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8. War and Confilict

 

October 1, 2024

 

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War and Conflict

What is war, and why do we have it? These two questions will be explored deeply in today’s episode, as we look at violent versus peaceful behaviors in humans and other animals, interactions between nations and people over the course of human history, and what war brings to involved communities.

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Transcript:

Lily: Hello friends, and welcome back to anthro.MP3. We are students from UMass who love anthropology. Anthro Hub is a website we help run that’s full of all things anthro. Make sure to check it out and look at some incredible blog posts and creative works made by students from our school and others. My name is Lily and I’ll be one of your hosts for today’s episode. I’m also joined by Anna. 

 

Anna: Hi, I’m Anna. 

 

Lily: Yeah. So today we’re going to be talking about anthropology of war and conflict, both historically and in the modern day. So what is war and why do we have it? So the age old debate of nature versus nurture, I think, is so important when it comes to finding the root cause of human behavior. And it’s very backed in psychology, which is a very similar field to anthropology. So nature is genetics, evolution, natural selection and nurture is environment, epigenetics and external influences. And epigenetics is really interesting because it’s how our external environment influences our genes. So when in terms of war, is it more learned culture or is it biologically wired instincts? 

 

Anna: That’s really interesting. And there’s a couple of theories that can be used to explain this nature versus nurture divide. One of the most famous ones, the one that everybody knows about, is Darwin’s theory of natural selection or survival of the fittest. Basically, the way that humans have come to evolve to our social standing and our standing and like the hierarchy of the world, is that we were, you know, species, procreate based on who has the most desirable, you know, traits. And then it gets passed down and so that’s how we got to where we are. There’s a lot of debate kind of surrounding the legitimacy of that and all that. But it is one theory that can help explain.

 

Lily: And what’s so interesting is there’s also another theory that I’ve personally never heard of. It’s the peaceful savage theory. And this is about how war was invented in modern human history. And it kind of points out how it’s more of a cultural evolution. It’s less like innately human. But I think the most interesting theory is that dual inheritance theory and that kind of takes both ideas into account. So it’s both genetics and culture and how they affect human evolution. So culture and genetic adaptations can go both ways. The practice of farming is very interesting because it’s humans that start this cultural practice. And then their genes are changed so they can, they can digest lactose. And I think that’s really interesting because a lot of times we think genes affect our culture, but culture also affects our genes. And are there any like examples of nature versus nurture in life that you want to talk about? 

 

Anna: Yeah, I think one that we touched on actually in the last episode that I hosted, is drinking alcohol, and that actually really relates to the same thing as lactose, where our bodies are able to, in small amounts, small to moderate amounts, process ethanol or alcohol. And it’s not toxic to us in those small amounts, or at least not, you know, it’s not killing us. But that is kind of an example of nature versus nurture, because it’s like, did we, are we just innately able to consume alcohol or does it come from, you know, societal pressures, for example, same thing with lactose is that farming? So we came about, and in order to get the most nutrients out of it and in order to preserve it for longer times, there’s a lot of archeologists and anthropologists and historians who argue that beer or some sort of fermented alcoholic, beer like substance that was kind of more like gruel, or like oatmeal, was drank. And that is like the origin of the human evolution to be able to process alcohol is because it was a survival mechanism, to be able to eat this newly grown wheat that then became domesticated, and became the basis for a lot of agriculture. So that’s one example. 

 

Lily: Yeah, I love that because, it’s also interesting because in most examples, nature and nurture are both present. But what’s cool is there’s certain theories that scientists have where one kind of takes precedent. And when it comes to like raising children, I’ve taken a lot of psych classes about child development, and it always talks about how personality traits like temperament and kind of like how you are from birth is very nature based. It’s very biological and like in your genes. But when it comes to attachment styles, like how you interact with people in the world, how you trust people, how you have an anxious or avoidant or secure attachment style that is almost 100% nurture and how your parents nurtured you as a child. So I think it’s cool when you think about war because it’s like, is there one that has more influence on the other? And I think now to transition into more evolutionary looking at war, I think it’s important to look at non-humans and animals and how evolution of animals have related to humans, especially looking at the nature side of biology. And so basically the natural basis of war is violence and aggression. And this is a strategy to acquire and defend resources needed for successful reproduction. So this is like the basic scientific explanation. And there’s also this theory of group living and evolution where animals have a higher chance of survival through collecting resources. They have more opportunities to mate and they have more protection from predators. And this is seen a lot in like lions that have like really big packs and like they have a ton of adult females, which is a lot higher for reproduction rates. And like dogs and wolf packs and dolphins are very social. They have like a lot of people, a lot of dolphins and like one clan, which is interesting because they all live in groups. But when looking at the violent behaviors within these groups, it is a bit different than humans, where most animals bluff, they don’t actually do a lot of direct, violent contact with outside groups. In fact, there’s a lot more intergroup conflict, so there’s higher stakes for losing status of reproduction. Therefore, they’re going to have more conflict intergroup and not outside of the group. 

