How art of hatred was truly learned

Sir — Sarah Carey’s article (Sunday Independent, July 17) referring to the horrific attack in the south of France hit the proverbial nail on the head, unlike so many others who try endlessly to analyze the reasons why we seem to be on a mission to destroy each other. She makes the point that it’s just tribalism and it’s all primeval.

I’ve thought the same for a long time now, in fact to go a step further it is most probably genetic and goes back to a time when we were in the first stages of our evolutionary journey — when mankind first emerged and took over guardianship of the planet we began to multiply, then it was time for leadership — someone had to be in charge to control the hordes. The problem was not everyone was pleased with the leaders that emerged, so inevitably, those leaders were challenged and diversification was born and hostility started — splits, groups, tribes, factions.

We learned the art of hatred and distrust on a grand scale and it was passed on from father to son. Today we call that process indoctrination and it appears to be irreversible, the fact that some of us have learned to supress the gene that causes so much inter-tribal conflict is a credit but irrelevant because the time will come when the urge to destroy ourselves is overwhelming and once again guardianship of our world will pass to another species that does not have the self-destruct gene, and maybe, just maybe, our planet will survive.

Albert Einstein once said: “I know not what World War 3 will be fought with but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.” Mike Burke Sixmilebridge Co Clare