Extraterrestrial Civilizations - Isaac Asimov [96]
In a way, all living things must be contentious. Reproductive capacities are such that any species, reproducing freely, can in short order outrun its food supply, however plentiful.* Consequently, in the case of any species there will always be a race for food among themselves. The competition may not be direct and need not involve confrontation, and yet the survival of some will mean (and is dependent on) the nonsurvival of others. Even plants compete vigorously and remorselessly for sunlight.
The danger to civilization, then, is not just that human beings are contentious, but that they are far more contentious than other species. For this we can see several reasons, every single one having to do with intelligence—which is unfortunate, for it may mean that all species capable of building a civilization must be perforce overly contentious.
For instance, thanks to their intelligence, human beings are more apt than any other species to understand that competition exists. For human beings it is not just the striving for the immediate scrap of food, or the guarding of an immediate kill. For human beings, it is the working out of a long-range scheme for getting the better of others.
In other species, a quarrel over food will last until one individual succeeds in swallowing it, whereupon the other individual disappointed, moves away to seek something else. There is no point in fighting and striving once the food is gone.
For the intelligent human beings, capable of forethought and therefore understanding what death by starvation means and how likely it might be at a given time, a quarrel over food is more likely to be violent and of long duration, and to end in serious injury and death. What is more, even if one individual is beaten and driven off without serious injury to himself, and the food is eaten by the victor, the fight may not be over.
The human being is intelligent enough to hold a grudge. The loser, remembering the injury to his own chances of survival, may then strive to kill the winner by trickery, or from ambush, or by rallying friends—if he cannot do it by main force. And the loser may do this not for any direct good it will do him, or for any increase in the chance of his survival, but out of sheer anger at the memory of the harm done him.
It is not likely that any species other than the human being kills for revenge (or to prevent revenge, since dead people tell no tales and plot no ambushes). This is not because human beings are more evil than other animals, but because they are more intelligent than other animals, and can remember long enough and specifically enough to give meaning to the concept of revenge.
Furthermore, to other species there is little else but food, sex, and the security of the young over which to quarrel. In the case of the human being, however, with his intelligent capacity for foreseeing and remembering, almost any object is liable to set off a spasm of competitive acquisitiveness. The loss of some ornament, or the failure to seize one, may set up a grievance that will lead to violence and death.
And, as civilization approaches and is achieved, human beings develop a more and more materialistic culture, one in which the possession of any number of different things is held to be of value. The development of hunting makes stone axes, spears, bows, and arrows valuable. The coming of agriculture gives land a much greater value than ever before. Rising technology multiplies possessions, and almost anything—from herds of animals, to pottery, to bits of metal-can be equated with economic well-being and social status. Human beings will then have reasons without number to attack, defend, maim, and kill.
Furthermore, the advance of technology cannot help but increase the power of the individual human being to commit effective violence. It