What if humans love violence and war because of our sense of beauty?

[DetlefK]

I have recently listened to a melody that was mathematically designed to be the ugliest, most discomforting and disturbing piece of music. That got me thinking:




What is beauty?
Beauty is having two eyes, two arms, two legs. Beauty is having a face of specific proportions.
Beauty is harmony and rhythm.
Beauty is order and symmetry.

BUT...

Beauty is also toying with symmetry.
Beauty is intentionally creating something that defies standards and conventions.
Beauty is intentionally turning order into chaos.
(improvised art, spontaneousness, Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girls, asymmetric fashion and hairstyles...)

There are two things that attract us: Order and the act of turning order into chaos.

HOWEVER...

We are not attracted to chaos itself.
We are attracted to a piece of trash that's a symbol. However we are not attracted to a piece of trash that's mundane.
We are attracted to somebody who's wild and unconventional. However we are not attracted to someone who's unreliable and unstable.



Violence, war, destruction... These turn order into chaos.
Something that has been built up gets torn down.
Nobody likes ruins and trash, but everybody loves destroying things.



Maybe our desire for acts of destruction is a sibling to our desire for beauty.

[handmade34]

1. interesting argument...

difficult to state any of this with certainly because we are so complex and much of who we are is 'nurture'... possibly your description of our "love (for) violence and war" is because it can, ironical, symbolize growth and hope???




lots of interesting stuff out there about "addiction to chaos"... this article likened it to workaholism but I don't think they are the same... I can understand the need for chaos (violence,war) as a substitute for "meaningful purpose"

people are increasingly seduced into believing that intensity equals being alive.
When that happens, the mind becomes wired for drama and the soul is starved of meaningful purpose

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-excess/201603/are-you-addicted-chaos

Many addicts have been raised in environments saturated with intergenerational addiction, abuse, and mental illness. Within these environments, chaos is as normal as cereal and cartoons on Saturday mornings...
...a person can become addicted to chaos just as others become addicted to vodka or shopping. The concept of “chaos” may be more difficult to pinpoint due to its abstract and qualitative nature, however, but the addictive pattern it demonstrates can be similar to any other commonly-known addictive behavior

https://www.recovery.org/pro/articles/are-you-addicted-to-chaos/

[heaven05]

2. Sibling, maybe......

Chaos expected always in the forms of natural disasters, war, human displacementd, disease, starvation. Mass Death by plague because of some mutated virus deeesigned just for that very purpose in 'state run' labs, federal and local. Or anti biotic resistant strains of infectious disease germs that turn your insides into jellygerms, speaking uncontrolled here, even with segregation.

End these mentioned human created disasters for power, control and money, they being priority You, us, we, them and me? If possible at this stage. The slaughters, genocides, massacres created in all our human history are legion. One against another. And still happening. Sad indeed.

[heaven05]

3. Great

Take on human existence. So very, very true. 😎

[greyl]

4. Humans do not love violence and war. nt

[DetlefK]

5. And that's why we don't have violent games and wars.

If humans don't love violence and destruction, why won't we just stop with it???

[greyl]

6. No, but you know violence and war are ugly. nt

[DetlefK]

7. And despite that, I enjoy simulated violence in videogames.