 

Anna: That’s really interesting. I did not know that, especially the part about the status of reproduction. That makes a lot of sense when you explain it like that. But I’ve never thought about it, especially because I feel like when I think about conflict, I think about humans. And for the most part, when humans are in conflict, it’s not necessarily just about reproduction. But in essence, a lot of it is, if you like, really follow the line down so that’s really interesting. 

 

Lily: Yeah. I think the interesting part about evolution in biology is it can give an explanation, but it doesn’t mean that that’s the actual modern reality. So it’s cool to look at, and I think also looking at primates. So primates are our direct ancestor and looking at chimpanzees and bonobos, they’re both equally related to us. But they show violence in very different ways. So I want to kind of compare humans to both of them and see like if we can see some similarities or differences. So starting with chimps, they live in larger communities. But they break up into smaller groups and they patrol their borders. And something that’s interesting is they only attack the enemy when they’re severely outnumbered. So they will only kill in low risk situations like five chimps to like one enemy. And they always intimidate vocally. And they have this desire to increase territory, which leads to a higher number of healthy infants also leading to infants having a higher body mass. And it’s also interesting looking at the resources of like reproduction, where eastern chimps specifically have the most killings. And this is because they spend the most time looking for food because of the dry season, which leads to a lack of resources and more competition for reproduction. 

 

Anna: Yeah, I can definitely see some similarities and differences between humans. Like for example, some similarities is that humans definitely have a group mentality. A definite desire to be accepted by a group. And I like the part about vocal intimidation because I think that that’s definitely a thing that happens in conflict between people is where you kind of start with words and you maybe try to almost bluff a little bit of being like, yelling is a big part of conflict. And also the history of desire to increase territory. I think that’s what a lot of human conflict is about when you’re talking about historically, you know, like Napoleon, colonialism, Columbus, all of that kind of thing. But there are some definite differences where chimps will, not, will only initiate violence or killing when they have the upper hand and they know that it’s a safe, like situation and that they’re definitely going to win. Whereas humans, I don’t necessarily think have that same mentality towards risk. And we are more willing to initiate violence in riskier situations. Whether that’s due to like social pressures or perceived strength. So that’s really interesting. 

 

Lily: Yeah. I thought that was the most interesting part by far, because I was like, humans will like if it’s one on one, someone will, like still be violent. Like and that’s a 50% chance. But there’s still like there must be such a strong desire there which I think will be cool to look at further into. But looking at bonobos, bonobos are very interesting because they’re equally related to humans. They do build groups to defend territory, but they’re actually quite peaceful, and they have no intergroup killings, and they are seen to have peaceful interactions with outside groups. And chimps don’t have that. But bonobos will have like peaceful interactions with other groups of bonobos. So I find that interesting and like the comparison to humanity. 

 

Anna: So I can definitely see between both chimpanzees and bonobos where human traits come from. And I think there’s a lot of similarities there, especially when it comes to bonobos and their ability to have peaceful interactions with outside groups. That’s definitely the thing that humans are capable of. And, you know, we talk all the time to people in quote unquote outgroups or who identify differently from us, and it doesn’t end in conflict. But we also do have this kind of I don’t want to call it a neat, because I think that comes with, you know, there’s, contingencies that come with that word. But, you know, we do have a desire to defend our territory, whether that’s our social territory or our physical territory. A lot of, I think modern human conflict and especially war, is about either defending your home territory or expanding your territory abroad. So that was really interesting. But also, we do as humans have intergroup violence. That’s the difference between us and bonobos. People are not afraid to engage in conflict with people who they identify with and who they maybe spend a lot of time with or who they are in community with. And I think that’s a really central part of being human almost, is like our ability to conflict with people but also resolve those conflicts, hopefully peacefully. So that’s really interesting. 

