If the West left the Middle East, page-9

I think the first real common denominator here is the flaw in people themselves, predominantly men.

Once we have been removed from the purely natural state, the wild savannah or the cave, when we lived more like any other animal rather than what we now recognise as human, the greatest danger most likely being other men, we then in this age came up with lots of wonderful ploys to still act out this ancient self, the ghost in the machine, the primitive, tribal, violent self.

All peoples seems to have had in their history, cannibalism, tribal conflict, rape and pillage. Religion and politics, sport, board games, cards, ethnicity, etc, seems to represent this same inherent fear and conflict and primitive instinct simply in a stylised form.

If we were not using religion to destroy each other then some other devise may have even greater destructive consequences. We have only been historically modern for such a very short time. Perhaps not even 1% of our existence has been lived under anything that could be considered rudimentary law and order.

We are modern only in relative terms, hardly having left the starting blocks. Give us another 1,000 years or so and we will have resolved much of our progress towards domestication and coexistence.