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 Another reply (Re: osama elkhawad)
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PERILOUS POSITIONS
By R. Brian Ferguson
In his desire to prove that world conflicts have a basis in biology, Fukuyama makes a number of outright errors.
First, chimpanzees do not "routinely" murder their peers. The famous incident at Gombe that Fukuyama refers to occurred only after major human-induced changes, most important of which was the researchers' artificial provisioning of bananas. Other reported instances of "chimp wars" also took place in stressful situations. Primatologist Margaret Power offers a contrasting view: "Virtually everywhere that they were studied by naturalistic methods, undisturbed wild chimpanzees live peacefully in nonaggressive, nonhierarchical groups." Fukuyama fails to note that the lesser-known bonobos are as closely related to humans as chimpanzees and display no tendencies to collective violence.
A debate rages within the anthropology of war about the relationship between the high rates of violence observed in tribal societies and the behavior of our distant ancestors. Fukuyama takes one side. On the other, copious evidence documents dramatically increasing violence after Western contact. Disruptive factors -- new weapons, trade rivalries, demand for slaves, and forced migrations -- transformed and intensified indigenous warfare. This higher-level carnage has been incorporated into our theories and images of "primitive war." War leaves many recoverable archaeological signs, and global findings are straightforward and consistent: Evidence of war is rare until long after a shift to agriculture and the development of hierarchical social systems. War emerges late in human history because it is difficult to organize without authority. Fukuyama's conclusion that "the line [of collective violence] from chimp to modern man is continuous" is a breathtaking leap over a mountain of contrary evidence.
On the connection between violence, gender, and age, Fukuyama's position is again perilous. A 1993 review of aggression literature concludes, "In laboratory studies of human aggression, where the use of physical aggression is controlled and the possibility of escalation of violence is eliminated, there is little difference in the frequency of aggression in males and females." The evolutionary psychology Fukuyama follows claims that most violence is done by young men. The study cited to support this human universal is based on contemporary homicide statistics, primarily from Detroit. Crime patterns in modern industrial cities tell us no more about our distant past than do statistics on automobile fatalities. Ethnographic data on war in tribal societies provides an entirely different picture. War leadership and killing are usually tasks of middle-aged (by local standards) family men, while young men go along as apprentices.
Men make war. There are important exceptions, but they are rare. Yet women are often among the most vocal advocates of war, making a gendered disposition to peace hard to support empirically. Why not more women warriors? Because war is work, and all tribal societies have pronounced, gender-specific divisions of labor. Women get tasks compatible with pregnancy and child-rearing; men get those that put a premium on strength and endurance. Tribal men also get the job of long-distance trade, but no one claims men have a gene for shopping.
Fukuyama asserts that having viewed "international relations through the lens of ####### and biology . . . it is very difficult to watch Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, or militias from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Georgia and Afghanistan . . . and not think of the chimps at Gombe." This is ridiculous and misleading. Recent world conflicts have occurred in an intricate political field complicated by the intersection of local structures and global forces. Fukuyama replaces this understanding with a crude discussion of chimp behavior, aggressive young men, and biological tendencies.
R. Brian Ferguson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University.
PREHISTORY RETURNS
By Lionel Tiger
A remarkably valuable feature of Fukuyama's essay is that he admits he was wrong -- not by acknowledging that the earlier approaches to macropolitics with which he made his reputation were incorrect but by emphasizing the bizarre distinction made between natural and social sciences. This has let social scientists believe they can conduct research quarantined from neurophysiology, paleoanthropology, genetics, endocrinology, and the comparative study of animal behavior. It is now overwhelmingly clear that, however complex, humans are subject to the same rules as other species and thus that human studies should not work in isolation. It was recently revealed that only 50 genes distinguish us from chimpanzees -- with whom we otherwise share some 100,000.
Fukuyama has moved from the "end of history" to the beginning of prehistory, a study that will soon be required for contemporary political history. He understands that much of feminist theory entails profound disruptions in how human beings have always balanced production, reproduction, and civil society. Fukuyama's appropriation of prehistory lets him recognize that the overwhelming mass of traditional political analysis -- even when described as "human behavior" -- has been about the behavior of males.
Feminism has produced two contradictory assertions: first, that men and women are the same and that any important behavioral differences result from discrimination, sexism, and patriarchy; second, that women are different and morally better than men. The first assertion is employed most often by lawyers, who conclude that there should be as many women in any job, sport, club, party, or cabinet as there are in the relevant population. The second assertion is made by Carol Gilligan, whose In a Different Voice proposes that girls pursue moral behavior and social harmony better than boys because, well, because they are girls. The fact that sexual differentiation in negotiating strategies also emerges in other primates does not affect the feminine sentimentality that propelled Gilligan's work to prominence. Other writers, including feminists such as Katha Pollitt and Christina Hoff Sommers, criticized the Gilligan approach. Nevertheless, it stimulated efforts to restrict male behavior, stigmatize males as generally brash and insensitive, and claim that girls suffer from low self-esteem because they conform to male wishes. That women generally do better than men in the educational system and now compose 55 percent of the college population does nothing to discourage such zealous misinterpretation.
