1 *G. Reginald Daniel and Joseph Loe-Sterphone contributed material to the analyses of Elliot Rodger and Hitler’s rise to power. A Theory of War and Violence Thomas Scheff, G. Reginald Daniel, and Joseph Loe-Sterphone. Aggression and Violent Behavior . 39, March–April 2018, Pages 109-115. Abstract: It is possible that war in modern societies is largely driven by emotions, but in a way that is almost completely hidden. Modernity individualizes the self and tends to ignore emotions. As a result, conflict can be caused by sequences in which the total hiding of humiliation leads to vengeance. This essay outlines a theory of the social- emotional world implied in the work of C. H. Cooley and others. Cooley’s concept of the “looking-glass self” can be used as antidote to the assumptions of modernity: the basic self is social and emotional: selves are based on “living in the mind” of others, with a result of feeling either pride of shame. Cooley discusses shame at some length, unlike most approaches, which tend to hide it. This essay proposes that the complete hiding of shame can lead to feedback loops (spirals) with no natural limit: shame about shame and anger is only the first step. Emotion backlogs can feed back when emotional experiences are completely hidden: avoiding all pain can lead to limitless spirals. These ideas may help explain the role of France in causing WWI, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. To the extent that these propositions are true, the part played by emotions and especially shame in causing wars need to be further studied. “...if a whole nation were to feel ashamed it would be like a lion recoiling in order to spring.” Karl Marx (1975, p. 200) Marx was in his twenties when he wrote that sentence in a letter to Ruge (1843) about the tension between France and Prussia. Later he became a historical materialist: he believed a war could be caused only by material goals, like land and resources. As he grew older, he seemed to join the trend in modern societies toward ignoring emotions, regarding them as not as real or important as material things. Bertrand Russell (1915) proposed an idea like Marx’s, but also like Marx, abandoned it in his later life: Men desire the sense of triumph, and fear the sense of humiliation which they would have in yielding to the demands of another nation. Rather than praised; it is called high-spirited, worthy of a great nation, showing fidelity to ancestral traditions. The slightest sign of reasonableness is attributed to fear, forego the triumph, rather than endure the humiliation, they are willing to inflict upon the world all those disasters which it is now (in 1915) suffering and all that exhaustion and impoverishment which it must long continue to suffer. The willingness to inflict and endure such evils is almost universally and received with shame on the one side and with derision on the other (1915). (Underlining added) There are by now many, many studies of war and violence. Some, however, do not propose a theory of causation, but merely record the facts. Those that do propose a cause usually offer a material one, even though most do not name Marx or historical materialism. For example, theft, as in colonialism, is an example of material things causing violence: one nation steals the land of another nation by brute force.