is this human nature?

[Elastas]

why do people kill? is it human nature? and i mean anything even a bug, you know?

[Zairak]

Interesting...I wouldn't say it's human nature, but then I don't really find the idea of a set 'human nature' logical. If nothing else, free will would undermine that. There isn't any one reason for it, really. Some people kill for necessity, some kill to see if they can, some do it just because they can. One of the main factors though, if I were to make a guess, would be a lack of empathy for others and general self centeredness and arrogance. Boredom could also fit in well with regards to the mention of bugs. It's just something to do while you wait, in the case of killing a fly or some ants on the ground.

[killshot]

Finally an interesting topic. We have to kill in order preserve our own lives. There's not much than can exist in this world without something else suffering. We must kill in order to eat. You might argue that vegans don't kill for food, but they too murder millions of lifeforms to survive. Plants are living things too even if people don't perceive them as such.

Even if we disregard the need for survival as a motive for killing, there are still many other reasons. You mentioned killing a bug so I will use this example. What is your reaction to a mosquito landing on your arm? If you are like most people, the primary instinct is to swat it. Partly because the insect is a pest, but also because it is a perceived threat. What is the common reaction to a snake? Hit the fucker with a golf club of course. Bugs and snakes are unpleasant to look at and anything seen to be ugly is often misunderstood. Things that people fear the most are things they don't understand. Seeing a bug or a snake triggers a fear response and the body reacts by either fighting or running away. Killing the thing that causes the person to be afraid is a natural response to danger, whether it be a real danger or imagined.

Killing other people presents a whole new set of possible motives. There are so many reasons why someone would want to harm another it would be impossible for me to list them all. Fear plays a big part here as well. Fear is the reason there have been so any instances of violence against people of different races. The slight differences in others can cause a feeling of discomfort and animosity. Other reasons for killing can be largely attributed to letting emotions cloud a person's better judgment. Greed, lust, anger, and the rest of the Full Metal Alchemist cast can overwhelm someone and make them act violently toward fellow human beings.

Something only humans do is draw a line between right and wrong. This separation of good and evil can further increase the gap between people. In a war, a common tactic to make soldiers kill more efficiently is to dehumanize their enemy. If the opposing faction is made out to seem less than human, then soldiers can have no remorse about killing them. A perfect example of this is Nazis Germany. German soldiers could slaughter Jews all day and then come home to their families without a care in the world. This is largely due to Nazis propaganda, describing the Jews as undesirable filth who are responsible for all of Germany's woes.

So to answer the question, I do believe killing is part of human nature. I also believe that humans have a great capacity for compassion. Humans are basically slaves to their emotions. It's what we choose to act upon that determines our nature.

[Titan50]

Read Lord of the Flies

[Elastas]

well i dont believe killing is in human nature. we have enormous amounts of emotion. and as killshot said about the german soilders,
we can be hyped up to doing something if the propaganda is high enough. like an ad for plastic surgery as an example.
"look even better! great deals and benifits!" ect. and titan50? i DID read that book. i thought it was an enormous waste of my time.

[killshot]

Funny you should bring up plastic surgery. Why do you think people are so easily swayed by propaganda? Wouldn't you say that it is human nature to follow the crowd and give in to the power of suggestion? In my opinion, fear is the most powerful emotion any human can experience. It can take control of an otherwise rational mind and cause someone to do the unthinkable. All propaganda does is pray on the most basic human emotion. Plastic surgeons don't try to sell you a better look. They sell you the fear of having to live with an imperfect body. All humans are susceptible to propaganda, because all humans feel fear. This primitive emotion is the basis of human nature and it is what drives people to kill.

[Elastas]

sorry. this might sound corny but love is the most powerful of all the emotions.friendship speech time!
it can cause us to be blind to all other imperfecections, badness it can even make us numb to fear, anger, and hatred.

[Zairak]

I'm sorry, but since when is love an emotion? Lust, sure, but love would seem to me to be more of a purely mental concept.

