Margaret Mead Warfare Is Only An Invention Summary

The argument of Margaret Mead makes in her essay, Warfare Is Only an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity, is completely valid. She claims that warfare is learned and is as much of an invention as the justice system and that until a different behavior comes to replace war and make it unnecessary, humans will resort to warfare. She is not unhopeful that another invention will develop to replace war, explaining that propaganda against war and exposing the true impacts of violence will help to detract from its appeal.
Many argue that war is a natural human instinct that can be suppressed, but not annihilated; however if analyzing this question on the grounds of human biology, one would expect to see characteristics of warfare in many mammals. Only humans have seemed to adopt warfare as the primary way of resolving a conflict. In the Western world, we develop strategy and improve upon the weapons used to fight. We create institutions to study war. It is clear that …show more content…
Mead writes, “If a people have an idea of going to war and the idea that war is the way in which certain situations, defined within their society, are to be handled, they will sometimes go to war. If they are a mild and unaggressive people, like the Pueblo Indians, they may limit themselves to defensive warfare…” (Mead 2000, 21). Because war has been known to man for thousands of years and is the primary means of resolving conflict, it has become socially acceptable to go to war. The way in which humans choose to solve problems with one another is determined by the society they live in. War has become an acceptable way in which groups and states engage in problem-solving, no matter the intention. If war was frowned upon by humanity, or rather, those who are in powerful positions to start a war, then alternative methods of solving a disagreement would be primary and there would be no motivation to declare