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Old 11-18-2019, 08:49 PM   #27
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
But, failing to have an actual enemy, we will always find one - somehow, somewhere.

Our brains are rewarded for having enemies. Identifying the other, and seeing it as deep danger, happens without us knowing it. There was a reason why this was put into us in our evolutionary past; at some point, it was important to our survival. But now, it threatens us every day.

We see that a huge amount of socialization informs the children how to get along with others. Years of repeated experiences and correction are needed. It usually needs to start at a really early age, like at the same time we are learning language. We figure out how our social world works by watching the other people and what they do.

A peaceful civilization is formed in the software of our culture, and it runs against the hardware of our genes. Everything we can possibly do to ensure this peace is very important. But what's needed won't always be obvious, because the instincts are so deep in us that we don't recognize them.
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