[Fathead]

and it struck me as timeless:

“Cultures are not and have never been ‘moral’ in their dealings and relations with one another. Their treatment of one another is and has been ultimately determined by their relative strengths and the nature of their cultures, not by whatever their internal ethical or moral institutions happen to be. Usually, of course, even the incorrigibly moral individual, of whatever society, is easily convinced that his nation’s course is correct, and he may be coerced into actions against the enemy which are, according to the internal moral code of his society, grossly immoral.”

I think it goes back to the fact that we are all animals. Decorating ourselves with governments, societies, and technology just complicates the underlying truth.

BTW, can anyone guess the subject of the book? The author was a guy named Newcomb. For legitimacy's sake, I'll post the cite later.

 

[biggins]

its funny you mention that, when i was in college i had to take a creative writing class in which i was required to write a poem. The poem i wrote was on the topic of humans distancing themselves from other animals and how that is going to be one of our downfalls. It was a subject that i had been marinating on for a ong time. The instructor hated it and decided to give me a bad grade due to content which was unfair but whatever. I linked our animal background to all kinds of subject from war, to random acts of violence brought on by overpopulation and crowding, to sex offenders and violent individuals.

 

[Btyler311]

Most cultural groups use a word for themselves that means people or human beings and something else for others outside their group. This means others are not really people and therefore typical moral issues don't really apply.

Ty

 

[Fathead]

on the topic of humans distancing themselves from other animals and how that is going to be one of our downfalls.

Whoa. Yah, after starting the thread I actually thought about speciesism as an extension of nationalism, racism, etc.

Ty: yup, that view is reported among the cultures obliterated in the text I quoted. The cultures, and the title of the text: "The Indians of Texas."

Penned in the 1950s, but still salient.