Is Human Nature Inherently Violent?

Humans are thought to be violent by nature and not by the society that they are raised in. In my opinion, I do not think that we are violent by nature; I think that humans act violently due to the different environments that they grow up in, the people they are raised by, and the media that our society broadcasts to not only the youth, but the entire world. In my personal experiences I have been raised in a very welcoming home, surrounded by a loving family, but the media has definitely affected some of the ways I have thought about violence, especially when I was younger.

Where a person is raised really affects who they are going to become, and their views on violence based on the experiences that they have in that particular environment. In the article it states, "Many hunter-gatherer societies in particular are entirely peaceful. And the cultures that are "closer to nature" would be expected to be the most war-like if the proclivity for war were really part of that nature. Just the reverse seems to be true."(Human Nature Isn't Inherently Violent; page 16). I found this quote to bring up an interesting point because often when you think of people living out with nature, our minds often associate that with warriors because they are always out hunting for food, when they are actually more peacful than anything else. If a person is raised in the city, or a place where there is gang violence, gun shots, fighting, or even in a family where there is abuse either physical or vebal can really affect the mentality of an individual being raised in this type of environment. If you are raised in a place where all of this violence is present, you may be raised to think that it is just in the genes of humans to be naturally aggressive, or maybe you don't appreciate the violence and want to stop it. I think that more often than not, if you are raised in a culture of violence then your brain is "trained" to think that it is only human for us to act in such an aggressive manner.

Family and friends play a crucial role in our lives, whether they are acting as role models or parents. The people you are raised around really affects the outlook you have on human violence. In the Seville Statement it states, "How we act is shaped by how we have been conditioned and socialized. There is nothing in our neurophysiology that compels us to react violently."(page 2). In this quote it is saying that humans are shaped by the ways they are conditioned when they are raised, and that there is nothing in our head that gives us the urge to act violently. I feel that if you are raised in a very abusive family you may just learn from what you observe from a young age. I think that if you are raised in a loving and open family, that you are given more opportunity to form your own opinions on human violence. In my own experiences I feel that growing up in a very loving home gave me the chance to realize the violence and conflict does happen, but even then I never realized the base of the actions.

Media seems to play the biggest factor in our culture that influences our understanding of human violence. When we are constanty surrounded by thoughts of war, movies about fighting, games and toy that relate to guns, and it ALL a NORM in our society. I think that growing up in this culture where this is all accepted, that us as humans think that violence is OKAY because its what all the other kids are doing.

Humans being thought of as "violent by nature", is in my opinion caused by three factors; the environments that we are raised in, the people we are surrounded by, and the media that our society broadcasts to us starting at such young ages. I feel that all of these points play a huge role in why we thihk that we are violent by nature, when in fact we are not.