>>45
I skipped this because it was besides the point last night, but it does raise interesting points.
I would agree that modern civilisation is inherently violent and paradoxically anti-social.
Prior to 3000BC humans did not create strategic reserves of food, we were essentially nomadic seasonal gathers. The were no wars because there were no large collections of people and resources weren't owned by any one. We had no slavery, because to maintain slaves at any fitnesss level suitable for food collection was counter-productive. Inter-group fighting was symbollic and usually bloodless, the cost of engaging in violence were counter-productive.
This period is reflected in myth by polythesism, animal gods, female fertility figures, and the sense that the gods were not actually on our side very much. These are symbollically reminders that humans have a place in nature and that nature is a fucking hard slog.
Then at around 3000BC we start a new set of myths. We have male gods who enter in contracts with humans, and stories of transformation and construction, reflected in the building of the first cities and the adoption of sedentary argiculture, and the onset of invention. the myths indicate that the female godesses had been subdued and conquerored by their sons, reflecting that nature was no longer boss.
It then became clear that in order to maintain a working food supply, resources would have to be controlled, and that's when we invented war, slavery and the concept of ownership of our environment.
If you consider how very important that last part is to us here in 2008, and then consider that actually it is bullshit, we really don't own anything on the planet, then you kind of wake up a bit to the absurd cruelties of everyday life.
So yeah, modern life is violent, but it wasn't that way for a quarter of a million years of human experience on Earth, and the benefits it brings are at the expense of someone else. Now, I don't actually have a problem with this. I also know that these things happen in cycles, and that unassailable power structures crumble and fall in the blink of history's eye.
I do find it interesting when people somehow overlook the predatory nature of consumer society. That level of compartmentalisation in otherwise intelligent people is fascinating, and a subject well worth investigating in it's own right.