Researched position paper:

War – inevitable and integral

Growing up playing video games that were often centered on war, I developed an early interest in the concept of physical conflict. Slowly, my obsession with virtual war grew into a passion for reading war novels and watching war movies. War started to play an even bigger, more realistic role in my life when friends of mine began to join the military in the hopes of fighting to protect what they believe in. Now, as a college student, war continues to intrigue me and I remain just as interested in researching the motivations that fuel the human violence and conflict behind war, as well as its societal impact.

War is as old as civilization itself. Over the course of human history, countless wars and battles have been waged and are still persisting to this day. Whether large-scale or relatively small, the aftermath of war is enormous and often catastrophic. There are no rigid rules that govern war—they may include everyone: adults and children, men and women, soldiers and civilians. It seems like war is all around us, resolute and unavoidable. The persistent existence of war within civilization often raises the question: Is war inevitable? People have claimed that war is an integral part of society, but is there really no way for humans to coexist peacefully? In the following essay, I will lay out an argument that centers on three positions. First, I argue that war is fueled by a human desire for control and power. Next, I show that war has grown to encompass a romantic, idealized and virtuous image that makes society unwilling to let it go. Using the previous positions, I will then aim to present the argument that war is an integral and inevitable part of human society.

Humans naturally feel the desire for dominance. The entire concept of a capitalist market functions on the knowledge that humans are naturally and inherently motivated to move toward the top—they want to be the best. Governments, because they are run by mere humans, are subject to the same flaws of human nature. War provides a way for countries to prove and assert their dominance. Despite being a pacifist, William believes that war is an integral part of human society. In his article, “The Moral Equivalent of War,” William asserts his belief that young men have a need for warfare due to their naturally aggressive natures. With this view, he says that the only way to curb war is to transfer their aggression to more productive outlets. He therefore believes that unless the peace party can propagate some peaceful measures (i.e. some moral equivalent) that would take war’s place in providing an outlet for male aggressive dominance, their utopian goal would not be possible. However, no such equivalent has yet been developed; in the thousands of years during which countless wars have been fought, nothing has yet been able to replace its particular appeal to men’s aggressive natures. He notes that the driving force behind this aggression is a desire for control: "The powerful exact what they can and the weak grant what they must" (William James, 710) With this statement, he defines war in terms of power and dominance. Almost all wars are fought in the effort to gain control and dominance. Whether by conquering and colonizing a smaller country, or by trying to force a single religion on thousands of people (such as during the Crusades), war has historically been used as a tool for displaying power. A current example would be the controversy about Iran creating nuclear weapons; in the current global arms race, they too desire the power that comes with weapons that they can wield in the face of stronger countries. War feeds the natural human instinct toward aggressive dominance, and is unlikely to be replaced by any sort of moral equivalent.

Whenever a young man, or even woman, thinks of war, one of the first impressions that comes to mind is glory. Countless movies and books have portrayed war as a romantic and rugged venture in which men bravely fight for honor, glory, and freedom. Even Presidents have reinforced this romantic image of war, such as when George W. Bush spoke to troops in Afghanistan and said: “I’m a little envious… I think it would be a fantastic opportunity to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you… in some ways, romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger” (Toronto Sun). War has consistently been associated with positive adjectives that emphasize courage, bravery, honor, and virtue. In his essay, “War is a Force that gives us meaning,” Hedges writes about the addictive qualities of war and how and why many people are drawn to it. For example, He states “Elected officials, celebrities and news anchors lined up to be counted. On Friday, September 14, three days after the attacks, Congress granted President the right to ‘use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks’” (Chris Hedges, 718). War has a certain attractive appeal to it that cannot be denied. Looking back at my last encounter with an old friend who served in the military, I learned that war was not simply an experience for him—it defined him. He spoke of his years in combat with a great deal of nostalgia. He told me that no matter how terrible war was, it brought people together because they shared the same purpose and were fighting for the same cause. This concept of comradery further reinforces war’s romantic, glorious image, and shows how it has grown to encompass many virtues that society holds as extremely valuable.

War is an integral and inevitable part of society. It feeds human nature; it allows humans to exercise their need for dominance and aggression. Furthermore, war holds an elevated position in the eyes of society; it is something brave and honorable, which are values that people would not want to part with.

