6 - Avoiding Violence

Summary

Human-on-human violence is often perceived as a transcultural and transhistorical phenomenon. Hence most people assume that war and other forms of organised violence have always existed and have been present in all social orders throughout the world. However, both historical and anthropological research indicate that organised violence developed very late in human history (over the last 10,000 years or so) and that throughout history many social orders have shunned violence in many of its forms. Anthropological research has corroborated that there have been hundreds of societies with different levels of organisational complexity that have rarely experienced fighting and that have also devised elaborate ritualistic and other practices to avoid violence within and outside of one’s group. Hence in this chapter I explore why fighting is a historically specific practice that affects some societies much more than others. I also analyse why some individuals, small groups, and social organisations are less prone to fighting or actively opposed to violence than others. The chapter also zooms in on the structural contexts that hinder the development of ideological and organisational mechanisms that foster social pugnacity. I argue that the phenomenon of non-fighting operates according to similar sociological processes as those that make fighting possible – non-fighting, like fighting, does not come naturally but is a product of micro-interactional, organisational, and ideological work.