progress in eradicating war. There is no attention given to the human genius for rationalization. War will not be eliminated until all are confident they will have what they feel they need without fighting. I would urge people to read this book, but to be mindful of the many pitfalls to human peace that can not be reasoned away.
May 3, 2020
I want my Equality
Give us birth control for nothing and safe abortions for free
Give us birth control for nothing and safe abortions for free
August 14, 2025
Really liked the biologist take on human warfare. Though the concept feels stretched when it gets to nuclear warfare.
Read
October 16, 2016Written by two notable documentarians, Sex and War delves into the biological reasons men differ from women in regard to aggression and expressions regarding war. Excellent and revealing.
I highly recommend this text. Extremely interesting.
I highly recommend this text. Extremely interesting.
April 22, 2021
A brutal assessment of how violent, tribal and sexual humans are, useful for thinking about war, law and society.
June 14, 2015
A really convincing look at the evolutionary aspects of warfare and how mankind developed as one of the only species on Earth that kills others of our own species, particularly how sex and biological stimuli play into it. The book seemed well researched, and makes a lot of sense. It looked at primate, particularly chimpanzee, society, as our nearest genetic relative, and also applied it's findings to humans from early hominids to modern day warfare. There was in depth analysis of the roles sex plays in the development of war as a species, and how sex continues to play a role in current events and current wars, which applies not only to wars in third world countries where subjugation of women is a blatant affair, but to the US Iraq war and modern US events. It was really fascinating, and I appreciated that the authors, while making this case, make sure to point out that even if war is an evolutionary trait, that does not mean it is predestined or even preferential for continued species existence. Their argument is not to be used to excuse war, it is a case of understanding the root of an issue so people can determine the best way fix it. Really fascinating!
Want to read
April 25, 2010http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-... [through Soumen:]
The more I came to know about the world, the more it got puzzling, especially the dark side of humanity. This book seems to offer a reasonable explanation for the cruel nature of homo sapiens. The conclusions of this book are nothing less than horrifying. What's more earth shattering than to learn that the mankind is wired to do the horrible things that we all wish would never happen.
I wonder if Indians have evolved to drop the 'war gene'. For millennia, anyone who wanted to rule India, and cared to cross the border had been given a free reign. Even Indian religions are strikingly different from other major religions of the world. Most of the popular religions of the world are in some sense cultural manifestations of this 'war gene'; they preached killing as a way of expanding their base. OTOH, most of the Indian religions seem to have espoused peace, and tolerance.
The more I came to know about the world, the more it got puzzling, especially the dark side of humanity. This book seems to offer a reasonable explanation for the cruel nature of homo sapiens. The conclusions of this book are nothing less than horrifying. What's more earth shattering than to learn that the mankind is wired to do the horrible things that we all wish would never happen.
I wonder if Indians have evolved to drop the 'war gene'. For millennia, anyone who wanted to rule India, and cared to cross the border had been given a free reign. Even Indian religions are strikingly different from other major religions of the world. Most of the popular religions of the world are in some sense cultural manifestations of this 'war gene'; they preached killing as a way of expanding their base. OTOH, most of the Indian religions seem to have espoused peace, and tolerance.
December 2, 2012
This is *not* just another banal evopsych book. There is the requisite section on comparative human-chimp psychology, of course, but the main message the authors seek to drive home is about the critical roles that resource management, family planning, and civil rights (ie women's empowerment, racial tolerance, reducing religious fundamentalism) play in keeping societies on the right side of the the war/peace line. The main author has worked as an obstetrician in tons of developing countries for many decades, and has very interesting perspectives and insights to share. It also has a ton more history in it than most evopsych books; I learned a lot of military/political history facts and stats.
February 11, 2013
Interesting and thought-provoking.
The authors are not neutral observers or pretending to be neutral observers. They have their viewpoints about the role of biology and culture in shaping human nature and our actions, and they try to persuade you of their reasoning.
I've been on a bit of a non-fiction kick lately and also recently read the "Genghis Khan: The Making of the Modern World" book. The author there seemed fascinated by war and warmongers. These authors approached the aspects of our warlike nature with a mixture of dispassion, but also empathy for the horrible consequences for all involved.
If you're a strict fundamentalist of any religion, you may be tempted to throw the book away at several points. They make some good arguments so stick with it.
The authors are not neutral observers or pretending to be neutral observers. They have their viewpoints about the role of biology and culture in shaping human nature and our actions, and they try to persuade you of their reasoning.
I've been on a bit of a non-fiction kick lately and also recently read the "Genghis Khan: The Making of the Modern World" book. The author there seemed fascinated by war and warmongers. These authors approached the aspects of our warlike nature with a mixture of dispassion, but also empathy for the horrible consequences for all involved.
If you're a strict fundamentalist of any religion, you may be tempted to throw the book away at several points. They make some good arguments so stick with it.
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