 

Lily: Yeah. I just think it’s so cool to compare humans to both bonobos and chimpanzees, because we kind of share similarities with both of them. But now it’s time to look at humans specifically, and a lot of research that has gone into human evolution and war in conflict is through archeology. So archeological anthropology is a really big field. And one of the big questions that is looked at is, is war deep or shallow in human history? And this goes back to hunter gatherers looking at our origins and where we always violent. Or was this something that was more of a modern cultural evolution and there were higher rates of death in contemporary societies, but there’s more variety and there’s a lot of nuance in archeological findings, especially varying and damages to bones with weapons. And they have some very specific examples of archeological findings that I think are very interesting to look at. So the first example we have is Lake Turkana. This was 10,000 years ago. And ten out of 12 bodies of partially preserved bodies. So there’s evidence of violence and brute force from tools. But the interesting part is that the tools were found from different areas, assuming that these are different groups and the conflict that happened was inter-group. And then looking at another example is the prehistoric California example, where they had a sample of 6000 burials in 7% had signs of violence. And there’s a lack of resources that make it kind of hard to measure the exact rates of violence, but it’s just showing that through different areas of the world, there is evidence of brute force or violence of weapons on these bones found. And the one that I find most interesting is the case study of Australia, where Hunter gatherers were living there for a long time before European colonization, and there was no farming or livestock before Europeans arrived. So there was a lot of lethal intergroup conflict constant prior to colonization, and there were no peaceful relations between larger groups. And most of the hostility was between ethno linguistic groups, which I find very interesting, because that also turns to like linguistic anthropology and how there might be more conflict within groups that might not understand each other. And then the most common style of violence is raid or surprise or ambush. And what I think is interesting about all of these hunter gatherer examples is they looked at the battles of how hunter gatherers chose violence, and it would happen in two similar sized groups shooting weapons at each other and the most interesting part is that it would usually stop after there were only 1 or 2 casualties. 

 

Anna: Yeah. That’s really interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Yeah. Because I feel like now a lot of what worries about is who can get the most casualties, who can get the most territory. It’s not about necessarily resolving a conflict, but it’s about escalating a conflict almost. I think what’s really interesting about that is that, that they would stop after 1 or 2 casualties. That’s not something that we see, I feel like, in modern human warfare, it’s a lot about escalating the violence, a lot about, you know, there’s an initial breach of the relationship or an initial conflict, something that sparks, a war or conflict, and then it only escalates from there. And war is kind of the means of escalation and the, you know, maybe presumed ends is conflict resolution. But in between the beginning and the end, there’s a lot of violence and a lot of, you know, casualties and death. And it’s about who can gain the most territory and that kind of thing. So it’s really interesting that our ancestors would just, you know, they would say, okay, we’ve inflicted enough harm. One person has been hurt or killed and that’s it. So I think there’s a lot of interesting, you know, social progression that’s happened between then and now. So that’s really interesting. 

 

Lily: Yeah. I think what’s really cool is that when looking at conflict, especially in hunter gatherers, this is like small clans of people that all know each other. It’s a lot more personal when you’re having a battle and you see someone that, you know, fall. And what’s interesting is in these groups, they’re less organized. There’s no formal leadership, and people choose to fight. They’re not recruited. So imagine, like your whole neighborhood, you all known each other forever, and then you go to fight and then your best friend falls. You’re going to stop the fight because it’s more personal. But I think nowadays with war, it’s gotten to such a high scale that it’s less humanized, where people are taught to not see the other people as human. And there’s a lot of times where you’re fighting strangers and there is leadership and there is pressure and a lot of times you might not have the choice to fight. You were drafted or you were put into it in a situation that you needed something like money or college. And I just think that’s really interesting because taking it from a, like bigger look and then looking at smaller hunter gatherer battles and how they would stop after 1 or 2 casualties, kind of. It’s just really interesting to see that maybe war could look different, but it doesn’t have to look the way it does. 

 

Anna: Yeah, I think especially now with like the technological advances of modern warfare. Is that so little of actual battle is happening where you can even see the other person’s face. You know, it’s like drone strikes, it’s air raids, it’s bombing, it’s long range machine guns. There’s not a lot of like, person to person conflict in that way. And so I think you’re right, is when you can, when you are faced with the immediate effects of your violence, it makes it so much more real. And you were able to connect to it on a much more like emotional level. But when you’re so far separated from it, there’s, you know, you’re able to have that sort of cognitive dissonance where and when you’re backed by like the nation state and you there’s not just this one on one person conflict that’s happening. It’s like you’re part of a larger society of a larger entity where your actions are not just your actions, but they’re symbolic of somebody else’s wants or desires. So it’s really like, really complicates our emotional relationship as humans to the harm that we’re causing. So that’s really interesting. 

