Human Consciousness and Peace: How the Perception of Man as a ‘Social Animal’ Inhibits the Manifestation of Conscious Peace

In an earlier contribution to IE Insights, “End of the Simulation: Human Consciousness and the Ukraine Crisis,” I have traced the origins of war to the first murder in human history (Abel’s death at the hand of his older brother, Cain) and inferred from the dialogue that followed between Cain and God that the former’s crime—which also happens to be man’s first act of war against his fellow man—was in effect a contrivance of the unconscious mind. In the wise words of Robert McNamara, Former US Secretary of Defense, “In a sense, nuclear war is irrational—all war is irrational. But being irrational doesn’t make it inconceivable,” (Herken 271). Just because an action is undertaken does not mean it is rational per se. 

Furthermore, in examining the evolutionary cycle of the war enterprise up to the point where its scope had dramatically expanded to qualify for the term ‘World War’; whilst having meticulously inspected the letter of the peace literature produced subsequent to each of the two World Wars; I have, though summarily, propounded that such peace was unconscious in nature.

“We have been living in a simulation of peace since the end of World War II – a hyper-reality, a simulacrum – and have not seen it for its alétheia (the unconcealedness of its truth). The vast majority of charters and treaties tend to enumerate measures to penalize and retaliate against aggression rather than focus on collective constructs and frameworks that transcend with peace into a state of perdurable actuality. In short, in our quest to eradicate any motive for war, we have simply created outlines of casus bellis.”

Simply put, the simulation of ‘unconscious peace’  rests, mainly, upon the pillar of retaliation. As a matter of fact, no order of words can better define it than the Reagan administration’s slogan in the 80’s, “Peace through strength.” But strength is variable; which makes the simulation of peace it instates (i.e. unconscious) unsustainable. The war in Ukraine is substantial evidence of that, regardless of who provoked it and who initiated it.

Proponents of this principle, “Peace through strength,” advocate that it speaks to human nature: that people with aggressive inclinations are strongly dissuaded from pursuing these tendencies if they anticipate that they may be overpowered; thereby, peace is attained. Admittedly, they are indisputably correct on that account. Nevertheless, such peace lasts till the perception of power dynamics shifts in favor of those inclined towards aggression—where prospective gains from aggression outweigh potential costs.

To be fair, from another standpoint, and under rare circumstances [emphasis added], aggression might manifest when one perceives their capability to launch an assault will somehow avert a much graver cost (i.e. undertake a preemptive attack) that they might have to incur were they to remain peaceful. 

 

The result is the same, either way; it is war, not peace.

 

For, what do we mean by strength? We surely don’t mean intellectual might, but material (i.e. physical) force. And, if strength is the predominant factor for our peace—which, ironically, happens to be the predominant factor for aggression too—how does that make our kind of peace any different from that of wild beasts?

About a year ago, I saw a documentary on National Geographic where a pack of dozen hyenas encircled a lion. They maneuvered for a considerable length of time in an attempt to deplete his energy and drive him into a state of fatigue. For even they get an instinctive sense of power dynamics and physical stamina. They tried to impair his mobility several times, so that he wouldn’t be able to fend them off, but failed. The narrator then said that it is estimated that it takes up to twenty hyenas to overpower a lion. After a while, a lioness came to the aid of that lion and the hyenas ran away. The bottom line is, even wild beasts escape fights that they can’t win.

Does that mean that those hyenas are peaceful creatures? Absolutely not! They simply followed their survival instinct. For what is peace? It is a disinclination to conflict. It has nothing to do with the possibility of winning conflicts; but rather stems from an utter disinclination towards their manifestation as a relational state of being, regardless of the outcome.

Predators (aka, wild beasts) of the animal kingdom have no interest in peace—they were built to instinctively prey on each other. But they also possess survival instincts. These might direct them at times to pursue suspension of hostilities only to come back with greater force to secure a kill. That is to say, crude strength alone determines whether or not there will be conflict amongst beasts. 

 

As for us, humans, true, we don’t instinctively prey on each other for sustenance (not to capitalize on human cannibalism, which by the way is well-documented, so that I wouldn’t be accused of exploiting anomalies and rarities); but, unfortunately, every form of peace we’ve had ever since Cain slew his brother Abel has been a mere suspension of hostilities, never a genuine and universal—not even consensual—disinclination to conflict [emphasis added]. Notwithstanding, we tend to flatter ourselves, time and again, with that groundless claim of having achieved genuine peace every time a war has concluded. And the reason for this is no mystery: it is because we conduct ourselves, wholly, as social animals.

And how could we not? We have been systematically inculcated with the concept of man as an animalis socialis (social animal) at schools, in public and political spheres, on television, and via every medium of communication for decades and across generations. 

 

In reference to my prior deduction in, End of the Simulation: Human Consciousness and the Ukraine Crisis, “That we can only achieve peace by eradicating from our collective mind all prospects of gains that war might yield in absolute terms,” I had the res cogitan (thinking thing) as the subject in mind not the social animal, to be honest. Therefore, I must confess that how to go about attaining peace is beyond me, at present. Nevertheless, what I do know, and am most certain of, is that we cannot proceed thither that end while continuing to surrender ourselves entirely to that condition—of being wholly social animals.

 

For the truth of the matter is this:

Before any war breaks out between blocs, nations, or any social order for that matter, it always begins in the mind of one or more social animal(s). I fully concur with Paul Kennedy, as he propounded in “The Parliament of Man”: “Since war begins in the minds of men, it was in that realm that important advances were required.” It is an impeccable observation, indeed; but, alas, such advances are inconceivable, given the subject—the social animal.

