Is war a natural human phenomenon or just a plain result of disagreement?

Question

I sensed that even some animal groups/species had war between the other specie of their likelihood. I suspected that war could be both natural and contractual.

Answer 1

It must be a natural occurrence, as they can't or won't give non war a chance.

Answer 2

Both

Answer 3

Let's define war as intraspecific group aggression. Essentially all that is required for this is a species that forms groups with multiple males (typically) and small defendable resource patches. Most notably chimpanzees are seen in engaging in "war."

Answer 4

I agree.  We are animals, therefore we have instinct to be on top.  Take people who are in a child custody battle.  These battles can go on over seemingly nothing over there welfare of their child for years.  Why?  Well, because both want the best fot there child and both are also intellegent enough to have opinions.

An opinion is something that the animal world lacks, which makes our battles seem more complex, giving argument to anyone on the favor that we are 1) not animals, and 2) that we disagree due to being human.

However, chemically, if you look at DNA, we are only a few strands from a common house fly, and closer to a lion, and even closer to a monkey.  

Being animals, I have to deduce that we will behave in the similar way they they do in the natual world.  

The difference?  Opinion and intellegence of thought.

Answer 5

The people who have produced the offspring that survived had to take resources from others to do it.  That is basic competition.  In humans it also includes large scale conflicts because of our increased social structures.  I think the larger social structures were developed primarily to aid in wars.  It has given us our greatest civilizations.

Answer 6

War, competition over limited resources for the process of natural selection.  Seems that way, I certainly hope not.  I would like to believe that humanity is basically good, however we have historical evidence for 10s of thousands of years saying otherwise.

Answer 7

it's the natural result of human disagreement.

Answer 8

Yeah, like she said you can pretty much figure some of it has to with instinct but why are some people more warlike than others?  Instinct overdose?   I claim rights to that term.

Answer 9

War is a childish behave when one can't get what one want and at once. Unfortunately the voters have no possibility to withdraw their votes when those they have vote for show signs of paranoia and other psychological defects.

Answer 10

War is just a result of ballistic egos of men. The pursuit of becoming the superior country, race, etc. As long as there are greedy men and miscommunications, there will be wars. Wars are pointless. Men get killed. Millions of money spent on warfare that should have been used to help millions of others.

Answer 11

The Indians (native americans) were constantly at war.  Being a warrior was the greatest honor.  Switzerland maintains a neutral stance but has a substantial well trained army and is located in a place that makes going to war there pointless.  War is the result of human ingenuity versus limited resources.  Even when the resources are numerous, someone will want more or, for example, the best farmland, rather than just good land.

Answer 12

Based on our collective actions as a species for the past several thousands of years, I would have to agree that it must be a natural human phenomenon. I have often waxed philisophical over the root cause of the (male[?]) human's apparent need to wage war upon itself. Does it go back to our pre-human ancestor's, and the drive of their young male's needing to expand their feeding territories and search for non-related females to breed with? Could the reasons for warlike behavior being hard-wired into our brains really be this simple? Just a thought I wanted to share with everyone.

Answer 13

War is a result of overpopulation and oppression.  Many indian cultures did not war.  They had sufficient resources to all lead fulfilled lives and they distributed those resources equitably.  In most of the rest of the world, there have traditionally been more people than resources so the most violent and aggressive people take, usually, all the resources and then basically enslave everyone else.  This makes for a lot of angry serfs and a few ignorant and arrogant leaders.  Historically, most wars have been to eliminate internal competition and distract the citizens from the misery inflicted by the rulers.  It is not innate behavior, though.  A civilized country never needs to make war.  Look at Switzerland.