Quote Originally Posted by thir View Post
If you cannot see the difference between examples being representative for the whole group or not, then there is nothing more I can say.

Blinks...I believe I was sayng that one uses examples for the sake of expediency becuase they were representitive of what one's overall findings were. Why continously try to take what Im saying out of context and spin it thir?
A discussion of whether the chosen tribes in the first graf - which everything is based on - are representative or not is hardly to take it out of context! It is a most factual criticism of the validity of his starting point.

Would you like to discuss this point? Because that is what I have been trying to do for quite a while now.

t
The reason I feel strongly about is, I guess, that I fear that the idea of less violent and more 'civilised' societies coming about automatically is not true,
D
(yet a statistical analysis of history sugests otherwise, though no one said anything at all about anything being "automatic")
So, do you believe it is automatic or not? I am in doubt here.

t but that such an idea will stop people working for peace and tolerance.
d I hardely see why coming to a better understanding of human behavior in large group settings should do that.
As I have read you, it goes like this: when times get worse, violence gets worse, when times get better, violence goes down. Is that correct?

I do not believe that such comes by itself. I think it has been courageous, compassionate and clear thinking people who have dared work for their ideals in the face of bad odds, often putting their lives in danger because of it.
You seem to be having dificulty seperating romatic ideals from clinical observations conserning group behavior models
Ok, let's here more about that. I have studied some about group psychology in earlier days, and I would be interested to hear about how it pertains to increasing and decreasing of violence through the ages.

while completely misinterpeting anything I say about the subject.
If so, it is unententional.

I mentioned at no time what so ever anything about individual human efforts being diminished. Nor did I even remoely suggest that they were unnessesary. Quite the contrary by definition in fact, since groups are composed of "individuals" and considering how human group behaviors are modeled on dominance hierarchies...some individual behaviors become all the more important in influencing the group.
This is getting really interesting. As earlier requested,can we hear more about that?

That kind of out non-contextual thinking reminds me of how some people were so threatened by the idea of the earth going around the sun in the middle ages.