The social animal’s level of consciousness is confined to his res extensa (i.e. body). Yet, man is a synthesis, res extensa and res cogitan. The understanding of the human existential condition as being an animal, social or not, is a dangerous premise—a fatal one, indeed—for it makes man unaware of himself as a thinking apparatus, a thinking thing, a res cogitan; which is the very characteristic that sets him apart from other corporeal creatures. 

Some might contend that by capturing, processing, and reacting to sensory inputs, animals have the capacity to think for themselves. This is a common confusion, especially when it comes to general notions, such as thinking, for they all too often go undefined. Thinking, as a human capacity, isn’t just the processing of inputs; rather, a divine quality of having the ability to consume, bend, and manipulate information in order to produce ideas; eo ipso, it allows humans to engage in the incorporeal realm, become masters of their bodies, and govern their physical desires.

Alternatively, the ultimate surrender to the body hinders a human from transcending unto their optimal existential potential, because it enslaves and limits them to their senses and brutish instincts—making them an animal by definition. Adding the adjective ‘social’ before it does not confer any degree of intelligence on that animal. 

What a grave misfortune for man to think of himself wholly as a body, as a mere animal; giving in to all the limitations that are inherent thereto; all the while forsaking the utilization of his inherent capacity to elevate unto a heavenly being?

 

Count Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, explained it beautifully in his “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” “On man when he came into life the Father conferred the seeds of all kinds and the germs of every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual he will be an angel and the son of God.” (Cassirer et al., p. 225)

 

 

By the seeds of all kinds and germs of every way of life, I think that Pico della Mirandola really meant every kind of instincts that would render a human being adaptive to every way of existential condition. And by cultivating a certain instinct, or a set of instincts, it will inevitably bear in that human its fruit—which is, in the case under consideration, that of an animalistic nature, the proclivity to conflict pertaining to the brute.

 

Albeit that man is a synthesis, a res cogitan and res extensa (i.e. mind and body), I shall forever contend with the pretense that the latter is the central piece to his existence; according to which, by means of cunning exploitation of the fact that the human body shares some features with those of certain animals, it is erroneously thought to be scientifically proven that that being, man, is in essence an animal. Again, prefixing the adjective ‘social’ to it does not make it any better nor more correct. He surely can be an animal, if that’s what he chooses to make of himself. But, in reality, the res extensa is only a means for applying the influence of the res cogitan on physical matter. If man is an animal, then he can’t have a self, and, most certainly, he cannot be a self; since having a self is a characteristic of the divine, i.e. of spirits; consequently, to claim that man is in rerum natura an animal whilst he is simultaneously a self is fundamentally paradoxical per se, and suggests that animals are capable of divinity.

Moreover, the social animal lacks independent intelligence. The very notion of being a social animal intoxicates the human cognitive faculties with a simulation of cognition, peculiar to the popular mind (that of the crowd), which is driven by conformity and stirred by suggestions and symbolism (Le Bon); these, themselves, are not ideas, in their own merits, but representations (simulations) of mere ideas. Hence, a human in a crowd is nothing more than an indistinguishable unit amongst the multitude, deprived of individuality (the fruit of autonomous cognitive apparatus), and is thus alienated from their self. In this I rely on the authority of Hugo Münsterberg, 

“It is well known that every member of a crowd stands intellectually and morally on a lower level than he would stand if left to his spontaneous impulses and his own reflections.The crowd may fall into a panic and rush blindly in any direction into which any one may have happened to start and no one thinks about it, or it may go into exaltation and exuberantly do what no one alone would dare to risk. This mass consciousness is also surely a form of increased suggestibility. The individual feels his own responsibility reduced because he relies instinctively on the judgment of his neighbours, and with this decreased responsibility the energy for resistance to dangerous propositions disappears.” (Münsterberg 261)

 

Thence, one might infer that the individual puts on the cloak of the pack upon joining a crowd; and, by so doing, he brushes his own mind and self under the carpet of oblivion; no longer is he the individual of autonomous will and independent volition to exercise such will according to his own discretion, but an anonymous acting unit; in short, just a number to add to the headcount. Far more troubling still, his sense of morality peters out, for having instinctively relied on the judgment of his neighbors, he reassures himself vis-á-vis dangerous propositions (i.e. war), “If all these people are doing this, or taking this stance, it must be right and morally correct; and even if it wasn’t, then we shall all carry the load of whatever consequences it might produce.” In fine, he has no moral compass, as the most he seeks is only a social condoning of his action, with the sense of normality it confers on it.

 

In a nutshell, the social animal is a creature that operates on the basis of its perceived sense of ability—that is to say, it does whatever it is capable of doing, instead of what it should do. It cannot conceive perpetual peace, either; given that in the state of nature conflict is a constant; as such, whenever a social animal faces a winnable conflict, it would habitually engage in it. Essentially, in pondering on peace solely in terms of strength, the social animal acts in an identical manner as the instinct-driven wild beast; in which case, the suspension of hostilities (not peace) between men is aleatory in nature, dependent entirely on the unconscious whims of the strongest at any given point of time. In fine, conscious peace is an order that can only transpire amongst res cogitans, not social animals. 

 

 

Reference

Cassirer, Ernst, et al. The Renaissance Philosophy of Man: Petrarca, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Pomponazzi, Vives. U of Chicago P, 2011.

Herken, Gregg. The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington. Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd; A Study of the Popular Mind. Apple Books; Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software donated by Caere, Originally published 1841.

Münsterberg, Hugo. Psychology and Social Sanity. Apple Books; New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914.