[Elastas]

hate to.... wait, im sorry, YOUR WRONG. it is not a 'mental concept'. thats almost as stupid as card games being played on motor bikes.

[killshot]

Fear is an everlasting emotion that has been with us since the evolution of our species. People fall in and out of love so often that the concept of "love" doesn't mean much anymore. Babies are born with the natural instinct of fear, but love has to be learned later on. If I had to put money on it, I would say fear would make love it's bitch.

[Elastas]

once again....... while love doesn't seem to be abounding left and right, it is still the greatest.
o mi god..............

[killshot]

I'm afraid you are going to need a more convincing argument than "it just is."

[Zairak]

I really want to be snippy here, but I won't. I will, however, ask you to actually make a better argument than "YOUR WRONG" and saying that the idea is stupid.

Let's examine some emotions here.

Happiness: A sense of contentment, usually in regards to good news or a general appreciation of life.

Sadness: A sense of emptiness, sometimes brought on by realizing that you weren't good enough for a certain task or the passing away of a family member, etc.

Lust: The desire to procreate, basically.

Love: An attraction to a certain person/s for various reasons and oftentimes for no real reason at all. Oftentimes lust is confused with this.

Now, if you will notice, the first three are desires or have something to do with a general state of being. Love, however, is a bit more than that. I am, of course, referring to love between living beings, not just loving, say, Doritoes. It is an absolute attraction, a willingness to do anything for the other person even if you can't be with them. I may have been a bit hasty when I said earlier that it was purely mental, but it is certainly much more than a simple emotion.

For instance, last time I checked, animals have emotions as well. Do you see animals in the wilderness even mating for life very frequently, let alone doing anything for each other? Of course not. The closest thing to that would be certain species' females dying to protect their young and that is more instinctual than out of a sense of 'love'.

I have provided my reasoning. Now, if you would refute it instead of simply denying it, perhaps we can get somewhere with this.

[Elastas]

i understand where you going with animals instinct. but we are humans. we have the choice. wether or not it is a good choice is up to the person. hence, protecting someone you dont even know out of human compasion is genuine love for others, blinding that person to the risks. but i do get what your saying zariak. <img src='/images/emoticons/smiley1.png'>

[Tatterdemalion]

Honestly, with this whole "human nature" thing, people really give the concept too much credit. Keep in mind,"human nature" doesn't actually mean anything. Something that is part of "human nature" is just something that humans are inclined to do, nothing more. So if humans do it, it's human nature. It still doesn't explain anything, nor is it a reason for anything.

So why do humans kill? To be honest, the answer's not as profound as you may expect. In fact, it's pretty mundane. People kill things like insects, spiders, mice and puppies because we're territorial. Yep, we're not comfortablewith these things being in our personal space, so we kill them.

This whole notion of "we kill out of fear" sounds interesting at the surface, but when you think about it, people do half of the things they do out of fear. Still, it's not as though fear makes people kill, people don't become afraid and kill reflexively, fear just provides motivation. And for a whole host of things other than killing too.

[Elastas]

alright......

[HeavyDDR]

It's all creature's goal to be the dominant species, amongst both other creatures and their own. So yes, it's human nature to kill.

besides, back in the old old old old old old days where it was kill or be killed, there was no other way to live and since that era went on for a few thousand years, it kinda grew to become instinct.

[cobainfan]

Hey all, It's my first post.

First off, I agree with Heavy to an extent. Yes, it is true to say that all creatures desire dominance over other species and members of their other species, and killing is therefore a part of human nature, as it enables us to dominate others.

I find it interesting to note that when people are placed in harsh circumstances, how quickly notions of civility and humanity fall away to be replaced by simple dominance. In the end, we're just another animal, not especially different from any other on the planet.

[Elastas]

we are different. unlike animals, as i have said before, we can choose. animals go on instinct. we might go on instinct to a level, but, we can still choose to or not to.

