The division of mankind

82 Comments

From the embittered struggles of Thracians and Romans to the petty squabbles of young lovers, never once in our 8000 year history has there been peace. Since the dawning of man’s world there has been turmoil, conflict, and weeping un-restrained.

The horror stories portray the enemy as something foreign and monstrous but all too often the enemy is like us in almost all aspects.

Man acts out of self-interest, and all more concerned for the appearance of truth than the actual value of it. Man is born as one sorry breed yet there is no peace in this harmony.

Ignorance may be the wavelength of man’s irreparable chasm, but is there a frequency?

In what realm(s) does man find what divides him?

Animus 5
Self-Interest 31
Ethos 3
Fate 0
Love 8
Foxglove 2
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Comments ( 82 )
  • Dazzie
    12 years ago | pl

    This is way too deep for this website.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      Is it? If it is "deep" it's because people make it so.

      It's like looking at an intricate knot and thinking hard over how best to unknot it when the solution is to simply cut it apart with a sword.

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      • Dazzie
        12 years ago

        You think people here are smart enough to comprehend that?

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        • Shackleford96
          12 years ago

          Hey, not everyone here has a low I.Q.

          Just most of us :P

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          • Dazzie
            12 years ago

            lol! :)

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      • Corleone
        12 years ago

        As long as you keep claiming this, I'll keep asking.
        Why isn't this question deep according to you? Is there a straightforward answer?

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          Fine. But please keep the source of the example to yourself.

          You obviously have education if you knew where I got that from so why doesn't this topic interest you? You haven't once tried to come up with your own view on this.

          To me it's simple. Looking at man's conflicts they all have one thing in common throughout the ages. The people, the places, and the times change but the causes never change.

          Ideas. A creed is what separates me from you and you from taciturn.

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          • Corleone
            12 years ago

            Thank you, that's all I wanted to hear. I agree on this one. MAn is too flawed to have ideals, so their ideals usually generate some kind of conflict.

            Though I still don't get why you don't want me to talk about... you know. Anyway, if it means that much to you, I won't.

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  • [Old Memory]
    12 years ago

    So I just realized by trolling standards this thread was a massive hit.

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  • desgraenum
    12 years ago

    Wavelength is velocity divided by frequency. So frequency is velocity divided by wavelength.

    In your example, the answer is: speed divided by ignorance.

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    • Corleone
      12 years ago

      You didn't have to do the math to realize this guy is full of crap, but I'm glad you did ;)

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      • Anonymous Post Author
        12 years ago

        Does a man argue with a dog just because it barks at him? No, and so much in the same way I won't respond to your fears and insults.

        This thread will be pure, clean, and direct from now on. No more derailments.

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        • Corleone
          12 years ago

          My fears? What am I afraid of? I think you're a jerk because you avoid or delete every question you can't answer.

          Be honest for a change. When you don't know something, say 'I don't know'. When you do know the answer, you should be polite enough to answer

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          • Anonymous Post Author
            12 years ago

            I'm a jerk for deleting off topic discussion?

            If you're wondering why I've given you such silly replies (You're not real! You're a PC!) it's because no good discussion can come from you. It has nothing to do with not being able to answer questions.

            The foundation for taciturn's points are usually based in something logical, hence I can make something of it.

            But yours is hate, fear, and agitation. I can do nothing with it so I give you silly replies to keep you busy.

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            • Corleone
              12 years ago

              Maybe I shouldn't have responded that way, but I was kinda mad because of my first on topic comments you deleted.

              Anyway, let's stop argueing about this. You've answered my question, and that's all I wanted to hear.

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  • taciturn
    12 years ago

    Valkeer totally copied my poll motif. Though I did food, not plants.

    I'm afraid I'm going to answer with a response similar to the other poll - many things are responsible. I just think there's a lot more power in a multiplicity than a singularity. Take self-interest, for example. Surely that's the reason for the eternal human civil war! Old men make wars for the young to fight, on archaic grounds and for selfish gain.

    On the other hand - strategic cooperation was ingrained in us as a survival mechanism, but it always required an enemy - inclusion necessitates exclusion. So as we surpassed the danger of other competing species, we had nowhere to turn but inwards. So now every war is a civil war.

    And ignorance? That must be the war-starter, soldiers blindly goosestepping into a war they don't understand, and a battle they don't want to fight. Terrorists so mindlessly obsessed with a limited worldview that they'll kill anything in its name. But all that ignorance needs a light to follow - someone intelligent enough to take advantage of it. Wars have been started by geniuses before.

    As for hatred, well, men have murdered for love too.

