Music and War?

For 50,000 years human beings lived without “war”. I know, I know, Stephen Pinker, history’s greatest know-nothing, says something different , apparently influenced by chimpanzees of whom there are many at Harvard . Oh, and Richard Wrangham, his Harvard friend and sometime Chimp authority, who believed in “Demonic Males”: the theory that human male violence, like that of chimpanzees, has evolutionary roots, that a “natural selection has favored the propensity to kill”.

Here’s one of Pinker’s students….

But there is no real evidence of “war” prior to the Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago.

And our closest relatives are not chimps, not Wrangham or Pinker, thank God - but Bonobos, who, unlike chimps, do not normally kill their own kind.

Bonobos are not aggressive unless forced into unnatural, stressful conditions, as in zoos. We aren’t naturally aggressive either . But the societies, that emerged in the Neolithic ended up as human zoos. Think about it.

Part of the reason for human empathy and altruism is that human beings evolved as foragers, living in small reverse dominance, non-hierarchical band cultures, which were (probably) ‘matrist” like bonobo societies in which females band together to moderate male aggression.

Since these bands were si small, often less than 50 people they appear to have cooperated for hunting, partying and sex with other bands with whom they shared territory.

Partying? Yup, That meant music! Fun! Yes, bonobos like to party. And, yes, they get high too!

War requires larger numbers of people, larger and more complex societies, hierarchy built upon dominance by a few over many and the dehumanization of opponents. War in this sense is a primary dominance behavior.

Do we live in houses — or are they really cages?

Music plays a role in facilitating social bonding and coordination. Most primates bond through grooming—but usic allows bonding without actual physical contact and has effects on cognitive and emotional functions.

Wars are advanced cluster fucks. So every army has to have its music.

Here in Japan, the ultra rightists have sound trucks which blare martial music from the days of the war on China.

I guess this should be the Trump’s anthem. Happy, smiling suicide!

Music is about emotions. War is too.

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