On Aggression

Lorenz, Konrad 1966 [1963]. On Aggression. New York : Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

Unfortunately the working structure of the instinctive and culturally acquired patterns of behavior which make up the social life of man seems to be one of the most complicated systems we know on this earth. (Lorenz 1966: xi)

With H. Hediger, we call this third behavior pattern the critical reaction. The expression "fight like a cornered rat" has become symbolic of the desperate struggle in which the fighter stakes his all, because he cannot escape and can expect no mercy. This most violent form of fighting behavior is motivated by fear, the most intense flight impulses whose natural outlet is prevented by the fact that the danger is too near; so the animal, not daring to turn its back on it, fights with the proverbial courage of desperation. (Lorenz 1966: 28)

It is essential to consider the fact that all these opportunities for special careers, known as ecological niches, are often provided by the same cubic yard of ocean water. (Lorenz 1966: 33)

My teacher, Oskar Heinroth, used to say jokingly, "Next to the wings of the Argus pheasant, the hectic life of Western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection!" The rushed existence into which industrialized, commercialized man has precipitated himself is actually a good example of an inexpedient development caused entirely by competition between members of the same species. Human beings of today are attacked by so-called manager diseases, high blood pressure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and torturing neuroses; they succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for cultural interest. (Lorenz 1966: 41)

We can, however, here describe the part played by aggression in the structure of society among highly developed animals. Though many individuals interact in a social system, its inner workings are often easier to understand than the interaction of drives within the individual. A principle of organization without which a more advanced social life cannot develop in higher vertebrates is the so-called ranking order. Under this rule every individual in the society knows which one is stronger and which weaker than itself, so that everyone can retreat from the stronger and expect submission from the weaker, if they should get in each other's way. (Lorenz 1966: 44)

All social animals are "status seekers,", hence there is always particularly high tension between individuals who hold immediately adjoining positions in the ranking order; conversely, this tension diminishes the further apart the two animals are in rank. Since high-ranking jackdaws, particularly males, interfere in every quarrel between two inferiors, this graduation of social tension has the desirable effect that the higher-ranking birds always intervene in favor of the losing party. (Lorenz 1966: 45)

Some time ago, collaborators of Robert M. Yerkes made the extraordinarily interesting observation that chimpanzees, animals well known to be capable of learning by imitation, copy only higher-ranking members of their species. From a group of these apes, a low-ranking individual was taken and taught to remove bananas from a specially constructed feeding apparatus by very complicated manipulations. When this ape, together with his feeding apparatus, was brought back to the group, the higher-ranking animals tried to take away the bananas which he had acquired for himself, but none of them thought of watching their inferior at work and learning something from him. Then the highest-ranking chimpanzee was removed and taught to use the apparatus in the same way, and when he was put back in the group the other members watched him with great interest and soon learned to imitate him. (Lorenz 1966: 46)

Aggression elicited by any deviation from a group's characteristic manners and mannerisms forces all its members into a strictly uniform observance of these norms of social behavior. The nonconformist is discriminated against as an "outsider" and, in primitive groups, for which school classes or small military units serve as good examples, he is mobbed in the most cruel manner. (Lorenz 1966: 79)

It is perfectly right and legitimate that we should consider as "good" the manners which our parents have taught us, that we should hold sacred the social norms and rites handed down to us by the tradition of our culture. What we must guard against, with all the power of rational responsibility, is our natural incliation to regard the social rites and norms of other cultures as inferior. The dark side of pseudo-speciation is that it makes us consider the members of pseudo-species other than our own as not human, as many primitive tribes are demonstrably doing, in whose language the word for their own particular tribe is synonymous with "Man." (Lorenz 1966: 83)

Converesely, aggression and sexuality are quite compatible in the male; he can treat his partner roughly, chase her all around the tank, and betweenwhiles perform sexual movements and all possible mixed forms of motor patterns. The female may fear the male considerably without suppression of sexually motivated behavior pattern. The bride-to-be may flee before the male and at the same time make use of every breathing space to perform sexually motivated courtship movements. These mixed forms of behavior patterns of flight and sexuality have become, by ritualization, widespread ceremonies which are often called "coyness behavior" and which possess a very definite expression value. (Lorenz 1966: 104)

By "flock" or "herd" we do not mean that chance gathering of like individuals such as occurs when many flies or cultures crowd around a carcass, or when many winkles or sea anemones settle on a particularly favorable place in the tidal zone. The concept of the flock is determined by the fact that individuals of a species reacts to each other by attraction and are held together by behavior patterns which one or more individuals elicit in the others. Thus it is typical of flock formation when many individuals travel in close formation in the same direction. (Lorenz 1966: 139)

Generally, other conditions being equal, mere acquaintanceship with a fellow member of the species exerts a remarkably strong inhibitory effect on aggressive behavior. In human beings, this phenomenon can regularly be observed in railway carriages, incidentally an excellent place in which to study the function of aggression in the spacing out of territories. All the rude behavior patterns serving for the repulsion of seat competitors and intruders, such as covering empty places with coats or bags, putting up one's feet, or pretending to be asleep, are brought into action against the unknown individual only. As soon as the newcomer turns out to be even the merest acquaintance, they dissapear and are replaced by rather shamefaced politeness. (Lorenz 1966: 156)

