On Genocide and Human’s Social Nature

Before I got married I travelled to Scotland with my brothers, uncle, cousins and father. This was a form of bachelor party where we basically travelled the the country and drank some great scotch. Like many nations, Scotland has a long history of violent conflict. While Scotland’s historic conflicts with England are well publicized, what marked me most was the savage violence between the various Scottish communities or clans.

To be fair, murderous genocidal violence between neighbours is much more common than we care to imagine. Today, our desire to crush our neighbours is carried out in small claims courts, in passive aggressive comments and perhaps a bit on social media. However, a few hundred years ago, neighbours often engaged in cycles of raving violence that would lead to raids and massacres where no one was spared. This is of course not specific to Scotland in any way. European wars of religion, the genocide in Rwanda or even the massacres between North American native tribes are well documented. Sometimes, simply standing in a place reinforces the memory of our past sins.

When we were in Scotland, I can recall standing at the bottom of a grass knoll reading one of those historic plaques that commemorates a place. Those plaques that we often walk right by often do carry powerful stories and lessons. On that plaque, somewhere in the hills of Scotland, there was told the story of two warring clans that fought for generations and centuries. One clan attacked another and in vengeance, the other clan retaliated – sometimes decades later – by coming to the village and killing man, woman and child. They burned each other to death by locking them in churches and burning the church down with everyone inside. Human’s have many great attributes, but our ability to carry out vengeful acts and carry hate is truly remarkable – it should not be underestimated.

A few years later I visited the Cathare region of France. This region borders Spain and includes a part of France that was once inhabited by a Catholic sect. As Wikipedia outlines,

The Cathars originated from an anti-materialist reform movement within the Bogomil churches of the Balkans calling for what they saw as a return to the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection of the physical. The reforms were a reaction against the often perceived scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the Catholic clergy.

Wikipedia

In 1206, a Crusade was called on the Cathars by Pope Innocent III. This Crusade led to the massacre of most of the Cathars, with testimonies at the time speaking of the streets being filled with the blood of women and children who were all unceremoniously killed by raving mobs looking for land, wealth and power. Beyond the massacre itself, what is interesting is the fact that the build up to the violence took over two hundred years and ultimately exploded onto the scene with a single event. Not unlike the killing of Archduke Ferdinand that led to World War I or the attacks by Hamas on Israel on October 6th or the events of September 11th, 2001, a single event leads to the unleashing of a torrent of unrequited violence. Of course, the event is the proverbial straw that broke the camels back and some other event, eventually would have triggered the pent up rage and lust for land. Wikipedia explains

Between 1022 and 1163, the Cathars were condemned by eight local church councils, the last of which, held at Tours, declared that all Albigenses should be put into prison and have their property confiscated. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 repeated the condemnation. Innocent III’s diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism were met with little success. After the murder of his legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208, and suspecting that Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse was responsible, Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars. He offered the lands of the Cathar heretics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms.

Wikipedia

The Cathars are no more, their land, castles and wealth now belong to France and the Catholic church. This story is far from unique. What can we learn from our ability to inflict great harm on our fellow man? Why has so little in over the course of the centuries. As Israel carries out its massacre of Gaza (now over 30,000 dead or so), likely with the plan to occupy the land and seek vengeance, what can we do? What is most remarkable is not so much that human’s have not fundamentally changed, I think that is obvious, but rather that our institutions and the live-streaming of the violence in Gaza has not led to meaningful action by power brokers. No country is sticking its neck out for Palestinians, just as no people stoke out their neck for the Cathars, those Scottish villages or the nameless other communities that have been massacred over the centuries.

My main lesson from having looked at these disasters is a rather simple one. Humans, at their heart, are social creatures. More than anything else, we want to by part of a group. This is our core and most important desire. Breaking free from that group to contradict the group’s beliefs is something very few of us do – whether we care to admit it or not. Perhaps 1% of us do it in some meaningful way. It is said that if 3% of the population protests a policy, a genuine revolution can happen. The long and short of it is we just want to fit in. Historically speaking – Social homo sapien survives and the annoying homo sapien fact checkers get killed or banished.

If we want to reduce violence and massacres, we have to take into account the social bonds that link groups together and that pit groups against each other. Thomas Hobbes famously proposed the Leviathan which meant centralizing force in the state and taking it away from local communities and warlords. This has generally worked quite well for maintaining peace within states. However, since to Leviathan has been created to regulate states and it seem unlikely states would relinquish the ultimate power of violence, alternative methods must be developed. Bodies such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court play important roles, but these organizations are broadly speaking reactive. They react after the fact to events and conflicts, they are not particularly good at preventing or interceding during an active conflict.

While it would be nice to hope that governments and para-national institutions might create systems to help prevent group violence, my strong suspicion is that is is wishful thinking. Who is ultimately responsible for what is happening in Palestine, in Myanmar, in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in other conflict areas. The short answer is of course no one is solely responsible, it is a collective failure. Civil society has a unique role to play in this light. The only groups that may be able to reduce group violence are other groups of people who share a common interest and purpose. The groups we need to help reduce unnecessary violence are people who are knowledgeable and trained in human nature. C

Civil society has peace advocates and they can generally be divided into two categories – broad peace groups that do not target a specific cause (i.e. World Beyond War) or those that do have a specific conflict in mind (i.e. Jewish Voices for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices,…). However, as far as I can tell, all of the groups that I have found seem to focus on spreading the Truth about a conflict and its costs in the hope this will reduce violence. The thing is, there is no Truth when we look at it through the prism of a social organization. When we view an issue through a social lens, the opinion of our unit matters as much, if not more, than any objective truth. If we ignore this reality, we will not succeed in affecting change.

The most helpful tools I have found to address this challenge are those of Gene Sharp and the Albert Einstein Institute. Gene Sharp pioneered the academic work on non-violent struggles and he makes many valid points about the prospects of peace movements and disarmament. One point that stood out was his insistence that groups will never give up violence if they believe it will lead to subjugation. The possibility of genuine subjugation is not that important, but it is critical if there is a perception of genuine subjugation. No amount of rational discussion, sharing of facts or highlighting of atrocities will change the outcome of a conflict if a party still feels threatened by subjugation. The only way to break through a logjam of emotional social bonds is through some form of political jujitsu where you leverage social and emotional reality to affect change. This is difficult.

If we want to reduce unnecessary violence, we must address the gap in our toolkit that is preventing us from slowing or stopping the massacres we see unfolding under our very eyes (or computer screens). The end of national conflict is not possible, not is it desirable. The end of violent war is possible. Conflict, group behaviour and social dynamics will be with humans forever and we must therefore create groups and institutions that can work towards affecting change in society that will break through the social bonds that lead to genocide and massacres.

Published on March 10, 2024