Fukuyama acknowledges the genetic male propensity to competition and violence. In our 1971 The Imperial Animal, Robin Fox and I proposed that the central question of any social system is "What do we do with the young males?" The question remains central today, especially in economies unable to generate jobs for them. Fukuyama suggests that the introduction of more women into the controlling systems of society, especially in politics, will give a pacific tone to national and international action. For this view, he cites some opinion-poll data about the support for military adventure, examines the behavior of the few female leaders involved in military decision-making, and could have noted the preference of many females in contemporary militaries for "operations other than warfare."
But though Fukuyama's forecast that political change will accompany changes in the sexual composition of leadership is plausible, the picture remains conjectural. There is no empirical evidence of large-scale, long-term social structures that have been created and maintained exclusively or even largely by females. The overworked myth of matriarchy notwithstanding, we do not have good examples of groups of women engaged over generations in creating and sustaining public organizations such as armies, religions, police forces, or even international businesses. It remains an open question if there is a female equivalent to the omnipresent male bonding that encourages the alloy of assertion and self-sacrifice at the heart of a community's central power structure. The political gender gaps emerging in liberal democracies certainly suggest the beginnings of such edifices.
It is possible, even if unlikely, that one response to greater female influence will be greater male belligerence and even violence against them. At the same time that the Taliban restricts women from kindergarten, radical activists restrict women from abortion in the United States. In the contemporary world, there is nowhere for women and children to go. We receive daily bulletins about the bewilderingly lethal intransigence of male leaders committed to some program of desperate importance to them. The struggle for social control may be one that women choose not to take up.
Lionel Tiger is Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. His next book is The Decline of Males.
STATES MAKE WAR
By Jane S. Jaquette
Fukuyama gives insufficient weight to the dynamics of the nation-state system in explaining both war and peace. Wars start not in biology -- instinctual male aggression -- but in realpolitik -- a state's need to defend itself from outside threats. War does not come naturally to humans. Men must be trained to fight and kill others, and all people must be taught patriotism. States go to great lengths to demonize their enemies.
State power explains the brutality of internal ethnic conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Rwanda. Fukuyama mistakenly cites these examples to hammer home his equation of humans with murderous chimps. But control of the state involves high stakes, with winners deciding how laws are made, taxes applied, and access provided to economic and educational opportunities. Unsurprisingly, competition is fierce when the incentives are so large.
Fukuyama suggests that women are more pacifistic than men. Several decades of research shows that women do differ from men regarding war. Women are markedly less interested in and knowledgeable about it. Women prefer lower military expenditures in times of peace and negotiations instead of force. But this does not mean that women are unaggressive; they can sometimes be more aggressive than men. When women are allowed to carry arms, they are often fierce fighters, as was true of many Central and South American guerrillas. Once war commences, there is little evidence that women withhold support from the male-dominated state. Today many women receive military training and press to go into combat -- not to satisfy their hardwired desire to kill but to succeed in military careers that require proving oneself on the battlefield.
If women are more inclined to negotiation, what difference does it make? The cliche Fukuyama cites is that more women leaders would mean more peace. But female leaders face the same pressures as men. For every Mary Robinson or Gro Harlem Brundtland who has made peacemaking a focus of her leadership (and who probably represents a small European state that can afford to promote peace because it relies on the protection of larger powers), there is an Indira Gandhi or Margaret Thatcher leading a major power that uses force to achieve its foreign policy and domestic goals.
But these women may have been forced into male posturing because there are so few female leaders. If there were a critical mass of women leaders or if nation-state sovereignty gave way to international law, the argument goes, international relations would include less interstate competition and more global cooperation. This would spotlight social issues and organizations in which women already play important roles. As women's traditional concerns become top priority issues, women's say in foreign policy debates will rise.
Jane S. Jaquette is Professor of Politics and Chair of Diplomatic and World Affairs at Occidental College.
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| العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
| تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | osama elkhawad | 12-12-03, 11:07 AM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | ابراهيم حموده | 12-12-03, 12:00 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | نصار | 12-12-03, 12:06 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | فتحي البحيري | 12-12-03, 12:29 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | Alsawi | 12-12-03, 12:13 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | Hussein Mallasi | 12-12-03, 01:05 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | nada ali | 12-12-03, 03:34 PM |
| اجزاء من مقال فوكوياما | nada ali | 12-12-03, 03:43 PM |
| Some replies to Fukuyama's article | nada ali | 12-12-03, 03:45 PM |
| Another reply | nada ali | 12-12-03, 03:47 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | Nada Amin | 12-12-03, 03:49 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | nada ali | 12-12-03, 03:57 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | bunbun | 12-12-03, 05:26 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | تراث | 12-12-03, 11:20 PM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | نصار | 12-13-03, 00:00 AM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | الجندرية | 12-13-03, 09:04 AM |
| Re: تأنيث أجهزة الأمن السودانية-ما رأيكم\ن في هذا الاقتراح | osama elkhawad | 12-13-03, 06:59 PM |
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