Wars for Symbols

This entry examines symbolic derivatives of three agonistic (aggressive) survival strategies that have the potential to escalate into wars. The three agonistic survival strategies are hunting and obtaining resources (otherwise called assertiveness or goal achievement), competition and struggle, and defense and fight. These survival strategies have played out in ever more complex and symbolic ways as civilization became more complex.

Arthur Koestler reasoned that most of the recently evolved (fore)brain that dealt with higher mental functioning grew after birth when infants were susceptible to imprinting of experience and imagination. Humans became susceptible to imaginary creations and magical thinking as well as to confusions of symbols and reality. According to Koestler, beliefs in magical symbols explain the unique irrationality of human destructiveness.

Paul Valent described three dimensions through which survival strategies, in this case agonistic survival strategies, radiated through the human brain and mind. One dimension (process) included progression of biological, psychological, and social components of survival strategies over time. Another dimension (parameters) included social levels (individual, group, nation). The depth dimension contained the ladder of forebrain evolution. The steps on the ladder were survival; moral judgments—virtue/guilt, esteem/shame, and fairness/injustice; ideals, values, and principles; dignity, honor, and rights; myths, religion, and ideology; awe, sacredness, and place in the universe; identity, existential meanings, and purpose. Breakdown on any rung could be perceived as a threat to the whole ladder.

The emotional-experiential and cognitive-intellectual valences of survival strategy radiations, Valent contended, resided in the right and left hemispheres of the brain, respectively. The right hemisphere was the nonverbal, nonthinking, timeless, self-unaware half of the brain. The left hemisphere—that is, the verbal, thinking, self-aware part of the brain—translated right-brain feelings into left-brain words and symbols.

The latter may be complex. For instance, a sense of natural justice may be translated into codes of law or a need for existential meaning translated into bibles and philosophies. However, at times of stress and trauma, survival strategies and right-brain functioning intensify, and simple symbols such as flags, anthems, crosses, or just words like Motherland, democracy, and communism can represent a whole ladder of meanings and purpose. At such times, too, return to dependence and vulnerability to brainwashing and magical thinking increase. So does group formation and cohesion of the group through symbols.

Over time, symbols may have varying and fluctuating connections to their right-brain sources. For instance, a leader may be seen variably as a god to die for, or a fallible human. An object may be perceived variably as having sacred and magical properties, or being just metal or wood. When the war is over, one is left to wonder at the folly of previous right-brain dominance. “They were different times, a different world,” people say.

Because it is hard for us to access our right brains, our self-understanding of our emotional/experiential roots and traumatic snags lags far behind our instincts and the symbols that evoke them. The following is an attempt to verbalize some of the ways that agonistic survival strategies interact with symbols and contribute to the causes of war.