Is It Destiny or Reason?

"Are human societies destined to commit collective acts of violence?"


Destiny, requires the belief in a greater purpose. Greater purposes require organized plans. Purposes and plans require decision making, and thus we have a connection to the Judeo-Christian interpretation of an all-powerful “God”. Anthropology is a science, and there is no scientific method of proving or disproving the concept of destiny. One can gather all of the examples in the world to prove it, it is impossible to test and quantify any type of results that would support the belief – for who is to say what is intended and what is not. Humans are not destined to commit collective acts of violence. Nor are the destined to be altruistic and kind. Human societies “are that they are” and their violent and altruistic acts alike have reasons and triggers. We are led to the question of what are the explanations of violence. Why do human beings commit such collectively violent atrocities such as genocide, and greed-induced destruction of their natural habitat?
A horrifying example of collective acts of violence is genocide. Genocide involves great amount of people joining together in a common goal of murdering another group of people. I believe that it is one of the many mutant offspring of the establishment of the nation-state. In Thomas Eriksen’s book, Small Places, Large Issues, he states: “A successful nationalism implies, in most cases, an intrinsic connection between an ethnic ideology stressing shared descent”. What Eriksen is insinuates is that the nation-state requires homogeneity of ethnicity and culture in order to uphold the defined identity and shared ideology that it represents. Throughout history, many nation states were drawn across cultural boundaries. This is most clearly seen in the continent of Africa. In the nation of Rwanda, both the Hutus and the Tutsies, two different ethnic tribes, reside. Due two cultural tensions (caused by many other initial triggers from history), the nation could not settle peacefully with it’s homogenized identity, and in 1994, one of the most horrific genocides in human history broke out.
Environmental destruction is another act that involves the cooperation and desires of a large amount of people acting upon a common ideology, desire and supposed “need”. The destruction our earth is, and continues to be, a collective effort, and is product of industrialization and the “progress” of societies. In a case in Borneo, the Borneo Pulp and Paper Company want(s)ed the Sarawak’s land for inherent environmental destruction (through logging and agriculture) for their own economic gain. The Sarawak people are native to the island of Borneo, and have been inhabiting the land for many generations. The act of taking away and destroying land (consequently destroying the animal species and surrounding ecosystems about it) from one group of people, to serve the purpose of a large collective of people, is intrinsically violent.
The cases I’ve present cannot be proven that they were of destiny. They can, however, be shown to have been attributed to distinct and sequential reasons that triggered their occurrences. Human societies have collectively committed violent acts since the dawn of our time. We have also committed beautiful acts of love and selflessness. Whether these acts are of destiny or possibility, it cannot be said.