Beyond War

"Douglas Fry says it is rather strange that many academics in the field of social anthropology seem to fall over themselves in order to stress the combative and aggressive features of primitive society. He also points out that some of their claims are in fact open to debate and challenge. The anthropological evidence is not as clear as is often made out. If you take the issue of cannibalism for example, it seems to be important to establish that all primitive societies, without exception, were cannibalistic. But Douglas Fry argues that different societies at different times were more or less warlike. I would go further than that to say that whatever the realities of primitive societies, humanity has moved on since then, and there’s no reason to suppose that we continue to behave in the way that our human predecessors behaved. I think like all theses, it is overstated. There is a sense in which we have become more civilised in certain areas of life over the last few centuries. The examples he dwells on are the rather barbarous and inhumane forms of punishment which were common in various societies until relatively recently – we no longer hang, draw and quarter people. This is partly because we now live in a more comfortable age, when human aggression and punishment no longer has to express itself so violently. So yes, there has been progress. At the same time, we have become alienated from the consequences of war – and this is by no means an original idea of mine. The way we wage war is as barbarous as ever, even if it is done by pressing a remote button rather than the wielding of a sword or scimitar. Yes. You could already see this at work during the Cold War. Not so much through the use of advanced technology – although it is perfectly true that in the Vietnam war, when the US air force carpet-bombed Cambodia and parts of Laos, the bombs were dropped from a great height and you were not on the ground to see the consequences. But I think it goes beyond that. During the Cold War, you had the export of war from the metropolis to the periphery. The major wars fought during the Cold War were in Third World countries. Of course, it would be so much better if we weren’t where we are now, which is a situation where we have to take practical measures against people with bombs. But in the longer view – and this perhaps sounds trite or obvious, but it needs to be said again – we have to address the causes of terrorism, which lie to a large extent in inequality and poverty in various parts of the world. If you have 30% to 40% of young men in most Middle Eastern and African countries out of work, you are going to have a small number of them who are prepared to blow themselves up. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . If we had seized the opportunity at the end of the Cold War to do what we said we were going to do – to tackle the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians along with many other issues, and spend the peace dividend on peace – we would probably be in a very different position to where we are now."