Our nomadic ancestors were the most vulnerable mammals in Africa. We are too slow to outsprint predators and too weak to quickly climb trees. Lions and leopards can climb trees much faster than the average human. We are also too big to burrow underground for safety, and because our large brains take so long to develop, human children remain helpless for a longer period of time than the offspring of any other mammal. To make matters worse, we have no natural weapons such as fangs, claws, tusks, or horns.
With no natural weapons, relatively weak bodies (in comparison to chimpanzees and gorillas), and the inability to outsprint much faster predators, how did our early ancestors survive on the African savannah hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Imagine a pride of lions hunting an early human tribe. A tribe of ten to twenty people* would have included elderly, children, infants, and probably some pregnant women. When lions hunted early humans, how would our ancestors have reacted? Would they have thrown grandma to the lions and run away? Would the adults have fled, letting the children fend for themselves? If lions threatened your grandmother and children, what would you do? Military history reveals that when our loved ones are in danger, people often use tools as weapons and react with an emotion I call fury.
To understand fury, we must first understand every army’s greatest problem. As I explain in my first book, Will War Ever End?, the greatest problem of every army in history has been this: when a battle begins, how do you stop soldiers from running away? Where our fight-or-flight response is concerned, the vast majority of people prefer to run when a sword is wielded against them, a spear is thrust in their direction, a bullet flies over their head, or a bomb explodes in their vicinity. In the U.S. Army a complex system of conditioning trains soldiers to stay and fight—but the ancient Greeks discovered a more effective method still used today.
The Greeks realized that one simple thing could give soldiers endless courage when their lives were threatened and convince them to not only stay and fight, but to sacrifice their lives. At first glance the Greeks’ solution might seem like a contradiction, because the most powerful motivator that convinces people to stay and fight is not a natural propensity for violence or killing, but their capacity for love and compassion. Halfway around the world, Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher who lived during the sixth century BC, also acknowledged this fundamental truth about human nature when he said, “By being loving, we are capable of being brave.”20
The military taught me that when soldiers bond as comrades and view each other as family members, they will more likely fight and die for each other. This is why the military puts so much emphasis on camaraderie and the ideal of being a “band of brothers.” The military does not do this because it is sentimental, but because of military necessity. Soldiers who view each other as family members will fight harder and be less likely to retreat from the battlefield.
At West Point I learned a famous passage from Shakespeare’s Henry V that reads: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”21 In The Art of War, written over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu says, “Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.”22
When I give lectures around the country I often ask, “If our flight response is stronger than our fight response when we are threatened by lethal violence, what is the most effective technique ancient armies used to encourage soldiers to fight and not retreat?” The audience immediately realizes the answer to this question when I ask them another question, “What would all of you die for? Raise your hand if you would risk your life to protect your family.” All of the audience members will raise their hand.
In my book Peaceful Revolution I describe a radio interview I heard in 2002. The interview was with a seventy-three-year-old woman, Margaret Hargrove. Her story reinforced what the military taught me about love creating courage. She described how she had been walking in her neighborhood when she saw an aggressive pit bull running toward her. What would you do in this situation? Because our flight response is more powerful than our fight response, most people would rather run to a safe place than fight a large animal.
But Mrs. Hargrove was not alone. She was walking Alex, her small nine-month-old Scottish terrier. Reaching them, the pit bull latched its jaws onto her tiny dog. Mrs. Hargrove, driven by concern for her loved one, bent down and bit the pit bull on the neck until it let go.
How would you react if you saw a large animal attacking your dog, child, spouse, parent, or friend? Would you not feel compelled to protect your loved one? Although our flight response is usually more powerful than our fight response when violence threatens us, our instinct to protect our loved ones is usually stronger than our flight response. Protecting those we love can even be more powerful than self-preservation, and military history confirms this. When we see our loved ones in danger and our concern for them fuses with adrenaline, causing us to rush to their aid, I call this emotion fury.
When asked if she was afraid for her safety during the attack, Mrs. Hargrove said, “I wasn’t scared. I was scared my dog was dying. I wasn’t afraid of danger. I will never get over the look in Alex’s eyes while I was trying to get him loose … I’m fortunate not to have been killed. I’m very lucky, and Alex is very lucky. I hope he knows how much I was willing to do for him.”23
Imagine a pride of lions hunting an early tribe of humans, and these people experiencing the fury that erupts when our loved ones are in danger. If lions threatened to kill your children, spouse, and parents, how would you react? You would probably become extremely aggressive. Imagine an early tribe of humans throwing rocks, shouting, and shaking large sticks or spears. Now the lions must contend with a much more dangerous prey.
How do we know that our earliest ancestors were hunted by predators on the African savannah, and that our instinct to protect our loved ones is a primordial part of our psychology? Many scientific fields offer evidence to support this and, surprisingly, war propaganda also offers evidence. When we study military history we see that war propaganda works the same way in every country and time period. Every war in history has been enabled by propaganda that dehumanizes the other side, and there has never been a war where both sides saw each other as human beings who are just like them.
By dehumanizing the other side, war propaganda portrays the “enemy” not as human beings who are just like us, but as dangerous animals or an evil force. War propaganda basically tells us, “Evil predators (in the form of barbarians, terrorists, etc.) want to kill our family or hurt another group of innocent people, and we must fight out of self-defense or in the name of peace.”
There are certainly dangerous people in the world, but as I explain in my book The Art of Waging Peace, war is always framed, even by the aggressor nation, as a moral crusade necessary to defend one’s country, liberate oppressed people, or protect a noble ideal such as peace, freedom, or justice. In a speech Hitler gave in 1939, he explained why Germany invaded Poland. The speech, which is full of propaganda, describes the Polish people as “sadistic beasts”:
The Polish Marshal … said that he would hack the German Army to pieces. And martyrdom began for our German nationals [living in Poland]. Tens of thousands were dragged off, mistreated, and murdered in the vilest fashion. Sadistic beasts [emphasis added] gave vent to their perverse instincts, and this pious democratic world watched without blinking an eye … At a certain moment England herself offered to bring us into direct discussion with Poland. I was ready. Of course it was the Poles who did not come … Then came the next day and nothing occurred except for Polish general mobilization, renewed acts of terror, and finally attacks against Reich territory.
Now