Why do human beings keep fighting wars?

“Warfare provides people with a semblance of psychological positivity in oppressed society where other outlets are lacking.”

In an opinion article on The Guardian, Steve Taylor claims and rather effectively argues that humans keep fighting wars because “warfare provides people with a semblance of psychological positivity in oppressed society where other outlets are lacking.” By this he means that, since they economically do not have the privilege to do so, countries that live in poverty and under oppression cannot satisfy their impulses to engage in an activity that gives them a national sense of “cohesion and honor” without said activity being war. Steve Taylor’s ideas are very controversial, which must be kept in mind when assessing his arguments, for it may generate an automatic bias in the reader to disagree with him. Nonetheless, it also must be kept in mind that there is a reason it is not the mainstream way of thinking, so it must be taken with a grain of salt.

In order to make his final assertion, Taylor’s argument can basically be boiled down to having applied the following syllogism: “Wars bring people in a fighting country a sense of community cohesion, a desire to act honorably, and a sense of purpose; countries seek the “moral equivalent of war” in activities such as sports order to get the same effects, but with less destruction; oppressed countries, “where life is hard,” cannot afford to do the same; therefore, they obtain these positive feelings by engaging in war.” Logically, his mental process makes sense, however, the premises are not completely valid. Taylor’s first premise is largely based on claims made by an American psychologist named William James, offering triangulation. However, William James made these claims in 1910, and truth is of provisional nature, meaning his claims might have been taken as truth when they were written, but now, especially since many major military conflicts have happened since 1910, they may no longer bear the same veracity. Additionally, James and Taylor only explore illustrations of this claim in developed nations, and Taylor does not, through examples in his text, confirm that it is true of poverty-stricken nations as well; he makes a hasty generalization. This is especially true because rich countries have the financial safety net that will provide the best equipment for them at the frontlines, which generates a sense of security which might be what results in the collective happiness: a guaranteed victory or at least a substantial chance against the enemy. Less economically powerful countries might not have that same privilege. The second premise connotes that war and channeling positive community emotions through sports or other forms of entertainment are mutually exclusive, which isn’t necessarily true. However, the premise is coherent, as by previous knowledge and paradigms we feel anything that will bring the “positive consequences of war” causing less negative ones, is more desirable than conflict.

The most interesting problems in Taylor’s logic, however, can be seen in the third premise. At first glance, it makes perfect sense; it is coherent. However, contextually, it does not follow logical thinking. Wars are more expensive than running a local theatre, financially supporting community sports teams, and many other forms of local entertainment. However, when this argument is processed, our paradigms dictate that spending money on entertainment is frivolous in a nation where there is a large portion of people not getting their basic needs met. Yet, war will mean a much larger amount of money being spent with much more negative outcomes. Nonetheless, our paradigms still make us see entertainment as superficial and war as damage rather than possible bad direction of funds. On the other hand, war might be a means of attaining more basic needs of a population such as land for shelter, so in some cases this argument may be valid. As always, absolute truths cannot easily be established (if at all) so many claims will be only true in certain circumstances.

These premises lead us then, into his conclusion. If the validity of the premises cannot be confirmed, as explored above, the conclusion cannot be deemed to be valid, at least not as a progression of the selected premises. Essentially, this makes the logical process and argument structure Taylor’s article somewhat faulty and consequentially weak. But of course, it isn’t the only way of seeing and analyzing it, there could be other, potentially better approaches. For example, if one could accurately measure the emotional state of all citizens of a country at war and then do the same to a similar country where funds, less than spent on said war, have been directed toward providing local entertainment and “moral equivalents to war” the true effect of these two variables on national “positivity” could be established. This in turn would create a much more ideal way of dissecting Taylor’s claim.

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