Mary, you are certainly on to something. With the right socialization, it is impossible for people to kill for venal reasons, and unlikely that the peculiar circumstance that could make them murderous will occur. If one imagined a society much like our own, where virtually everyone was "brought up right" and mental defects were detected early, the possible of escaping almost all violence is imaginable. Set any number of such societies around one another as sovereign states, and peace would prevail.
The problem is that we are in no position to bring everyone up to a sufficient level of affluence, nor to effect such cultural changes as will permit this advent of peace. Thus, it is unpredictable when we might make a substantial movement away from war, and, until then, we have to defend ourselves and promote good results over bad, sometimes when the Bad is heavily armed. |
