Pitted against each other since the beginning

It takes no genius to see that conflict has plagued the earth since the beginning of time. Whether our primate ancestors were brawling over territory or killing for survival, the tendency to win with conflict has evolved since the hunter-gatherer period. Today, psychologists puzzle solutions to the everyday conflicts between individuals, raising the question: how do we solve something that’s rooted in our instinct for survival?

Open any history textbook and it won’t take you long to come to the conclusion that humans are always waging wars against a deemed ‘other’ group of people. Depending on if the wars take place on an intercontinental scale or a family’s disagreement with one another, one common theme seems to be that humans can’t exist peacefully together. According to Doctor Steve Taylor, a writer at psychology today, the reason that humans wage war is because of our selfish DNA that demands to be replicated. Therefore, it is only natural for humans to battle with other groups for resources because it concerns their survival. 

War: a type of conflict only 10,000 years old, has more social functions than just widespread conflict. The mentality of the “war effort” often brings a sense of unity to a group of people in the face of adversity. Warfare can bring the most concentrated versions of a person to the forefront. Although war may have some positive effects, it really boils down to the mind of the person who initiated the conflict. 

“When you look at wars that are started by an individual in a place of power, the term narcissist comes to mind because they have a fragility with their sense of self. Oftentimes, a big component of conflict is the person who’s perpetuating it,” Doctor Kristin Emanuel, a local psychologist commented.

Humans tend to stick together in groups to preserve the feeling of safety, identity, and shared success. This, however, fosters an ‘other’ mentality in groups outside of our own, furthermore instigating the root of the conflict. The other mentality can be seen in most conflicts involving cultural and religious differences. Dangerous and consequential, this mentality allows us to dehumanize people in the other category, in turn, justifying heinous acts of genocide, racism, sexism, and more. 

“We see ourselves get completely angered against the deemed ‘other’ group of people but never someone in our own group. We will lash out at the other and devalue what they have to say,”

continued Dr. Emanuel.

While conflict doesn’t often times end in death, humans derive instincts from our moody ancestors. A recent study done by researcher José Maria Gómez, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Granada, found that violence is more common in animals that defend their territories and live in packs, such as wolves and chimpanzees. According to statistics, your species is more likely to be aggressive the more violent your close ancestors are. Later in the study, the researchers found that the rate of human violence went up drastically when we transitioned from hunter-gatherer societies to having individual leaders, and disagreement started increasing killing tendencies.

Although conflict will always affect our evolutionized species, there is still enough good in the world to outweigh the bad. In the foregone conclusion, we are a by-product of what we are taught to believe in ourselves and others. As long as we find a way to serve the purpose of a common good, we’ll only improve from our turbulent past.