Co-operation is as 'natural' as war and competition, of course. It's up to us which option we take. Philip Wylie in Generation of Vipers pointed out that it cost about the same to make peace as it did to make war. It was just easier to slip into war. He suggested we stop taking easy options. I suppose that's what I believe, too. Vipers has been discredited because of its description of American sentimentality as 'momism'. I think he got a raw deal. He still has much to say that's relevant to modern America. I think Generation was published in 1942. Wylie, for those who don't know, wrote Gladiator, which inspired Superman and When Worlds Collide, as well as some good movies and other sf titles. Anarcho-pacifists (left-liberationists) believe with Kropotkin that it is as natural for animals to co-operate for the general good as it is for them to fight.
Few animals fight in earnest between themselves and their 'violence' is reserved for their natural predatory means of survival, which, of course, rarely involves eating their own kind.
Few animals fight in earnest between themselves and their 'violence' is reserved for their natural predatory means of survival, which, of course, rarely involves eating their own kind.
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