[cobainfan]

That is only true to an extent, humans are incapable of thinking logically for a long period of time, and we are motivated by the same instincts as other animals (the desire to procreate for example). This colours our logic and skews our choices. In the vast majority of cases, our choices are motivated by instinct.

[HeavyDDR]

In the end we're still just animals, just to different extents and a lot more widespread. This is why we have wars, murders, competitive sports, and etc., and also why we have cancer donations, police, etc.

[BoxOfFun]

Murder is a necessity to live. Life-Giving Energy cannot be created, but only passed on from other life-forms.

[Elastas]

you are a pistashio

[killshot]

Murder is a necessity to live. Life-Giving Energy cannot be created, but only passed on from other life-forms.
Please be joking...

[Zairak]

While he worded it rather clumsily, he does have a point. As humans are right now, it is impossible to survive without consuming something, be it plant or animal. While plants are not typically recognized as things that can be murdered, they are still a life form. So, in this sense, he is correct.

[Elastas]

hm... good point. but hes still a nut.

[CiarRyoma]

Actually, I can give you rather straight forward answer to this question. One I learned in an Intro Psyc. class.

Have you ever seen two male elk battling one another for dominance of the herd? What why will do it actually get on their "knees" and scrape at one another with their horns. You might see them with scratches along their body and their hair messed up, but there won't be any puncture wounds on either of them. The reason for this is because they are not trying to end each other's life, just see which of them is stronger, which is obvious at the end of the "fight." Any animal that you can think of, bears, cats, deer, birds; all of them have some form of "weapon" that they were born with: sharp teeth, claws, horns, even sharp beaks. Each and every one of these animals has learned how NOT to use those weapons. Since they are built in, the respective animal knows the full amount of damage they can do with them, and thus has full control over how much damage they inflict.

Now, we has humans do NOT have such weapons. Oh sure, we once had fangs of which we somewhat have now, but when our ancestors began truly developing, they had no natural weapons. Simply larger brains and being able to walk upright on two legs. When it came to weapons, we had to manage with rocks and sticks and what have you. These things are no natural, and thus all we ever really learned to do with them is kill, and that's it. Even with our newest weaponry, the only thing they are good for is killing.

So how could we learn NOT use them?

We can't. We never fully brought to mind when these things simply should not be used, or that a lesser form of force will be needed to show superiority.

(Okay, maybe not that "straight forward")

[Elastas]

nice starfire pic. anyway,i completley agree with what your saying.

[Tatterdemalion]

Yes, but my question is why does having body parts that can serve as weapons cause you to learn whether or not to use them to kill?

Isn't the much simpler answer to leave it at the fact that the elks are just trying to see which one is stronger?

Overall, the bit about learning how to not use weapons, natural or otherwise, doesn't quite make sense. I mean, you brought up bears, cats, and birds. Yes, these animals all have natural weapons. And also, they all use them to kill. Cats use their claws to kill. Birds use their tallons to kill. So how have they learned, from having them, to not kill with them, if killing with them is their function, and killing is what they end up being used for?

Also, I don't see how humans have "not learned how not to kill" because their weapons aren't built into their (our) bodies. I mean, you say that the only thing humans have ever used rocks and sticks for is killing, but that's patently false. Humans use sticks to built huts, they use knives to cut food and to carve wood, and so forth. If humans had no way of knowing how to NOT kill using weapons, then why is it that whenever people are in the presence of things that could function as weapons (which is pretty much everything) the vast majority are not suddenly overcome with the urge to pick up these weapons and start killing people?

So no, I don't buy it. Animals and humans both know how to kill. Animals and humans are both capable of killing, and both are capable of not killing. Also, animals and humans both need reasons to kill. The difference is that humans have much more reasons than animals.

Also, has it occurred to you that humans can and do kill without weapons? People do beat and strangle each other to death, and otherwise kill using only their own bodies. So if fists, arms and legs are all natural, and animals never kill with natural weapons, then why do humans kill with them?

[Elastas]

I see your point.

