November 21st, 2011
"The first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life—peaceful when food abounds, violent when mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law. Cooperation is real, but mostly because it is a tool and form of competition…. We are acquisitive, greedy, and pugnacious because our blood remembers millenniums through which our forbears had to chase and fight and kill in order to survive, and had to eat to their gastric capacity for fear they should not soon capture another feast. War is a nation’s way of eating. It promotes cooperation because it is the ultimate form of competition. Until our states become members of a large and effectively protective group they will continue to act like individuals and families in the hunting stage."
Will and Ariel Durant - The Lessons of History