This is a classical example of the process by which we call, with Tinberen, a redirected activity. It is characterized by the fact that an activity is released by one object but discharged at another, because the first one, while presenting stimuli specifically eliciting the response, simultaneously emits others which inhibit its discharge. A human example is furnished by the man who is very angry with someone and hits the table instead of the other man's jaw because inhibition prevents him from doing so, although his pent-up anger, like the pressure within a volcano, demands outlet. Most of the known cases of redirected activity concern aggressive behavior elicited by an object which simultaneously evokes fear. In this special case, which he called "bicycling," B. Grzimek first recognized and described the principle of redirection. The "bicyclist" in this case is the man who bows to his superior and threads on his inferior. The mechanism effecting this behavior is particularly clear when an animal approaches its opponent from some distance, then, on drawing near, notices how terrifying the latter really is, and now, since it cannot check the already started attack, vents its anger on some innocent bystander or even on some inanimate substitute object. (Lorenz 1966: 170)

It would seem that the partners to a triumph-ceremony group have to reassure each other all day long and at every opportunity that they do indeed belong together, forming an independent social entity. In reality the relationship of cause and effect is the other way around. The triumph ceremony is not caused by love and friendship between certain individuals, it is not "the expression of" these feelings, quite the contrary, the ceremony itself is instrumental in keeping the group members together. (Lorenz 1966: 206)

The second obstacle to self-knowledge is our reluctance to accept the fact that our own behavior obeys the laws of natural causation. Bernard Hassenstein has called this attitude the "anticausal value judgement." The reluctance of many people to recognize the causal determination of all natural phenomena, human behavior included, undoubtedly stems from the justifiable wish to possess a free will and to feel that our actions are determined not by fortuitous causes but by higher aims. (Lorenz 1966: 222)

The scientist who considers himself absolutely "objective" and believes that he can free himself from the compulsion of the "merely" subjective should try - only in imagination, of course - to kill in succession a lettuce, a fly, a frog, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, and finally a chimpanzee. He will then be aware how increasingly difficult murder becomes as the victim's level of organization rises. The degree of inhibition against killing each one of these beings is a very precise measure for the considerably different values that we cannot help attributing to lower and higher forms of life. To any man who finds it equally easy to chop up a live dog and a live lettuce I would recommend suicide at his earliest convenience!(Lorenz 1966: 226)

By virtue of the molecular structure of the living matter in which they take place, the processes of life fulfill a great number of very particular functions, such as self-regulation, self-preservation, acquisition and storage of information, and, above all, reproduction of the structures essential for these functions. These, though in principle causally explicable, cannot take place in other, structurally less complex matter. (Lorenz 1966: 228)

In human evolution, no inhibitory mechanisms preventing sudden manslaughter were necessary, because quickly killing was impossibe anyhow; the potential victim had plenty of opportunity to elicit the pity of the aggressor by submissive gestures and appeasing attitudes. No selection pressure arose in the prehistory or mankind to breed inhibitory mechanisms preventing the killing of conspecifics until, all of a sudden, the invention of artificial weapons upset the equilibrium of killing potential and social inhibition. When it did, man's position was very nearly that of a dove which, by some unnatural trick of nature, had suddenly acquired the beak of a raven. (Lorenz 1966: 241)

I have already said that the dynamics of instinctive drives, of phyletically and culturally ritualized behavior patterns, together with the controlling force of responsible morality, form a very complicated systemic whole which is not easy to analyze. However, the recognition of the mutual functional interdependence of its parts, even at the present incomplete stage of our knowledge, helps us to understand a number of phenomena which otherwise would remain completely unintelligible. (Lorenz 1966: 254)

Even in the less tragic case of rather closely related and roughly equivalent cultures mixing, there usually are some undesirable results, because each finds it easy to imitate the most superficial, least valuable customs of each other. The first items of American culture imitated by German youth immediately after the war were gum chewing, Coca-Cola drinking, the crew cut, and the reading of color comic strips. More valuable social norms characteristic of American culture were obviously less easy to imitate. (Lorenz 1966: 262)

As it is, we do not know enough about the function of any system of culturally ritualized norms of behavior to give a rational answer to the perfectly rational question of what some particular custom is good for, in other words wherein lies its survival value. When an innovaor rebels against established norms of social behavior and asks why he should conform with them, we are usually at a loss for an answer. (Lorenz 1966: 264)

A fourth, and perhaps the most important, prerequisite for the full eliciting of militant enthusiasm is the presence of many other individuals, all agitated by the same emotion. Their absolute number has a certain influence on the quality of the response. Smaller number at issue with a large majority tend to obstinate defense with the emotional value of "making a last stand," while very large numbers inspired by the same enthusiasm feel the urge to conquer the whole world in the name of their sacred cause. Hence the laws of mass enthusiasm are strictly analogous to those of flock formation described in Chapter Eight; here, too, the excitation grows in proportion, perhaps even in geometrical progression, with the increasing number of individuals. This is exactly what makes militant mass enthusiasm so dangerous. (Lorenz 1966: 273)

The first, the most obvious, and the most important percept is the old [...heatou], "Know thyself": we must deepen our insight into the causal concatenations governing our own behavior. The lines along which an applied science of human behavior will probably develop are just beginning to appear. (Lorenz 1966: 276)

If laughter is in fact directed at an outsider, as in scornful derision, the component of aggressive motivation and, at the same time, the analogy of certain forms of the triumph ceremony become greatly enhanced. In this case, laughter can turn into a very cruel weapon, causing injury if it strikes a defenseless human being undeservedly: it is criminal to laugh at a child. (Lorenz 1966: 294)

Pride is one of the chief obstacles to seeing ourselves as we really are, and self-deceit is the obliging servant of pride. (Lorenz 1966: 296)