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

A concept seems to be developing here that violence and aggression are purely primitive, arising from the older stuctures of the brain, and diminishing in strength as the younger parts of the brain develop and begin to modulate the activity of those primitive emotional centers. I think this is a mistake, despite how plausible it seems at first glance. It certainly is true that violent and aggressive feelings arise from the older portions of the brain (such as the amygdala in the libmic system, or emotional cortex). It is also true that forebrain activity can reduce violent and aggressive impulses arising from the limbic system. However the reality of the situation is more complex.

Take for example the Yanomamo of the Amazon. They are known as the fierce ones. The murder rate among these hunter gatherers and simple horticulturists is many times higher than the mudrer rate in down town Detroit. Why? Because for the Yanomamo resources are very limited. People compete for access to land, food, and women. Some say as many as 40% of the men have commited at least one murder. They do not simply run around in a rage slashing at each other however. They carefully plan their violent actions in order to obtain the most profitable outcome with the least cost to themselves. This involves a lot of higher level processesing because you have to consider so many factors when planning to raid another village. Can you do it without being caught? Can you achieve tactical surprise? What are the odds of a reprisal? If there is a reprisal what are the odds that I will be killed? How will my village react? How will other villages react? And on and on.

To me then the newer parts of the brain don't simply reduce output from the emotional centers. They build upon it. They carry out extra processing that allows a more sophisticated application (or restraint) of violent and aggressive behaviors. It is no coincidence that people who live in places where violence is effective will tend to be violent. People who live in places where violence is not effective will tend to not be violent.

 

But violent disposition may not recognize itself ineffective in a world where it has been abandoned in large part. Refining habit can change constitution. in other words it is not evolutionary pressure that accounts for individual taste or the transfer of animals to land from water, but evolutionary adventure.

 

There is an emotional appeal here, I beg your pardon.
Acting out is aggressive in comparison to being passive.

 

I beg your pardon

reaction is not always aggressive, although it can be

and once again, not all children are aggressive, and I would not call some of them passive, either.

 

You don't need my pardon. Reaction is more aggressive than being non reactive.

 

so don't react to me...lol

 

Too aggressive?

 

at any rate...what do you think organized sports is all about being introduced early in school....man is a very competititve animal and organized sports is a way of harnassing that aggression into something nice and tidy

 

Well, if someone kicks me, I am not going to shy away into the wall like a wall flower, I am going to react usally aggressively or sarcastically, and sarcasm is a form of aggresion, too.....
I cannot make blanket statements about all children or anyone else. I can only speak about me

 

Don't all children deserve a blanket?

 

sure, they do.....and so do all people....

 

You bring up a good point regarding other forms of aggression besides physical violence, which most of the discussion has been limited to thus far. If we include passive aggression, I am willing to conclude that aggression has grown exponentially in recent years with the rise of the internet. This is not entirely unrelated with my notion of video games being an outlet for aggressive tendencies.

Internet bullying, blocking people, ad hominem talks, libel, etc. all exhibit this phenomena likely in part, due to the (perceived) anonymity and the disassociated quality of hiding behind a pseudonym or user name on the internet.

If we are to accept that, still we can no longer pin thoughts as the culprit in prompting aggressive behavior.

Also, without thought present in the moment, how do we determine what is pure awareness and what is pure instinct?

I think that distinction made is warranted however. For instance, we might be able to say a kid kicking and screaming someone much larger then them is due to instinctual behavior, but surely we are not going to suggest the "self sacrificial" behavior of cults is due to instinct. In both instances, consequences and right/wrong behavior seem to be completely forsaken in the moment.

 

Blanket statement?

 

In my opinion, our primitive ''less evolved'' brain a.k.a the reptilian brain DID serve a much greater purpose in more primitive times, but that's not to say the fight or flight response isn't still useful. If someone was encountering a wild animal, or placed in a dangerous situation where they were forced to react quickly (and instinctively), they would be at a loss without the reptilian brain. I agree that logical/learned mental performance such as solving a math problem is impaired during this time, but that's OK, because the fight or flight response is for a different purpose altogether. It's about realigning priorities for survival.

As for the ''fear'' you speak of, I believe our brain isn't done evolving regarding our different levels of consciousness working together, which is the part that causes problems. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the destructive and useless fear you describe isn't fear in the sense of your metabolism shifting into high gear in order for you to react to imminent danger. The fear you talk about is anxiety. It is indeed useless and destructive, but it is simply a byproduct of our (unfinished) evolution. This anxiety stems from the fact that your reptilian brain is activating the fight or flight response in a time where your logical brain understands that there is no imminent danger. Regardless of which brain started it, this becomes a feedback loop of our different levels of consciousness ''fighting'' each other, causing a panic attack in worse case scenarios.

I may have gone off subject here, regarding aggression, but I felt I needed to share my perspective on this.

I never said all children were aggressive. I said that in children under 5, when aggression is displayed during social interactions, it stems from instinct, and not from conscious choice. I didn't mean to open a can of worms, I was just making the point that we are born that way. It's in us. That part of our brain exists, and small children rely on it more than anything else early in life.

My position on this matter is that we CAN pin thoughts as the culprit in prompting aggressive behavior, just not during infancy. We are evolved beings and we do have a certain level of control on our behavior. Yes, there are extreme cases, but I am referring to the norm here.

Regarding the cult stuff, I don't think a kid would ever engage in self-sacrifical behaviour. These things happen later in life when consciousness is involved (and twisted).

 

no can of worm, Shivaya...i was thinking of children I have known...very small ones who are simply lovely and show no signs of aggression, is all.....
Sometimes, children are mini me;s of what they see......and experience, too.......just like pets sometimes...and not a blanket statement either...There are always exceptions.....

 

trying to be kind one...guess I failed...huh.....

 

Opposite, you said you couldn't turns out you could!

 

That doesn't make any sense as we all go through infancy. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that later in life people act aggressively without motive or intent, I'm simply saying that if we are born to express aggression before it can be properly formulated as thought, it's something more innate in us than our thoughts.

Stuff like that and monks self-immolating is "pure awareness" gone astray imo. I mean if someone wants to drink a bunch of poison in hopes to reconnect with the alien overloards or set themselves on fire in protest, have at it but if that's an aspect of 'higher awareness' I don't really care for any part of it.

 

Then we agree!

 

This is what I am stating. A judgemental attitude springs from the ego as well, judging and evaluating. Instead of seeing a flower as a flower, you can tend to analyse it and categorise it into its component parts. This state of egoistic mind, in a similar manner, categorises everything in its vision of duality.

And it is this state of duality that creates the causes for violence.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti stated...

" When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.