Wednesday, May 24, 2017

A defining characteristic of terrorism is man? No it is philosophy

On twitter I noticed an interaction between two people discussing that terrorism and other acts of violence have something in common, men. One can look at history and point out violence and link men as the most common factor, mainly because men have dominated society for thousands of years, but does that mean men are responsible for every terrorist act because they are men? No, what defines how people treat others is their philosophy. Left alone to his own devices without external influence a man will seek to survive and live as best they can. The same goes for women. As you increase the number of people a society develops that links these people. As long as this society has plenty of resources, room, and equality it should function in a peaceful manner. Conflict occurs when a factor changes the balance of society. What are those factors? Two societies meet and compete for resources. Wether male dominated or female dominated there will be competition for resources resulting in conflict.
What about internal issues? Religion can be used to illustrate this answer. Let's take a society and put aside gender of male and female for a minute. We have a society where everyone is the same. In the beginning a religion is formed and grows with society. Eventually someone will question whether there is a god or not, if they are worshiping correctly, or say there is a different God. You will have conflict because some will resist change, others will push for change until a chasm forms in our little gender less society. As that divide increases the chances for violence increases. Would it be different if it were a society of 2 sexes with one dominant over the other? No. Philosophy is the deciding factor.
We can examine our little society sans gender and sans religion. Let us say the driving force in our society is commerce. Naturally we will see some in our society wanting to out do others. This will continue until there is an imbalance where you have the rich and the poor. The rich want more, and the poor will want to have a chance at what the rich have. Again we create a chasm that if left unchecked will grow until conflict erupts. Violence.
While it is true that men have dominated our history in leadership roles it was not there gender that led to violence but what they believed. The same thing can be said for women. It is our philosophy, our belief system that determines if we resort to violence or not. People argue that testosterone makes men more prone to act out in a violent way. Testosterone can make men aggressive but it is their mind that decides the action. So are women less likely to resort to violence than men? I think that put in similar circumstances you would be surprised. In High School I counted more girls fighting than boys and those fights were more vicious too. My first wife had a temper and would go off over the slightest thing. I had to dodge numerous items thrown at me over the course of our marriage. I even had to stop her from attacking her own mother, she bit me in the process.
Man or women we all have the capacity to commit acts of violence or peace, it is our belief system that is key, our philosophy not sex.

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