Do You Think That All Human Aggression Is In Self-Defense?

Three reasons:

1. overpopulation leads to competition for resources. This could be something as simple as children fighting over toys, or something as big as World War I.

2. paranoia - as in the case of Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh

3. it was encultured into them, such as those who grew up in Nazi Germany or anyone taught to be that way from their parents or by government, etc.

and as far as being institutionalized, yes I was including. Not every Nazi soldier was probably such a bad guy.

 

All our action is reaction. But your theory isn't holding Frog! :-D

Their attempt to advance them at any rate.

 

Well Sigmund Freud's was that all human aggression is a subconscious death wish. I think my theory is better than that one, anyway!

So, I'm smarter than Sigmund Freud. Good for me!

 

i don't think all anything is anything. but i don't think we can blame some naughty puppet master either.

(also my reading of freud was that we were all motivated by the prospect of getting layed, which maslow later demostrated to be unrealistically narrow. don't be too harsh of freud though. we had to start somewhere, and what people believed before him was mostly and in most, so called civilized places, (which were and still are the most barbaric, but that's another topic), was mostly a hell of a lot worse)

 

I don't want to get banned for being off topic.... but Freud was off on a lot of things, but yes we did have to start somewhere.

He never once mentioned that the purpose of the libido was to reproduce. Not in anything I've seen anyway.

 

I don't think Freud was concerned about the biological functions of emotions.

Freud's concerns were primarily of mental phenomena, particularly that of neurosis which he often found stemmed from issues regarding sex.

People are too quick to point out flaws in Freud's theories these days imo. I think part of that is due to how politically correct society is. For instance, The proposition that children have explicit sexual impulses and desires is probably uncomfortable for many.

This probably makes a theory like Erik Erickson's psychosocial stages more wholesome.

However, culturally sex continues to involve more and more abstract qualities to it, such as outfits, toys, fetishes so on and so forth. all this seems to point to bringing forth repression, projection, and other ways to mentally represent Levels of consciousness, which is pretty in line with Freud's theories.

 

Freud is one of the greats. He still has relevance. Freud was principally interested in treating his patients and developing a theory which could help explain the neurotic tendencies they displayed.

You're right to say that Freud's ideas sit heavily on our current PC culture. But that's more a condemnation of the current BS than Sigmund.

 

Yes, and many have pointed out that his observations were limited to his culture of Austria.

 

Yes.

The answer is yes... with... eck, a few exceptions. I think some people are just true sociopaths mixed with psychopathic tendencies and they may not have any grievances. But... in general, yes, it's all in self defense but the key is ...even if misguided at times.

 

What are examples of those few exceptions, and maybe I can try to attribute them to my theory?

Because a mental health professional would tell you that all personality disorders (antisocial included) are caused as a reaction.

Maybe it's something that was missing, like love as a child?

Googling famous psychopaths gives us = serial killers (Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc.), ruthless heads of state (Hitler, Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, etc.), and well as some Nazi party members who you could fit under either category.

Maybe we could find the answer by looking at chimpanzee behavior? Are there any psychopathic chimpanzees?

 

Another example to provide as counter argument to your ideas is aggression is a quality which would have served humans particularly well as we evolved as hunters.

There would need to be a proactive aggressive attitude to catch and kill animals for food.

I think this aspect of human nature is symbolically represented in many sports now.

 

So human aggression that we displayed as hunters is misdirected in the psychopath onto other people?

And to be technical, hunting behavior predated humans. Other hominids hunted as does every other carnivore. Even fish "hunt."

The origins and psychology of sports is something I have thought about too. I have recently joined an anthropology/science forum that I find more directed to these types of questions. I know that bands of people competed in sports like horse racing. The males generally competed. Maybe it has something to do with mate selection. Everyone knows that a lot of girls like guys who are good at sports.

Is it normal to have a "killer instinct?" Because I don't think that I really do.

I've never punched anyone really hard in my life.

 

It need not necessarily be the defence of the physical self, but also the demand of the fragile ego to protect itself. The ego, by nature , is an illusion which creates a sense of separation of itself from the whole. And since it is illusory, it is basically insecure, and thus seeks out 'enemies' and conflicts to perpetuate its sense of self.



Here are four great teachings by Eckhart Tolle for perspective.....



In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind -- in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self. This mind-made sense of self is a mental image, and you live through that mental image. This mental image is the ego.


When you live through the mind-made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego, the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral, fleeting. So every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself. To uphold the I-thought, it needs the opposite thought of "the other." The conceptual "I" cannot survive without the conceptual "other." The others are most other when I see them as my enemies.


' ... the ego's need to be periodically in conflict with something or someone in order to strengthen its sense of separation between me and the other, without which it cannot survive.'


Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

- Eckhart Tolle

 

It would be more accurate to say that all actions of all actors are conceived to promote their own relative good depending on what that model looks like to them. We might think it wiser proactively on occasion to reserve ourselves for a more opportune time, that is to be passive or non confrontational in the face of obviously overwhelming force.

 

Not a great teaching but a statement of prejudice. Ego is sense of identification simply. It can be magnanimous or exclusionary. The ego that calls the body it's home by definition encounters itself as separate from all other bodies. Yet simple circumspection reveals that the human body is the common currency of being human and we as individuals come into being through conception not by exception.

 

I think that 'awareness' would have to be defined in a specialized way to say you can't have it with ego.

 

I did not suggest that hunting was a trait which originated in homo sapiens. But yes... more or less half the animal kingdom participates in proactive aggression, why do you think that would not pertain to humans?

As far as psychopaths go, I think potentially all aggression, whether it be proactive or in self defense, could be misdirected onto other people.

I think it's normal to have a "killer instinct." Biological imperatives such as hunger, sex, self preservation seek to be satisifed. The social culture certainly attempts to temper such instincts under the guise of civilized and moral behavior.

With sports, particularly the more violent among them say like football or MMA, I'd say spectactors get to vicariously satisfy these instincts by expelling a viscereal response to the action. Make some codified rules, provide a good paycheck to the athletes and people can sleep with an easy conscience, watching behavior they'd likely be appalled at under different circumstances.

Probably another satisfaction of such instincts very pertinent to our culture is in the world of synthetic memes, What comes to mind for me here is video games and movies. For instance, the objective of many video games is to kill the enemies, even in seemingly benign ones such as Mario. This probably pacifies such instincts and being that it's all virtual, creates an interesting dynamic of not making the player feel guilty of such behavior, even if there are some messages and behavior being portrayed, which doesn't correspond with the individuals view within the culture of the world at large.

 

it seems that at the current level of evolution of humans, a high level of animalistic aggression is not necessary for today's conditions. therefore, those human beings which still retain this high level of aggression from their ancestors will have no outlet to direct it, which can only result in harm, as aggression always does.

 

Oh dope. I've always thought taking the time necessary to understand that you are actually saying to be worthwhile 100% of the time.

 

thedope:

Yes. It is self-conception.

Sure.

I don't follow.

Ok.

So about that encounter of separation by the self that conceives itself body and nothing besides. When on earth was it supposed to have happened? ;-D