Of course, violence is a kind of culture that comes from a personality disorder often ...

Dear Sir

I do not believe that violence is related to culture, many conflicts can bring war including resources and religious conflicts.

Henry Nyaosi

Dear Henry:

Can you please elaborate with a short paper or at least some good examples?

War could be expained by coflict between groups. To survive, groups need the cohesion provided by group solidarity, but the very same in-group cohesion generates the potential for conflict with other groups. Today the most important groups in international politics are states and the most important source of in-group cohesion is nationalism. If there is area where only one group dominates, there is no that high risk of conflict, if the in-group cohesion is on healthy level. If there are two or more groups (the source of cohesion could be nationalism, religion, ethnicity etc.) the risk of conflict is rising.

i think violence is in human nature.only humans are destroying the Planet.peace- communities ,in my opinion,are groups of high conscious people,who found each other.globally people are violent to such extent that our civiluzation moves to self destruction,in my opinion.great digitalization,drones,non- live communication make future generation even less concsious - they live in gaming world,where also violence is the core of that business.

Much of the violence is under the microscope of culture

In our capitalist world, the most basic source of conflict - one form of which is war - is exploitation and the alienation and misery it causes. To prevent the exploited from uniting against the exploiters, the latter foment competition between individuals, between groups, between nations, between races, between ethnicities, between genders, between young and old, and so on.

Re: Mareček's answer: some group cohesion grows out of common interests, some is cultivated in ways that pit group against group for the above reasons. Capitalist "common interests", besides exploitation and social control, usually derive from obtaining or maintaining control over populations and what they view as resources useful for those activities (land, energy, raw materials). With the nation state being a prime capitalist method of organizing both populations and competition, international conflict has been an integral part of that history. The organization of competition within nation states includes the cultivation of nationalism - including virulent forms such as nativism and xenophobia which prepares exploited populations to provide cannon fodder for capitalist wars. Only by resisting such pressures and finding common interests do communities find peace and resist being played like game pieces.

Re: Bajalski's answer: it has only been in societies based on exploitation - such as our present capitalist one - that humans destroy nature. Except for physical and mental limitations (no wings, no telepathy) there is no such thing as an eternal "human nature". It is rather shaped, at any point in history, by all the social forces at work. The gaming world of which he speaks is cultivated by capitalists as one more way to pit people against each other so they can all be controlled, and the planet ravaged without hindrance. But they ARE hindered because many people and communities HAVE found common interests - including the preservation of the planet and have mobilized against its destruction - as was just demonstrated by the millions and millions who just marched in the streets all over the world.

nowadays is modern digital feudalism.

On peut bien sûr qualifier la violence de "cultural issue" mais cela ne suffit pas à expliquer un phénomène dont les sources sont multifactorielles.

العنف لا يمكن ان يكون ثقافة ولكن هو دائما يكون ناتج عن ردات فعل نتيجة ضغط او عنف او تسلط مورس ضد اشخاص او ضد مجتمع فولد عندهم هذا العنف

If violence was cultural Europe and America's would still be fighting wars since more thank 100 million people have died in these regions. Many people don't realize that more than 30,000 Americans die each year from gun violence that is more than many countries in conflict. Violence is systemic, well designed and comes in different forms - it's largely due to marginalization and subsequent poverty, unresolved historical grievances, greed for power, cultural-ethnic-political-social differences

I found very interesting your approach, as peaceful situations and communities must to be studied in order to found variables that make the difference. However, I would suggest to avoid unidimensional approaches, by this I mean that cultural variables must have a great influence, but not necessarily is the only one. In that sense it would be interesting to explore and collect evidence of cultural variables that influence in non violent behavior, using a systemic methodology.

María Emilia Lleras

Dear Maria:

Humans are not Math Variables; there are NO equations that describe complex systems like human societies OR even single human beings. Physics makes ideal models that can be solved by linear math; the rest is rhetoric.