    I know it's not really a proper response to say "well everything duh!", but it's an appropriately vague answer to a pretty vague question. But that's just my view. Any thoughts?

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    • [Old Memory]
      12 years ago

      Yep, I used your threads as inspiration. Even the Roman short sword wasn't originally Roman. ;)

      Self-interest being the cause of man's strife? It has it's part to play but blaming "selfishness" on man's division is like blaming the ground for a man's death when it was the assailant above who pushed him off.

      It's the most obvious connection but also a wrong one in my view.

      It does have a hand in strife/conflict but it's also the root of charity, love, and human kindness. Like a gun or a knife, it has no internal value beyond what it's used for.

      "...on archaic grounds and for selfish gains"

      I'm fairly sure I read that once in a book.

      "We had no where to turn but inward"

      The Romans, when all their enemies had been destroyed or turned into Romans, never once turned inward to tear themselves apart.

      The Roman brotherhood was never made inclusive for the sake of the excluded nor was the US founded for the sake of England, but for the sake of the US.

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      • taciturn
        12 years ago

        My broader point was that (like the last poll) it cannot be said that there is an absolute singular cause. I wasn't saying self-interest is the cause of strife; I was saying that exclusion (selfishness) plays just as much of a role as inclusion (cooperation) because each necessitates the other. In fact, they're almost synonyms.

        I'm not sure what book you've read that in, but I'm not surprised - I can't be the first to have thought of that before. I didn't get it from a book, however.

        The Roman Empire collapsed into the Eastern Byzantine and original Italian borders, did it not? And wasn't the creation of the Declaration of Independence specifically in spite of George III? Regardless, the creation and maintenance of both the Roman and American Empires necessarily entails exclusion - that's what an empire is. If you are within the bounds as a citizen, you are part of the empire. If not, you are not. Both empires fought many wars on those grounds, and both quarreled internally as well.

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        • [Old Memory]
          12 years ago

          Who's to say the exclusion took place due to selfishness? Sure self-interest was the root but not all self-interest is "selfish" in the way society uses the word.

          What caused the Cold War, the Revolutionary War, the Peninsular War? What breaks apart a family or causes a boyfriend to argue with his girlfriend?

          Ideas. Ideas and man's dedication to them. The Americans fought England over the idea of "no taxation without representation". Europe struggled against itself over the idea that Jews were unfit for life and whether or not power existed for the sake of the powerful.

          And of course the Cold War unfolded because the Communists envisioned the world a certain way, the Americans another.

          Even our division right now, between the users taciturn and Valkeer, is because we disagree ideologically.

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          • taciturn
            12 years ago

            But again, I'm not saying the collapse of the Roman Empire or the birth of the American was due to self-interest (which, you're right, is a better term than selfishness) - I'm saying that all or some of these things come in to play for any particular event.

            To use your example, the Cold War unfolded not solely due to ideology. It took cooperation to unite the branches, and self-interest to give them hubris. It was love of the idea and hatred of the other. In a sense, it isn't the idea itself but the passion of man that is his folly. Like a gun or a knife, it has no internal value beyond what it's used for.

            I'm aware of the irony in saying this, but I don't think we're disagreeing ideologically. I'm saying inclusion, exclusion, self-interest, cooperation, hatred, love, ethos, pathos, fate, choice, and myriad other things cause strife - you choose to call them all ideas.

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            • [Old Memory]
              12 years ago

              "I don't think we're disagreeing ideologically"

              You do realize you just divided yourself from myself by virtue of your own idea on this right?

              And even if you claimed I was wrong, again you would be divided against me by virtue of thought (or ideas).

              Self-interest has a part but it's not the incriminating element, as I've said. It's like looking at a murder and saying that John Boot didn't kill Abe; the theatre, the bullet, and man's intellect to build weapons did.

              Those are elements but in and of themselves they have no internal value; no quality by which man would be propelled to divide one against the other

              You're looking at the perfectly natural and neutral qualities of self-interest, hate, "inclusion" as causes of divisions rather than the symptoms and by-products of it.

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  • wigsplitz
    12 years ago

    Who gives a fuck? 8000 years (according to you)....and nothing's changed....so why would it, and who cares why? What's to be done? Besides kill everyone on Earth.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      Peace has existed in pockets of humanity and if it was possible on their level, then perhaps it's possible for all of us.

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  • Corleone
    12 years ago

    You've spelled 'unrestrained' wrong.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      Gooood...the hate is swelling in you now =)

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      • Corleone
        12 years ago

        Nah, not really. You just seem like a person who puts a lot of thought in what words he uses, so I thought you'd appreciate it if I corrected your spelling error.

        Don't fret too much over it. Most people use sloppy writing online.

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  • malkiot
    12 years ago

    Because humans, as a species, aren't meant to be peaceful. The mistake is thinking that we are special. We are merely overly intelligent animals, who are able to use tools and cultivate food. The primal instincts, however, remain much the same and are impossible to supress all the time.

    Therefore we act much like any other living being, by asserting our dominance over others and working solely for our own interests, consciously or subconsciously, therefore largely ignoring others thus creating inequalities, which if sufficiently large lead to conflict (wars).

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      It would take hours of my time to explore the reasons for why you're wrong.

      Out of laziness I say this: You see the leaves, but not the branch.

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      • malkiot
        12 years ago

        But it doesn't take hours of my time to tell you that every human action can in one way, shape or form be explained by selfishness alone. Heck, even if you help someone without getting anything material in return, it's still selfish... You are either expecting to go to heaven for being good (reward) and/or your body secretes endorphin (reward) to make you feel good.
        Therefore any action you do will, unless it fails, bestow upon you a reward => Selfishness.

        This is the sole driving mechanism behind human action and interaction.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          True but self-interest (or selfishness) has also been the source of mankind's greatest achievements.

          Unity, brotherhood, peace...division, hate, strife; all these things are expressed through self-interest.

          Saying self-interest is the cause of all division is like saying "100% of all of death is caused by life". Life is an element in death and by trolling logic you could argue the source, but by no means the cause. I think the pseudo-intellectuals call it a "correlation".

          But it's not the cause of division by me. It's just a neutral thing as I told taciturn. It's been used for great things and terrible things.

          But it does bring up a good question: Left totally alone in a sterile environment, what would man's nature be? Towards destruction or towards life?

          ^Useless to this discussion but something to think about

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          • malkiot
            12 years ago

            "Unity, brotherhood, peace...division, hate, strife; all these things are expressed through self-interest."

            Self-interest is the cause of everything (Love and Peace, Hatred and War, Strife and Advancement), not an expression of it.

            The basic purpose for all life forms is reproduction, as such our bodies are programmed to reward us for actions that maximise our chances to do just that. Nature therefore programmed us to act only in our own best interest, meaning that every single thing we feel, every chemical reaction in our brains is geared towards our own selfish goal of reproduction.

            This is where personalities come into play. On the whole we have to different phenotypes of personality, those who co-operate with others and those who seek to supress others. The better you are at either of them, the more successful you are (more chances for reproduction). And because personality is largely genetic the more successful personality tends to survive.

            => Division is caused by differences in interests between groups of people who have the same interests.

            If for example group A is starving and group B has enough food to last them through the winter, then group A has an interest in acquiring that food. Group B, however, has no interest in sharing the food with group lest they starve themselves. Group A is therefore left with no other choice but to try and take the food they need by force. "Better them, than us."

            => Division/Conflict caused by Self-Interest of Groups right there.

            As for the sterile environment... For him to be of any use to an experiment he'd also need language, because language is what allows us to formulate complex thoughts and an individual who cannot think is of no use to an experiment regarding human nature.

            And even if we do manage to get an ideal 'specimen', there is still the problem that his/her personality will largely be predetermined by their genetic make-up.

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            • Anonymous Post Author
              12 years ago

              If the two groups found some way to compromise that would have been accomplished through self-interest but both of these groups -believe- in an idea of "better them than us".

              Believing the same and harmony of action doesn't guarantee peace. Look at the USSR. They understood the wavelength, but not the frequency.

              "but still, self-interest motivated them"

              Self-interest is the root of all of man's motivations. Good and bad. "selfish" and selfless. It motivated me to write this comment, motivated you to read it, and possibly will motivate you to respond.

              Blaming self-interest on man's division is like blaming a sword for murdering a man when it was the assailant behind him who bent it's purpose to his ends.

              The sword, like self-interest, is a neutral thing. It's used for defending or for murdering. For accomplishing greet deeds or extraordinary destruction.

              The true root is ideas. A sword, like self-interest, has no internal value.

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      • Corleone
        12 years ago

        No, I'd like you to take the time to explain why he's wrong. It's only respectful. If you don't enlighten us, we won't learn from our mistakes.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          Well ok, but why should I explain it to you when you're not even real?

          You're just a figment of my imagination.

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          • Corleone
            12 years ago

            I think you're schizophrenic. Well no, you're a reverse schizophrenic, since you think you're hallucinating stuff that's real.