[GcarOatmealRaisinCookies]

It's human nature to fear what we don't understand.
it is possible for that fear to be irrational and violent,
and killing can be a result of that moment of irrationality and violence.
Killing is not human nature, but it can be result of it's cause, Fear.

[Kochiha]

It's nature to kill, therefore it's human nature to kill. I'm pretty sure Darwin had a say in the matter, but for those who are against him...
We all have to have some way and some reason to defend ourselves. Some believe this in a rather extreme sense: the world is out to get them, so the world must be destroyed. That, or go down insanity lane even further: a certain species must be wiped out for the good of one person and the higher-up they believe in. (This has been dubbed, for obvious reasons, the "Sephiroth complex".) And still others only kill when they are attacked, but they believe that if the attacker is only driven off, they will attack again; the attacker must be finished so that he will never attack again. (See also: Ender's Game.) Whatever your reasoning, your philosophy, your damage, it all remains the same: killing is human nature.
I've dwelled on the subject of what my reasoning would be if I set out to wipe out the human race myself. I came up with something like this: humans have a dual nature. Their main objective is twofold: create to self-sustain, destroy to eliminate competition. Humans claim that their primary desire is to create, but they do an awful lot of destruction as well. But to destroy, they need to make something that can destroy; to do so, they have to destroy something else to obtain what is necessary. It's a never-ending cycle of creation and destruction that will eventually either crumble the planet to dust like a wooden post on a lathe, or grind the humans into extinction and leave the Earth little more than a smoldering husk. The human race by this time is little more than a soldier who lost all of his limbs along with his sight, speech, and hearing; alive, but invalid and waiting for death. But death won't come, not so long as humans sustain themselves and cling to life. When I went through my world destruction phase about three or four years ago, my vision was to be the saviour of humans by releasing them from their prisonous empty lives; the mercy killer who cuts the oxygen supply to the soldier that is simply living.
Needless to say, I had an ambitious mind when I was a freshman. But I digress...
Human nature to kill? Heck yes. Reasoning needed? Not really, but it does help a few people out.

[Tatterdemalion]

I doubt humans have any real objective. Again, you're giving humans too much credit. Most animals create, all animals destroy. Sometimes they do both at the same time. They don't have an objective as a species, they just do it, as do humans. The only difference between humans and other animals is that humans understand it (and humans are exceptionally good at it).

And by the way, nature is a never-ending cycle of creation and destruction. Everything that is alive is born at some point, kills at some point, gives birth at some point, and dies at some point. It happens on such a large scale that nobody seems to notice, but that's what nature is, a balance of absolute life and absolute death, both at the same time. It's the way the world works, regardless of whether humans are included in the mix or not.

I'd commend you for your imagery, however I think your brand of Nihilism (or perhaps misanthropy) is overrated. You still give humans too much credit. Humans create things and humans destroy things. That's not exactly breaking news. Does it mean that the human race is nothing more than an exercise in futility? If that's so, then existence for anything is an exercise in futility.

The difference between humans and other animals is that humans value life. It sounds strange but it's true. Self preservation is instinct. Self destruction is a side effect. But self worth is a uniquely human concept. So humanity as a whole is senseless because...?

The reason humans cling to life is that humans care. They perhaps care only about themselves in a way that is thoughtless and selfish, but still, it's caring. The problem with your soldier analogy is that humanity as a whole is not invalid. Well, maybe it can be argued that it is, but even if it can, individual humans are not. So what misery would humanity be put out of?

And by the way, judging from your invalid soldier metaphor I have to ask, have you read Johnny Got His Gun? If so, Dalton Trumbo wants his symbolism back. If not, then it's a pretty strange coincidence.

Either way, it would be interesting to see what your world destruction phase gave way to. Either way, don't go away any time soon.















Oh, and the answer to the main initial question is pretty much this: Killing is nature. Not just human nature, but nature in general. Everything that's born dies, and most things that die are killed. And everything that's killed is killed by something else that lives. As much as we may hate killing, it's the way the world works. Everything kills, it's the wonder of nature.