Human beings die and kill to prove the reality of their society's sacred ideal, an ideal constituting the foundation of their society. 

The source of human aggression is not biology nor survival. Human violence grows out a spiritual impulse: devotion to an abstract entity or sacred ideal worshipped by a national group.

The nature of the entity or idea for which human beings die and kill is fungible. Each society possesses and worships its own sacred ideal.

The mechanism is the same, regardless of the nature of the idea or ideal or entity: death, and subsequently the erection of memorials—testify to the reality of the sacred ideal.

Death and memorialization perform a validation function. That for which we die becomes true.

The idea of "male aggression" is a smokescreen: denial of the masochistic source of violence. This concept or lie encourages men to go into battle, to be wounded, and to die for their nation.

One's own society is the cause of death (but we delegate the killing to the "enemy").

Pretending that men are heroic, appealing to their desperate wish to prove their "masculinity," nations send their young men to die.

THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING: MEMORIALS HONORING MEN WHO HAVE DIED FOR THEIR NATION.