Human violence is not a human peculiarity: nature is not a peaceful thing, and every living thing in it is trying to kill something else.

People think of nature as perhaps some sort of peaceful thing, but in fact it is not. There’s some quite funny Werner Herzog thing where he is in the jungle saying that it’s basically just murder and death in every direction. The plants and animals in the jungle are constantly trying to kill each other every single day, every minute. So it’s not like we’re unusual in that respect.