In her article, Mead defines war as an invention. She states, "warfare, by which I mean organized conflict between two groups… warfare of this sort is an invention like any other of the inventions in the terms of which we order our lives, such as writing, marriage, cooking our food instead of eating it raw, trial by jury, or burial of the dead, and so on” (Margaret Mead, 713). Mead’s persuasive viewpoint that war is nothing more than a human construct and invention certainly rings true; however, like other inventions, it was created with a purpose of fulfilling a human need. She then says, “warfare is a form of behavior that becomes obsolete only when something else takes its place, and in order to invent forms of behavior which will make war obsolete, it is a first requirement to believe that an invention is possible.” Though I agree that the only way to truly abolish war is to “invent” another behavior that could take its place, I feel the need to emphasize her final claim that says we must first believe that an invention like this is even possible. The doubt that interlaces this statement serves to underscore the entire argument of my paper: such a behavior that could replace war is not possible. It is too integral to society; it feeds so many inherent facets of human nature and has grown to such an elevated position in society that it will continue to have an inevitable role in mankind’s course through time.

Finally, through a thorough research, I can say that the tendency toward conflict is simply an inherent part of human nature. There are three scholarly journal articles to prove and embellish the claim that war is in fact inevitable and integral part of the society. First is “the robbers cave experiment” which is an extremely famous experiment in psychology. Basically, what the researchers did was divide 24 young boys into two arbitrary groups, completely at random. Then, they transported the boys to a Boy Scouts campground where they partook in various activities. As the days went on, the boys became more and more attached to their group and began to take pride in their sense of being in a group; each team even named themselves. Then, the researchers organized some competitive activities between the two groups.The boys started to develop really negative feelings toward the opposing group, and when they were brought together for the first time in the cafeteria, there was considerable name-calling, hazing, and even threats. As the days went on, it became even worse; some team members wanted to burn the others' team flag, and eventually the two groups refused to even eat in the same building. This experiment was very important to the development of psychological theories regarding group dynamic. It shows that humans have a natural tendency to gravitate toward any identity, so long as it affords them a sense of comradery (“The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation”). As I mentioned before, the teams were formed completely at random-- there wasn't one for the "best" boys or anything. Therefore, it shows that the boys felt attached to their group simply because it was their group, and displayed considerable hostility toward the other group for no reason other than the fact that they were not part of their group. Looking from the perspectives of war, this experiment can be analyzed at the global level; countries are just like these "groups," and people naturally feel loyalty toward their country (their "group") and hostility toward outside countries (other groups.) This offers a very important insight to the psychology of group dynamics and how humans naturally tend to feel hostility toward "outsiders."

Second, is an interesting scholarly article by Elizabeth A. Phelps, et al, that reports the findings of researchers who performed fMRI scans on subject's brains while they viewed images of opposite-race faces. For instance, they scanned white people's brains while they looked at black faces, and they scanned black people's brains while they looked at white faces. The results were very interesting-- they found that there was higher activation in the amygdala when viewing cross-race (other race) faces. The amygdala is a brain substrate that is responsible for fear and emotion. Basically, the implications of this experiment are that people are naturally, implicitly racist. It doesn't matter if, on the surface, a white person says "of course I'm not racist, I have a ton of black friends!" Biologically, their brains show higher levels of fear/emotion in response to cross-race faces. This shows that racism is an inherent part of human nature, and often a hatred of another race is what fuels a war. There is probably an evolutionary reason for this implicit racism; thousands of years ago, there was a definite advantage to sticking with your own kind. However, even though we don't necessarily need this biological response anymore, it's still there. People (even non- racist people) naturally feel safer around their own groups, and tend to view others with distrust and heightened fear levels (“Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation”).

Last, is a psychological theory called “The Law of Group Polarization” states that when in groups, people tend to make decisions that are much more extreme than those they would have made individually. This is a very important theory that can explain all sorts of war-related catastrophes, even up to the Holocaust. For instance, a Nazi soldier might have never committed some of the atrocities he did if he had been alone, but when he's surrounded by tons of other soldiers in his group doing the same thing, he is much more likely to do it as well. This phenomenon is also called "groupthink," and it's extremely important in explaining human behaviors pertaining to many things, especially war. It's a human tendency to just go with what the group is doing/ thinking/ feeling, and typically these decisions are much more extreme (C.R. Sunstein).

