Posted January 24, 2007
By Pamela Harris

Published: January 20 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 20, 2006 02:00

From Prof. Dennis J.D. Sandole.

Sir, Christopher Caldwell's provocative piece on "youth-bulge wars" ("Youth and war, a deadly duo", January 6/7), based on the work of Gunnar Heinsohn, arguing that there is a correlation between violence and youth (especially "a glut of young men" 15-29 years of age), has generated interesting responses from two of your readers.

Eugene Hamori ("Time to face the truth about our atavistic origins?", January 13/14) makes the point that few "liberal" commentators will acknowledge, that aggressive capability is part of our "genetic luggage". By contrast Eric Tucker ("We must denounce hate speech consistently if we are to make inroads in an era of 'youth-bulge wars' ", January 13/14), argues that "youth and war may make a deadly duo, but youth, war and demagoguery make a deadlier trio" - his implicit point being it is the interaction between "nature" and "nurture" that makes violence or any behaviour possible.

These letters make a constructive contribution to a debate that has bedevilled philosophers and theologians for years, and now includes commentaries by ethologists, neurologists, sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists. Quite often, the protagonists come down on one side or the other; rarely making the "interactive" case that seems to be closer to the "reality". Even less rarely do policymakers publicly argue that the "nature" component of a complex "nature-nurture" mix has to be "managed" and "redirected", as that would sound too much like the eugenics policies of the Third Reich, which could be politically costly.

However, if nature and nurture do combine in complex ways to make various categories of human behaviour - including aggression and violence - possible, then shouldn't policymakers be encouraging their constituents to see the utility of incorporating these insights into public policy? For example, if a prime source of violence in the developing world is a "bulge" of unemployed youth (especially males), wouldn't it be in the interests of all concerned, including the international community at large, to ensure that economic development is the order of the day in, say, Africa and elsewhere where the Heinsohn/Caldwell correlation exists in marked profusion (such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine)?

Dennis J.D. Sandole,
Professor of Conflict Resolution and International Relations,
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
George Mason University
Arlington, VA 22201, US