Sounds:

A Pathway to World Peace

by

Alvin S. Yusin

Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter I:

The Precarious Balance

Chapter II:

The Quiet and Not So Quiet Wars

Chapter III:

Who Survives and Who Socializes

Chapter IV:

The Promised Land – To Whom Is It Promised?

Chapter V:

The Tragedy of Iraq and Other Nations in Similar Straits

Chapter VI:

International Terrorism

Chapter VII:

Death of a Nation: The United States of America

Chapter I

The Precarious Balance

All human beings have clearly defined behaviors (behavior sets) that they utilize when interacting with others of their kind. One such behavior set includes responses to someone or something that is going to attack them (predator).

Presence of a predator threatens their survival. Unfortunately, it is not unusual under a variety of circumstances for human beings to regard another of their kind in this predatory light. Those circumstances will be described further along in this work. When threatened, human beings will demonstrate one of four behaviors, the sum total of which constitutes a survival behavior set. Those behaviors are: Attachment Behavior, which has as its goal proximity to someone or something that can provide safety from the attack; Unlimited Aggressive Behavior, which has as its goal total destruction of the attacker; Immobilization Behavior, which has as its goal making the human being inconspicuous to the attacker; and Flight Behavior, which has as its goal removal of the human being from the attacker.

Aggressive behavior is interesting in that carnivores use it, not only to defend against perceived threats, but also to obtain food. However, under the latter circumstance, when driven by hunger, aggressive behavior is limited and is discontinued after the animal makes its kill. In the case of a predatory menace, aggressive behavior becomes unlimited. It is directed against any and all individuals perceived as threatening (unlimited aggression). Coherent identification of the predator is frequently obscured by the intensity of the survival motivators (see next section) that initiate unlimited aggression. Such obscurity not infrequently leads to the death of innocent men, women, and children, as well as total destruction of their property. Flight behavior is also interesting in that it not only moves human beings away from a threat to their survival, but also can move them toward someone who offers protection.

Thus, whenever human beings feel threatened by someone or something in their environment, they initiate flight, immobilization, attachment, and unlimited aggressive behaviors, sometimes separately and sometimes in combination. Humankind will initiate survival behaviors only when motivated to do so.

Motivation can be defined as an internal state of tension creating an urge to perform a particular action. Feelings create such urges and function as motivators. The feelings that motivate survival behaviors are fear, anger, and love.

When confronted by a predator, all human beings experience fear, which in its most intense expression is terror. It is the most powerful of the survival behavior motivators, and leads to the initiation of immobilization or flight behaviors.

Does it also motivate attachment and unlimited aggression? Not by itself! Fear initiates behaviors that either move human beings away from that which threatens them (flight) or inhibits movement (immobilization). For either attachment or aggression to occur, there must be movement toward either the protector or the threat. It seems likely that affection and its more intense expression, love, are the feelings that initiate movement toward protective influences in order to attach to them, and that anger and its more intense expression, raging fury, are the feelings that initiate movement toward threatening forces in order to annihilate them. Therefore, fear, which is the primary motivator in the presence of a predator, can generate love and anger, which in turn can initiate attachment and unlimited aggressive behaviors.

There are two environmental circumstances that awaken human beings’ survival behavior motivators. The first is the appearance of persons who have attacked them on previous occasions (actual predators). The second is the appearance of persons who are not known to them. Although such persons have never harmed them, unfamiliarity arouses fear. Clearly, this unfamiliarity constitutes a perceived difference that can trigger motivators that initiate survival behaviors. Perceived differences often identify unfamiliar individuals as dangerous, threatening, and predatory (perceived predators), although they may not be. Individuals perceived as unfamiliar by others have characteristics that differ from their own. Individuals may differ from each other in their physical characteristics, for example, skin, hair, and eye color; sex; physical deformity (intrinsic differences), or in their attributes, for example, religion, ethnicity, etc. (imposed differences).

There is another quirk of human nature that serves to strengthen the survival behavior set. Human beings frequently interpret imposed differences, which are amenable to change, as intrinsic ones, which are not. In any event, differences of any kind waken fear that, in turn, may awaken rage or love, all of which can initiate survival behaviors.

Survival behaviors prevent the formation of social groups. A social group can be defined as any number of individuals who join together to achieve a common goal. Such a group can also be called a social unit. Social units offer strengthened resistance to predatory attacks as well as combined efforts and joint ventures between human beings that maximize human productivity. Humankind has developed a behavior set which allows them to form social units. Since activation of survival motivators prevents socialization, a system has developed that neutralizes those motivators along with the survival behaviors they initiate. That neutralization process begins with the environmental experience itself. Just as negative past experiences and perceived differences between themselves and others trigger survival motivators and their behaviors, so do similarities and positive past experiences with others trigger socializing ones. Socializing set behaviors include substitute attachment, submission, suicide, and conscience behaviors. The first three behaviors have come about as a result of modification of specific survival behaviors. The fourth one, conscience behaviors, is an entity unto itself.