 

Lily: Exactly. I’ve always been so fascinated with the psychology of conflict, and I actually took a class on that. It was like we read this book, The Age of Empathy, and it was all about human psychology and why we have conflict and how we can have peace. And I think everything you said was so valid. And some overall findings that I wanted to wrap back around is that in comparison to all the ancestors that we looked at in humans now to kind of like wrap it all together, it’s interesting that humans show peace intergroup with like interracial marriage and trade, and it’s so common in especially more modern history where like, just like there’s so much intergroup peace that bonobos have but chimpanzees don’t. And I think that’s interesting. And that farmers actually had 2 to 4 times higher death rates than hunter gatherers, which is interesting because we talked about hunter gatherers and how they would stop after like 1 or 2 casualties. But then all of a sudden, now that farming is introduced and livestock, that violence almost increases, because maybe there’s bigger clans, there’s bigger groups of people, maybe it’s less personal, or maybe they’re more removed from the front lines, kind of. And almost as we talk about like today, like modern countries and like almost the bigger the group that you get, your bigger kin group, the more violence happens, because there’s almost there’s less of a connection to the direct violence that is occurring. And I think what’s really interesting is that human conflict is a lot more risky than chimp conflict, like humans. We talked about that, like humans will be violent even if they are not going to be severely outnumber the enemy. A lot of times it’s equal if not equal, and they will still go after it. And we talked a lot about how there’s more technology, there’s more weapons, there’s more strategies. So it’s just a lot more complex than just defending territory to have reproduction. It’s come a lot more than that because of also cultural like evolution as well. And I think it’s really cool to look at some hypotheses and theories that I found on like war and like why it happens and why people will go to war. And we have the risk contract theory. And in order for men to willingly participate in warfare, they have to be rewarded with, they have to be rewarded for the risks that they take. So there has to be some sort of really big incentive. And usually this happens when non-participants are punished. So it’s either you’re rewarded or you’re punished. And in this case scenario, the risk contract theory, there’s more risk to not going to war than going to war because you could be punished, you could not have resources. You could have a lower status in society. And I think that’s interesting because sometimes it’s not that people want to fight or go to war, but it’s almost like they’re escaping something else. And that just seems like an easier option. 

 

Anna: Yeah. Have you ever read the book, The Things They Carried by, Tim O’Brien? We had to read it in high school.

 

Lily: Yes, I did, but I don’t remember too much. 

 

Anna: Yeah, but there’s this really poignant scene, about the main character who has been drafted to Vietnam, and he is basically deciding whether or not he’s going to go. He’s having a really, like, morally internal struggle about he’s anti-war and he doesn’t believe in violence, but also he feels like what is the alternative? It’s because if you have to either flee the draft or you’re going to get arrested. And he’s on the border between America and Canada on like a river crossing. And in the story, he says that he looks across the river and he sees everybody that he’s ever known and everybody who lives in his town in, like, small rural America. And he sees the Labor Day parade and the 4th of July fireworks and everybody, you know, dressed in red, white and blue. And he said, I was a coward. I went to war. And basically because he couldn’t withstand the social ostracization that would happen if he didn’t, agree to go. And if he had followed his own personal morals and his own desires, he wouldn’t have gone, and the whole book is kind of, you know, the result of that decision. So that’s a really interesting thing. And like, seeing the connections there between anthropological theory and modern media is interesting. 

 

Lily: Yeah. And what’s so cool is that also goes back to the group evolution theory, where groups need to be together to survive, to share resources and to reproduce and to defend against predators. So if you were to go against the group, you’re putting your survival at risk. And maybe in modern day, survival is not food or water on the table, but it’s social status. It’s opportunities. It’s safety for your family. I just think that’s so interesting. And seeing it in modern literature is just it gives it more of like a story and like a human connection that you can like, really connect with. Another theory that is really interesting is the male warrior hypothesis. And this is they compared men and women. And what was really interesting is that men were more discriminatory against outside groups and more accepting of inner groups, and it was interesting. They also showed higher ethnocentrism. And that can go back to like evolutionary reasons for like reproduction, where like men have to like think about themselves when they’re reproducing because that’s how they like, carry on. And it’s more it’s interesting because when looking at women, there’s less conflict in between groups, but there’s more conflict in groups. And then for men, it’s the opposite. So when it comes to war, it’s a lot of like a lot of camaraderie within groups. And then when it’s the another group, it’s a lot of conflict. And this is based on like psychological theory. This isn’t fact, but it’s an interesting theory to think about, especially when it comes to conflict, because I know, at least in like a modern context, like as a woman who, if I see like random girls out in the street, there’s always that feeling of connection of like, there’s not a lot of conflict between groups of women, but in a group of women, there seems to be a lot of conflict, because that’s just kind of how it arises. But whenever I see male friend groups, they will kind of like fight random guys at the bar. But then when it comes to like their inner group of boys, they’re like, they’re so close and they’ll stick together for years. So I think that’s interesting to connect. 