You illustrate the brainwashing that the Math Gang has succeeded in convincing so many people that their simplistic thinking has some relevance to reality.

IMHO, the massive violence, genocide, and wars occur in non-democratic (sometimes in democratic but racist) states. It is not about culture or so-called "clash of civilizations", but about the economy and politics. There are many peaceful states in Asia, including the Middle East, and Africa. Meanwhile, some East European countries have known ethnic wars, ethnic cleansings, terrible atrocities, similar to Nazi Germany, in spite of rich European culture.

Herb Spencer I do not understand how do you relate my calling for a systemic approach to a math or physics simplistic model. It may have something to do with english not being my first language, but I think you missed my point, or may be you disagree with the systemic approach and systemic thinking. Anyhow, I stand on my idea that culture is a structural element that has a relation with violence, but violence cannot be reduce to a one way cultural correlation. A violent culture can be the result of previous violence, or may be a vicious cycle, which cannot be isolated anyhow of other phenomena. Bottomline, what I wanted to say is that you have to study case by case, because violence is not homogeneous, therefore, cannot be explained from an unidimensional point of view.

María Emilia Lleras

Dear Maria:

I have been dedicated to systems thinking for 50 years and gave 20 years of my life to math. Thus, my experience says that math rarely describes reality adequately well enough and almost NEVER where EQUATIONS can be used .

Hell, NO. Physics math cannot even describe the two electron helium atom except at the level of long-term, statistical energy averages.

However, I do acknowledge toe Power of Culture over people's thinking but culture has HUGE inertia so, sadly, it takes a long time to make small changes.

I believe there are several perspectives that need to be fa tored in. Burn me once, shame on you- but burn me twice, shame on me. Nations or cultures that have been attacked may determine that being attacked twice is shame on them, and therefore they may adapt to a culture to respond and defend their beliefs.

And then on the opposite, are the aggressive cultures that believe in offensive attacks to obtain power, resources, etc.

I imagine that if we travel back in time, what we would find would be cavemen and cavemen who get tired of having their meals taken, tired of getting hit on the head with a club, and tired of some idiot taking control. As a result, the more a power tries to limit liberties and freedoms, the more likely the people may build a resentment. Whether that turns to violence or not depends on the level of frustration and the level of control exerted.

China, a "peaceful" culture is showing signs of being a tinder box with Hong Kong. How much of that is organic and how much is from outsiders trying to disrupt other's culture is unknown.

What is known is that babies typically do not create wars or violence, but "older babies" when feeling oppressed, or when feeling over powerful, seem to cause lots of problems.

Automated robotic droids, programmed by biased programmers dont offer a hope that makes robots seem any less violent...

Alas, I have no answer, but I do believe that there are differences in types of aggression... reactionary and offensive. Much may be determined by historical context of the culture.

Culture violence as well is a tradition and experience and then usually be ...

Herb Spencer Again, I am not talking of system but systemic (as in a systemic approach). My argument has nothing to do with maths or equations, but how people and institutions interact, and how culture is just one element of such interaction. As stated above by many, social, economic, political issues also have a role in the behaviour of a pacific society, thus, such variables/elements have to be studied when asking why. In Colombia, and Latin America, there are several years of studies about violence that can be useful to this topic.

María Emilia Lleras

Dear Maria:

I did math for 20 years (up to theoretical physics) and believe me, I am very skeptical about the ability of math to describe even physical reality and certainly not people. However, I used my 50 years of systems experience in the analysis of politics. The first half describes the cultural revolution that led to our Culture Of War that we are still stuck in; check it out. I am 100% in favour of Peace.

Culture of violence may be a fashion sometimes to show off ...

Culture of violence may be a fashion sometimes to show off ...

I suppose it would depend on what your definition of violence is. For example, in some cultures, raping your wife is condoned. In other even more remote cultures such as the Mingi, killing a child who is born with an abnormality is normal. The Mingi also murder children or adults if they fall and break a tooth.

Reference link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingi