Aggression is best described as threatening or attacking another. The smallest aggressions occur with rude, insulting behaviors that may escalate into an attack.
While individuals clearly are aggressive, the most alarming and destructive aggressions are group activities. Groups define boundaries in spatial terms and also in ideological terms. I often read discussions of aggression that quickly focus on violence. Attacks are often violent, but aggression is a series of behaviors, most of which occur in daily social interactions without violence. The notion of aggression as an antisocial instinct has been replaced by the notion that aggression is a tool of competition and negotiation. Survival often depends on mutual assistance and aggression is constrained by the need to maintain beneficial relationships.
In families and schools, aggressive conflict is similarly constrained. It is only when social relationships are valued that one can expect a full complement of natural checks and balances. According to de Waal: “With the early provocative description of Australopithecus as a lustful killer and the appearance of Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression in 1967, the origins of violence became a central theme in debates about human social evolution . Popular authors explained inborn aggressiveness, as man the "killer ape." The horrors of World War II left everyone with little confidence in human nature.”
Investigation of aggression first focused on individual behavior rather than social phenomena. Primatologists came to study relationships as determinants of human behavior. De Waal described an incident that should be familiar to most humans. “In the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, in the Netherlands when an alpha male fiercely attacked a female, other apes came to her defense, causing prolonged screaming and chasing in the group. After the chimpanzees had calmed down, a tense silence followed, broken when the entire colony burst out hooting. In the midst of this pandemonium, two chimpanzees kissed with their arms wrapped around each other. These two turned out to be the same male and female in the fight.“
Observations of other primates often fit the human experience. De Wall suggested that conflict resolution had at least three elements: (1) indications of a calming function of grooming and other body contacts, (2) recognition of long-term social relationships and their survival value, and (3) demonstration of a connection between aggressive conflict and subsequent inter-opponent reunions, called "reconciliations."
In all primates, humans included, aggression is an aspect of social life that occurs in the best relationships. You could argue that understanding aggression important but understanding conflict resolution by reconciliation is more important.
Ethologists linked aggression to territory. Every animal stakes out some space to call its own. The space has boundaries that are defined by the aggressive behavior of the animal. Many animals have elaborate systems of spacing themselves so that territorial claims are seldom disputed with violent attacks. Birds have the most creative system – they sing to each other. This is my territory chirp, chirp; please stay away from my space, chirp” Chemical secretions are good territory markers and are widely used in the animal kingdom. You can mark the boundaries of your territory with urine as cats, wolves and dogs do. You can secret chemical messengers from special glands and rub it on trees and rocks to let others know “this is my place.”
Territorial aggression has both a defensive and an offensive mode and sometimes they are the same behaviors. Every so often, an animal decides to challenge the territory of another – he wants to relocate, expend his space, or perhaps he does not have a space to call his own and wants some. You can capture another’s territory by frightening him away with warning calls and a fierce display. You might win by causing him to flee or you might kill him. He might win by getting angry and charging you with teeth and claws displayed convincingly. You lose your confidence, turn and run and he chases you, not just to his boundary but way down the street, just to let you know that his power extends beyond his domain. It may take months or years before you have the temerity to try another raid or you may go hunting for another animal who is more easily intimidated. If you do not flee from a more aggressive, stronger adversary, you will be injured or killed.
Humans have evolved elaborate territorial strategies and have replaced urine and odor markers with visual markers, constructions, rituals and rules. The function of well-defined boundaries is to minimize conflict. The regulation of territorial rights is a government task. Land registries and fences make good neighbors. High rock walls and moats patrolled by crocodiles make safer cities.
Property law reduces the frequency of dispute and courts replace violent aggression with negotiation and settlement. Nations confront each other with a variety of negotiating tools, but no nation relies on international law to secure its territories. Every nation relies on military force.
Since the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States of America combined ideological differences, technological ingenuity with a reptilian version of territorial defense that involved massive deployment of nuclear weapons, missile robots ready to launch at all times and satellite surveillance of the planet. The nicest way to summarize the human predicament is that territorial defense remains a dominant concern in the 21st century.
A more realistic statement would warn that a suicidal insanity threatens the survival of all humans in the 21st century. Russia and the USA are the two countries with insane stockpiles of nuclear weapons, aka weapons of mass destruction. Both countries are achieving modest aggreements to dismantle their weapons and adopt more reasonable and benevolent methods of resolving differences.
From Group Dynamics by Stephen Gislason. Available for download from Persona Digital Online.
While individuals clearly are aggressive, the most alarming and destructive aggressions are group activities. Groups define boundaries in spatial terms and also in ideological terms. I often read discussions of aggression that quickly focus on violence. Attacks are often violent, but aggression is a series of behaviors, most of which occur in daily social interactions without violence. The notion of aggression as an antisocial instinct has been replaced by the notion that aggression is a tool of competition and negotiation. Survival often depends on mutual assistance and aggression is constrained by the need to maintain beneficial relationships.
In families and schools, aggressive conflict is similarly constrained. It is only when social relationships are valued that one can expect a full complement of natural checks and balances. According to de Waal: “With the early provocative description of Australopithecus as a lustful killer and the appearance of Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression in 1967, the origins of violence became a central theme in debates about human social evolution . Popular authors explained inborn aggressiveness, as man the "killer ape." The horrors of World War II left everyone with little confidence in human nature.”
Investigation of aggression first focused on individual behavior rather than social phenomena. Primatologists came to study relationships as determinants of human behavior. De Waal described an incident that should be familiar to most humans. “In the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, in the Netherlands when an alpha male fiercely attacked a female, other apes came to her defense, causing prolonged screaming and chasing in the group. After the chimpanzees had calmed down, a tense silence followed, broken when the entire colony burst out hooting. In the midst of this pandemonium, two chimpanzees kissed with their arms wrapped around each other. These two turned out to be the same male and female in the fight.“
Observations of other primates often fit the human experience. De Wall suggested that conflict resolution had at least three elements: (1) indications of a calming function of grooming and other body contacts, (2) recognition of long-term social relationships and their survival value, and (3) demonstration of a connection between aggressive conflict and subsequent inter-opponent reunions, called "reconciliations."
In all primates, humans included, aggression is an aspect of social life that occurs in the best relationships. You could argue that understanding aggression important but understanding conflict resolution by reconciliation is more important.
Ethologists linked aggression to territory. Every animal stakes out some space to call its own. The space has boundaries that are defined by the aggressive behavior of the animal. Many animals have elaborate systems of spacing themselves so that territorial claims are seldom disputed with violent attacks. Birds have the most creative system – they sing to each other. This is my territory chirp, chirp; please stay away from my space, chirp” Chemical secretions are good territory markers and are widely used in the animal kingdom. You can mark the boundaries of your territory with urine as cats, wolves and dogs do. You can secret chemical messengers from special glands and rub it on trees and rocks to let others know “this is my place.”
Territorial aggression has both a defensive and an offensive mode and sometimes they are the same behaviors. Every so often, an animal decides to challenge the territory of another – he wants to relocate, expend his space, or perhaps he does not have a space to call his own and wants some. You can capture another’s territory by frightening him away with warning calls and a fierce display. You might win by causing him to flee or you might kill him. He might win by getting angry and charging you with teeth and claws displayed convincingly. You lose your confidence, turn and run and he chases you, not just to his boundary but way down the street, just to let you know that his power extends beyond his domain. It may take months or years before you have the temerity to try another raid or you may go hunting for another animal who is more easily intimidated. If you do not flee from a more aggressive, stronger adversary, you will be injured or killed.
Humans have evolved elaborate territorial strategies and have replaced urine and odor markers with visual markers, constructions, rituals and rules. The function of well-defined boundaries is to minimize conflict. The regulation of territorial rights is a government task. Land registries and fences make good neighbors. High rock walls and moats patrolled by crocodiles make safer cities.
Property law reduces the frequency of dispute and courts replace violent aggression with negotiation and settlement. Nations confront each other with a variety of negotiating tools, but no nation relies on international law to secure its territories. Every nation relies on military force.
Since the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States of America combined ideological differences, technological ingenuity with a reptilian version of territorial defense that involved massive deployment of nuclear weapons, missile robots ready to launch at all times and satellite surveillance of the planet. The nicest way to summarize the human predicament is that territorial defense remains a dominant concern in the 21st century.
A more realistic statement would warn that a suicidal insanity threatens the survival of all humans in the 21st century. Russia and the USA are the two countries with insane stockpiles of nuclear weapons, aka weapons of mass destruction. Both countries are achieving modest aggreements to dismantle their weapons and adopt more reasonable and benevolent methods of resolving differences.
From Group Dynamics by Stephen Gislason. Available for download from Persona Digital Online.