 

Anna: That is really interesting. It also makes me think about when you talk about women having intergroup conflict or like intra group conflict, where you maybe have conflict with people who you are close with. I think that that really speaks to, my own experience, but also a capacity of I don’t and I don’t want to, you know, say men aren’t capable of this, but like a capacity of women to have conflict with people but also resolve that conflict and then be able to, like, build the bond based on the resolution of that conflict. And I think it requires a certain amount of like, emotional intelligence and relationship, dynamic, like understanding the dynamics of a relationship and like weighing the benefit versus the detriment to yourself into the group of maintaining peace. So I think that’s really interesting because I, I personally, I’m not a super conflict oriented person, but I feel much more comfortable bringing up grievances with people who I’m super close with, where I know that, like, if I bring up to my best friend something that’s really bothering me or something that I notice that maybe seems out of line with, like how I think of our relationship, I’m much more willing to bring it up to her. And whereas if that were to be me in public, I would almost never go up to a stranger and be like, I think that your behavior was out of line, you know what I mean? But men are so much more willing to do that. So

 

Lily: Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I think it’s interesting because historically, historically, war has been led by men and fought by men. And it’s interesting to see how war,  if ever, would look as if women were leading it or if women were in the people that were having that violence, because also you can look at the evolutionary reproductive theories, but you can also look at cultural differences and societal norms and how that all connects. And I think what’s really important when talking about evolutionary theories and just the way we look at humans, is the idea of just so stories where people that are making these theories, their bias and their cultural terms, and the way we think about things, and we have to look at things very critically and that nothing is just fact. And I think what’s very interesting about this evolution is to look at different cultures and see how they have looked at conflict, because we’re looking at it through our cultural lens. And I think that kind of looks into other cultural examples where I remember thinking about learning about ancient civilizations. I was really fascinated by the differences in war and conflict with ancient Greece, for example, learning about the Spartans. They were very, very tough and very conflict driven. They would train young boys from the age of seven to get ripped away from a childhood and trained in academies to be soldiers, and that was kind of the status and everything in life. And they valued strength and endurance and solidarity. And it was so intense that even infants that were not deemed physically fit to be soldiers were sometimes just be like, left on the side of a mountain. And it’s crazy to think about now. But in that culture, that was just what was valued for those for that just group of people. But another example would be like ancient China, which is completely different. Well, it’s not completely different, but based on a different cultural group of values. There it was a lot more based on you had to defend your stuff or else someone else would hurt you. It wasn’t like you have to be a warrior. It was kind of like you just got to defend your stuff. Because possessions were often taken and houses were destroyed. And if you weren’t defending yourself, then you weren’t going to survive. But Confucian philosophy is a really big thing in the East, where it’s a lot more it’s a lot more important to think about other matters of life rather than defending your territory or like, conflict or pride or money. It just, it there’s a lot more importance on other matters of life. So it’s just interesting to look at the differences, because war was not glorified in ancient China at all, really, but in ancient Greece it was like the center. 

 

Anna: Yeah. I think that those are really interesting comparisons. And yeah, it is important to put the caveat in there that, obviously all of our side stories are also just, our own personal experiences and or not, empirical fact or theory, but, to pull back and look at the big picture, I think that, there’s the concept of evolution of psychological traits due to group selection for heroism and bravery. And that’s obviously present in the story of ancient Greece with the Spartans, where it was, war was very heralded as like a manly thing to do or an important thing to do. And so to not participate in that might mean that you were not that you didn’t get to go on basically either that you died or that you weren’t able to reproduce or find a mate. But also that there are cultural motives. So people who have the traits that are desirable and are more conflict driven or oriented have higher reproductive success, and they are passing down their traits to the next generation. And this is what leads to natural selection in Darwin’s theory. 

