James Madison On Conflict

We're never going to learn because with each birth, with each new generation, the clock is reset. Everyone is born with a fight or flight instinct. An individual can learn over the course of a lifetime to gain conscious understanding and control over it, but no one starts off in that position. And, as that takes work to achieve, too few have the time or inclination to put in that work for it to become normative.

It's not necessarily a bad thing; that instinct served us well, ensuring our survival to become the apex species on the planet. It became problematic when threats to our survival turned from immediate and real (being attacked by saber-toothed tigers in our early evolution, for example) to abstract and potential, existential and beyond our control, or even imaginary.

Add to that the fact that too few live the type of life where the instinct serves a useful purpose anymore. Compared to our ancient ancestors for whom survival was a daily struggle, we're collectively far safer and more comfortable than they ever were. We're a species that evolved under conditions that led to us becoming high-strung, anxiety-filled, seeing-threats-lurking-in-every-shadow, evil, hairless monkeys; we are hard-wired to EXPECT constant threats to our survival because at one point there actually were. When they no longer materialize because we've conquered every threat of the natural world that used to exist, we become anxious, restless, unsettled, ill at ease.

So what do we do? We start manufacturing perceived threats where none exist because it's easier for us to deal with what we believe to be a threat than to deal with the uncomfortable emotions engendered by our comparative safety in the modern era. And so we create boogeymen to give our need to find a threat room to breathe. Those among us attuned to this situation (politicians, for example) then exploit it to their own benefit through divide and conquer techniques of demonizing the "other", the "different", creating strife where none need exist.

We're a case study of a survival instinct that's too good, too efficient. Consequently, the only thing that is a real threat to us anymore (at a personal level, I'm not including things like planetary extinction level events) is ourselves.