Substitute attachment is a behavior that has as its goal attachment to a social group, a cause, or an individual, substituted for the individual’s original protector, who was usually the parent. Substitute attachment has come about as a result of modification of attachment behavior.

Submission is a behavior that has as its goal acquiescence to a strong external control or standard, sometimes referred to as the authority. Submission most likely has come about as a result of modification of immobilization behaviors. Submission negates any resistance to the authority, thereby allowing the individual to passively accept and adhere to behaviors imposed upon him or her by the authority, offering no resistance.

Suicide is a behavior that has as its goal destruction of the individual by his or her own hand. It most likely has come about through the modification of unlimited aggression, whereby unlimited aggression is turned inward upon its perpetrator, causing his or her own destruction. Suicide, therefore, spares members of the social group at the expense of the individual. There is no modification of flight behavior. It is simply inhibited.

Conscience can be defined as the individual’s internalization of a social unit’s codes and standards so that they are followed in the absence of an external authority.

Conscience behaviors are the actions initiated by individuals whenever they follow the dictates of these internalized codes and standards. As with survival behaviors, there are specific motivators that initiate socializing behaviors. The primary feeling that initiates them is loneliness, which in its most intense expression is called alienation. However, in order to initiate social behaviors, loneliness and alienation work jointly with survival behavior motivators: The combined feelings of loneliness and fear initiate submission; the combined feelings of loneliness and love initiate substitute attachment; and the combined feelings of loneliness and raging fury initiate suicidal behaviors.

Conscience and conscience behaviors represent an independent component of the social behavior set. They have a unique motivator, called guilt, an unpleasant feeling whose presence prevents initiation of behaviors that run contrary to the individual’s internalized standards or conscience. Loss of self- approval for going against some internalized standard always is associated with guilt. Guilt is quite remarkable in that it not only sustains conscience behaviors but also impedes the initiation of unlimited aggression and flight and promotes attachment.

Although guilt’s several functions make it an extremely potent motivator, and conscience behaviors are the cornerstones on which so many social groups are built, there exists in all human beings a feeling that can neutralize guilt and allow them to override the actions their conscience dictates. That feeling is called righteousness. Righteousness compromises social forces making survival motivators and behaviors normally neutralized by guilt acceptable to the individual.

Guilt is further weakened and the survival behavior set strengthened by justification. Justification is the human capability that allows a person to find acceptable reasons for the initiation of actions that conflict with conscience behaviors. Righteousness appears to be the feeling motivator for justification, which involves thought and reasoning abilities. Whenever humankind releases unlimited aggression as a result of the righteousness – justification conscience override, justification of the actions neutralizes guilt, thereby allowing persons to sustain an acceptable balance between themselves and the social unit in which they live. Given a situation that triggers the motivators that initiate social and survival behaviors, how do human beings choose the behavior they will use to cope with it? Obviously, if flight is chosen, unlimited aggression cannot be; if suicide is chosen, submission cannot be, etc.

Two capabilities influence the choices human beings make. They are learning and fantasy. Learning is the human ability to accumulate a repertoire of successful experiences and behavior patterns over time and store them in memory to be used if necessary at a future time. Whenever environmental circumstances require survival or socialization behaviors, individuals initiate those behaviors that produced favorable outcomes when confronted with similar circumstances in the past.

Fantasy is the second capability utilized by the individual to determine his or her response in situations that trigger socializing or survival behavior sets. It may be defined as the individual’s ability to conjure up mental images in a sequential manner to create an anticipated outcome without ever having experienced it.

When there is no learned experience to deal with a novel situation or if a previously successful learned behavior is no longer effective, fantasy is used to anticipate the outcome of that situation and to determine what behavior to initiate. Responses determined by fantasized outcomes can become learned if they meet with success. They will then be utilized in similar situations should they be encountered again. However, misperception of the environment leading to misinterpretation of what is observed can distort outcomes based on fantasy. Under these circumstances, those outcomes can lead to inappropriate activation of survival or socializing motivators, which can be either detrimental or advantageous to the individual, the social group, or both.

It is clear from this model that a balance exists between survival and socializing forces in all human beings. Shifts in this balance will strengthen or weaken those forces. These shifts are determined by perceived differences or similarities between an individual and others of his or her kind, or between the various social units that exist in the world today.

A shift in that balance favoring survival behaviors, and above all unlimited aggression, has produced those catastrophes called wars. Wars come about as a result of perceived differences between diverse social units. They bring death and injury to countless numbers of men, women, and children, and the destruction of their property.

Given that this precarious balance exists in all human beings, how does it affect interactions between human beings existing in social units? That question will be addressed in the next chapter.

Chapter II

The Quiet and Not So Quiet Wars

Human beings existing in the world today reside in social units called nations. Nations are territorially defined enclaves in which dwell people who share the same language, customs, heritage, codes, and standards. Inhabitants of each nation are called citizens and collectively constitute greater society. Nations rely on their citizens’ socializing behaviors to maintain the stability and peaceful interactions between their country’s citizens.