            Why do you avoid my question? Just answer it. It doesn't matter if I'm real or not.

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            • Anonymous Post Author
              12 years ago

              Well if you won't answer my question then I won't answer yours!

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  • FrancoisDillinger
    12 years ago

    I once read that there have been a total of 250 years of peace throughout our existence.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      People read many things. Whether the truth is among them isn't always clear.

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      • FrancoisDillinger
        12 years ago

        Where did you read peace did not exist?

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          Where did you read it did exist?

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    • taciturn
      12 years ago

      Huh? How could that possibly be verifiable? :S

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      • FrancoisDillinger
        12 years ago

        The same question could be asked of the op :D

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  • [Old Memory]
    12 years ago

    Self-interest.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      Why self-interest?

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  • nondanta
    12 years ago

    "Greed has poisioned man's souls"

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  • Neo.T
    12 years ago

    Self-interest and On a side note I rather enjoy this conversation between Fellow IIN users and the poll creator.

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  • [Old Memory]
    12 years ago

    It is man's own self interest that divides him totally from others. Without self interest individual members of any species would not be able to exist. Humans find our success as a species from our intelligence coupled with our aggressive natures personified in protecting our own individual self interests which continuously manifest itself in the reproduction of our species.

    Our own individual self interests lead to hate, lead us to develop ethos, and ultimately bring us to our Fate.

    The 20th Century showed us the horrors of nuclear weapons, this century will show us the horrors of biological/chemical weapons.

    This century will be humanity's last.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      Is man aggressive? What makes you think that?

      "Wars, murder, fights, squabbles"

      Yes but there's also civilization, man living in symbiosis with his brother, family, peace, discussion of ideas.

      And again if a husband and wife are divided it's because she -believes- one thing for their children, he -believes- another. If a brother and sister squabble it's because they are united in the idea of Self-Interest; that they and they alone should have the ice cream.

      "But self-interest isn't a belief"

      It's impossible not to hold beliefs in this world and even if you were to say "I believe nothing" then you would believe in the belief that there is nothing to believe.

      Self-interest can be something that informs belief just as the animal is enslaved to self-interest since it has no knowledge by which it can overcome its desires but the ability to deny our impulses, through knowledge, is the very thing that makes us human.

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      • [Old Memory]
        12 years ago

        And the debate begins........

        Man is the most successful species on the planet today, to that we owe our intelligence, and of course or aggressive natures. Any animal posing a threat to us we aggressively wipe out. IN our own self interest, so we are united in our self-interest as a means to our self preservation.

        The brother and sister are united in self-interest, but INDIVIDUAL self interest as each believed they should have the ice cream.

        Our ability to realize and change our own existence through our own innovations and intelligence is what separates us from the world we share with animals. BUT it would be our ability (or lack thereof) to deny our own impulses that would lead to our evolution or eventual downfall.

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  • CarsGirlsGunsMoneyMade
    12 years ago

    Foxglove? What do flowers have to do with this?

    I vote animus.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      The plant is my calling card.

      What makes you say animus (aka hate)?

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      • Corleone
        12 years ago

        Btw, I think you meant 'animosity' instead of 'animus'. Animus doesn't necessarily mean hate, so it's kinda confusing for the people who have to answer to this poll.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          So the origins of animus:

          I discovered the word a couple of years ago and found it to be interesting. I love knowledge and thought other IINers might like to know it too.

          Nothing to do with superiority.

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          • Corleone
            12 years ago

            Okay, but animus isn't as specific as hate, so I still think you should've used a different choice of words.

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            • Corleone
              12 years ago

              Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be a part of the floccinaucinihilipilification of complex word use, but I do think that when publishing a question, you should use a clear vocabulary that won't be affected too much by the readers' varying interpretations.

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  • Ihadtomakeyetanotheraccountffs
    12 years ago

    Ignorance.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      12 years ago

      And why do you think that? What is ignorance?

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      • Ihadtomakeyetanotheraccountffs
        12 years ago

        Ignorance is the condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed. I think it drives people to see the differences between us and not the similarities.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          12 years ago

          What is being uneducated or uninformed?

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          • Ihadtomakeyetanotheraccountffs
            12 years ago

            Well, as a random example many people I've met here (England) are ignorant, they are mislead into thinking that Muslims in Middle Eastern countries are just dirty, Godless, 'Paki' terrorists. This is due to how they are portrayed/demonised in the news etc. It's misinformation and they are ignorant of the truth. For this reason they support the recent wars.

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            • Anonymous Post Author
              12 years ago

              What is truth?

              Last night you told me you were a godless Pakistani terrorist.

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