 

Lily: Yeah. And I love that and to kind of jump on to that too. Another main thing that I learned from that psychology class about conflict and peace was that just because a phenomenon is quote unquote natural or biological does not make it good, justifiable or inevitable. And I think it’s important when looking at evolutionary theories in biology, in archeology, it’s that we can’t just look at things as like facts and like, oh, because this happened, this is how things should be because we’re humans and we have a higher cognitive ability now, and we’re able to critique ourselves and grow as a culture. And I think that’s so fascinating because when it looks at war, it doesn’t have to be an inevitable thing. It doesn’t have to be something that should happen because we’re wired to or it should happen because we’re culturally should. I think as humans, we’re able to have like agency and like kind of create a future that we think is just. And I also think to kind of add on to that, this concept of the zone of peace, they talked about this at the end of a really long article, and it was all about how the job of a society or country is to rid violence and push war to the borders of that country. So that’s why I think we see a lot of proxy wars and a lot of really big, like far off wars, but in like neighborhoods, you don’t see as much like wars and like smaller scales because that zone of peace has been pushed away. And that kind of looks at like the alliances and like United Nations and how there’s a lot more alliances within countries, especially after World War two, when a lot of countries agreed that they didn’t want to have as much violence. But I think that idea of like, how can we push the zone of peace to the whole world? Like, how can we push it so that the whole planet has this agreement to not have violence with each other? 

 

Anna: Like, how can we find global solidarity? That’s a really interesting point. And I think that leads into just a couple of, final points that we had about, the modern motives for war, and why that zone of peace, you know, in an age of such, increased communication where we’re able to have direct interaction with people anywhere on the planet, why still war is ongoing and why, again, it’s like it’s become a much more removed thing, especially for us. It that’s easy for us to say in America. But there’s a theory, and a culturally anthropological theory, about small wars or low intensity conflict. And that’s what many modern wars have been termed, which means that they don’t involve formal fighting between two or more nation states, but they’re characterized by at least one side is a non-governmental guerrilla group, and they engage in nontraditional warfare. And so, a culturally poignant example of this would be the Vietnam War or the American War in Vietnam, which was long and came with a very high casualty rate, especially a high civilian casualty rate. But it was still categorized as one of these small wars, because the official combatants were the South Vietnamese government, aided by the U.S., of course, and the northern Viet Minh forces. But neither were like huge official nation states. And it was more of a civil war than anything within the borders of Vietnam. But that leads into what you’re saying about proxy wars, because Vietnam was also, of course, a proxy war, where at least one combatant is backed by a nation state, in order to serve their own political goals. So the South was backed by America, the North was backed by the USSR and Communist China. And ultimately these wars were part of a larger economic and social conflicts between communism or socialism and capitalism. But, I think since then and since sort of people call World War II who, you know, like the great the, the just war, World War II, was, just for war to end the war, to end all wars, because it was we were fighting against, fascism and Nazi ism, and liberating, you know, the Jews of Eastern Europe, which is true. But I think that since then, modern warfare almost always comes back to money. Because we live, you know, in, like a hyper globalized society, late stage capitalism. Shout out. But like when you look at the modern wars of the 21st century, it’s, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, it’s like the reason why the US specifically has become instigators in these conflicts is because they’re interested in oil and in money. And in defending their economic interests in the region and not necessarily, you know, our we’re not directly, you know, our bodies and our citizens and our borders are not necessarily threatened, but our economic interests are threatened. And what that means for conflict, especially in an age when it is so easy, even if you are a direct combatant, to be emotionally removed from it, like we talked about earlier. 

 

Lily: Exactly. That’s just, I think, bringing it to a modern context just kind of wraps everything together, because looking at the history of war and all the theories and then like the cultural differences and then looking at just the modern examples, it really just shows like just the psychology of war and the motives behind it and how it’s a lot more nuanced than just one answer. And I think I don’t know if there ever will be an answer, but it’s just it’s nice to have these conversations to talk about and reflect on how we can improve and how we can have more peaceful situations and try to avoid conflict in modern society. 

 

Anna: Yeah, I think that’s a great point to end on. Thank you so much for listening and for this conversation I had a great time. 

 

Lily: Yeah. Me too. And thank you all for tuning in for our show today. Another thanks to our team members and our collaborators with Anthro Hub, especially our tech crew. To stay connected. You can find us on Instagram at Anthro.mp3. You can also find our sources, transcripts in each episode and more in our Anthro hub show notes. I was one of your hosts today, Lily, joined by our host Anna and our tech crew. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to stay tuned and keep an eye out on our Instagram for future updates on shows, specials, and events. Catch us next time and have a great day friends! 

Anna: Bye!

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