Works Cited

James, William. “The Moral Equivalent of War.” New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Wood 708 - 712.

Mead, Margaret. “Warfare: An Invention – Not A Biological Necessity.” Asia 40.8. August, 1940. Wood 713 – 717.

Hedges, Chris. “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” New York: Anchor, 2005. Wood 717 – 721.

Sherif, Muzafer. The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1988. Print.

Phelps, Elizabeth A., et al. "Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation."Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12.5 (2000): 729. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Dec. 2010.

Sunstein, C. R. (2002), The Law of Group Polarization. Journal of Political Philosophy, 10: 175– 195. doi: 10.1111/1467-9760.00148

"Obama sees one, whereas Bush saw two | Lisa Van Dusen"TorontoSun. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2010 .

Answering Questions help:

Claim development
1. write an issue question to focus your issue.
2. freewrite in response to the claim questions. they are as follows:
Fact - Did it happen? Does it exist?
Definition - What is it? How can I define it?
Cause - what caused it? What are the effects?
Value - it good or bad? What criteria will help us decide?
Policy - what should we do about it? What should be our future course of action?
3. read what you have written and decide on a purpose. Write your claim as a complete sentence.
4. which will be your predominant argumentation purpose in developing the claim: fact, definition, cause, value or policy?
5. what is your original slant on the issue, and is it evident in the claim?
6. is the claim too broad, too narrow, or manageable for now? Elaborate.
7. what will you define the controversial words in your claim?
8. do you predict at this point that you may have to qualify your claim to make it acceptable to the audience? How?

Research plan

Claim plus reasons
Write you claim, write the word because after the claim, and then list three to five possible reasons or subclaims that you might develop in your paper.
Research needs
Anticipate your research needs. What part of your paper can you develop with your present knowledge and information? What parts will you need to think about and research further? Can you learn enough to develop the claim, or should you simplify it? What types of research materials will you seek, and where will you seek them? Make a list of key words related to your issue to help you search. How much preliminary background reading do you need to do, and where should you do it?
Plan for your first draft
How much background information will you need to provide your readers? What terms will you need to define? What are your strongest opinions? Your best reasons? What is a reasoned way to begin your paper? What is a reasoned way to end it? What original examples, descriptions, or comparisons occur to you now?

Audience analysis

1. describe your issue. What is your audiences present position on this issue? Describe some other perspectives on your issue, and ask for reactions to those ideas. State your claim and ask if there is anyone who cannot accept it as stated. If there is, ask why.
2. how significant is your issue to the audience? If it is not considered significant, describe why it is significant to you. Talk about ways you can make it more significant to the audience.
3. how involved are audience members in the ongoing conversation about the issue? What do they already know about it?
4. how will you build common ground? What beliefs and values do you and your audience share about your issue? What motivates audience members in regard to your issue?
5. what argument style will work best with them? A direct adversarial style? Or a consensual style? Why?
6. write what you have learned from this analysis to help you plan your appeal to this audience. Include values and motives in your discussion.

Proofs and language development

Write your claim:___________________________________________________________

a. signs: what symptoms or signs will demonstrate that this might be true?
b. Induction: what examples can I use? What conclusions can I draw from the examples? Can my readers make the inductive leap from the examples to an acceptance of the conclusion?
c. Cause: What is the main cause of the controversy? What are the effects?
d. Deduction: What conclusions will I draw? What general principles, warrants, and examples are they based on?
e. Analogies: What comparisons can I make? Can I show that what happened in the past might happen again or that what happened in one case might happen in another?
f.Definition: What do I need to define?
g. Statistics: What statistics can I use? How should I present them? Would they be more convincing in graph form?
h. values: what values can I appeal to? Should I spell them out, or is it best to leave them unstated? What emotional narratives, examples, description, and emotional language would make my appeals to values stronger?
i. authority: whom should I quote? What background information should I supply both for myself and for those I quote to establish our expertise? How can I use language to create common ground and establish ethos?
j. motives: what do my readers need and want in regard to my issue? How can I appeal to those needs? What emotional material might help?
k. language: what type of language do I want to predominate in my paper: the language of reason? Emotional language? Language that establishes ethos? A mix of styles? Make a few notes to help you plan language.