Normative humanity

KM's comment on the last blog introduces the idea of what it means to be human. Obama's clarion call, "Yes we can" may more accurately be rendered, "Yes we can, because we can." It is axiomatic that humans cannot do what humans cannot do. When individuals suggest that war is normative they usually mean that peace keeping is not normative. It is this perspective that is false. Humans wage war because it is part of human nature to wage war against their enemies. Humans are also naturally prone to maintain peace with those they consider to be like them.

It is obvious that the problem is not that we wage war but who we consider to be our enemies. When humans first appeared on the planet they could not have viewed each other as enemies or the race would not thrive. At some point we became partisan in our thinking to the point that we magnified our differences and viewed other humans as being our enemies. If we can determine how we lapsed into this state it is possible that we could resolve all our violent conflicts. This is the Obama challenge in this non-partisan era.