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I think that there is a huge amount of people, who, like me, are really agressive. It's natural but the thing is that for some people the agressivness is quite soft while in others it is there...always ready to :flare: explote :flare:. I'm very agressive but i can control it very well trough several mental and spiritual excersises.
The question is why? why some people are much more agressive than others? What do you think? Is it genetics? Or is it the way you grew up?
What do you think?
The Death Fear is lessoned by killing another.Quote:
Originally Posted by Regina61285
How can we, the “man on the street”, Tom & Jane, gain an insight into the meaning of this dread of death? A dread so strong that we kill to prevent that death and that we are so dedicated to repressing that dread that many things we do is done in that behalf.
I suspect most of us have experienced the feeling we call ‘claustrophobia’. I have experienced that feeling and I am confident that I would do almost anything to stop that experience. I suspect that it was the dread of death that caused the inmates of the Nazi concentration camps to tolerate such terror as daily existence must have been.
I suspect that dread of death is the reason that ‘water-boarding’ is such a popular form of torture. Torture is, I suspect, an effort to induce that same dread that we experience in a claustrophobic episode. I think that we might properly use the metaphor ‘dread of death is claustrophobia’ or perhaps ‘dread of death is water-boarding’.
The ‘curse’ is anything that lies about the creatureliness of wo/man. Any effort to make a lofty spiritual character out of sapiens represents an ‘occultism’, i.e. an ‘occult’ is anything that attempts to make supernatural the creatureliness of humans, which is the constant preoccupation of human society.
Jung and Adler recognized from the beginning that Freud was wrong in his dogmatic insistence regarding wo/man’s innate instincts of sexuality and aggression; however, they also recognized that Freud had correctly diagnosed and emphasized wo/man’s creatureliness.
Freud “reflected the true intuitions of genius, even though the particular intellectual counter-part of that emotion—the sexual theory—proved to be wrong. Man’s body was a “curse of fate”, and culture was built upon repression—not because man was a seeker only of sexuality, of pleasure, of life and expansiveness, as Freud thought, but because man was also primarily an avoider of death.”
Not sexuality, as Freud theorized, but the consciousness of death is the primary repression. Freud recognized the curse early and dedicated his life toward exposing it. However, he missed the correct scientific fact that was the source of the curse; this being the repression upon which society is constructed.
Becker theorizes that Freud’s mistake is reveled in one key idea, which emerged in his later writings. “Death instinct” was introduced by Freud in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”. This theory was an attempt to patch up his libido theory, which he was very reluctant to reject. The death instinct was “a built in urge toward death as well as toward life”. He theorized that the death instinct was an instinctive urge to die, which was redirected outward into the desire to kill. Wo/man defeats this instinct by killing others.
Psychology has rejected Freud’s death instinct theory for a simpler one. Killing represents a symbolic solution that results from a fusion of animal anxiety with the death fear of the human animal. Rank says “the death fear of the ego is lessoned by the killing, the sacrifice, of the other; through the death of the other, one buys oneself free from the penalty of dying, of being killed.”
Churchill said something to the effect that “there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at and missed”.
Quotes from “The Denial of Death”; Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction by Ernest Becker.
I wonder: do you really mean aggressive as in "intending to cause pain or harm", or do you mean more in a defensive manner?
It is always difficult to find out whether something is "a case of genetics/nature" or "a case of culture". A person is born with certain DNA, and when we assume they're raised by family they are raised in a way that has been in that family for a while. So who is to say where "learning" begins and "natural ability" ends?
I think in case of aggression, it is both (as in many cases of behaviour it is). Some people have a natural hang towards it, and when they do not learn to control it while growing up it can get out of hand. Other people, getting the same uprising, but born with a more "let it go" attitude might not go that far. Or, the fact that they grow up in an environment that punishes people who are not aggressive (seeing it as "being too timid to stand up for themselves", confusing it with assertiveness) might make them aggressive after all - because that would be the behaviour that pays.
So in my humble opinion, I think you're born with a certain "giftedness" towards how far you go with your aggression, and that the way life threat(en)s you does the rest...
And I do not really see the connection with the fear of death, maybe you could explain why you choose to add this Coberst?
Aggressiveness is characteristic of human behaviour and man since time immemorial has behaving aggressively. Man's survival and in fact any creature's survival has been possible on this planet only through aggressiveness.
Aggressions are there in man's veins and capillaries.
Aggressiveness can not be eschewed, for it is a factor that enables man to stand.
Imagine you lack aggressiveness in this modern world. You can not advance and you will be extinct.
It is an essence, something we have it since our birth.
when I say "agressivness" I relate it to certain energy that is inside me...sometimes it help me to go on no matter which or "who" is my problem but i try to defeat it and also the negative energy that i physically feel against some people or situations; a negative energy that is strong that i have to do sth like meditation, gym or anything to get relax and to not hurt sb...emotional or physicaly hurt....
I'd agree with Coberst in the simplest of terms.
Our aggressiveness comes from our need to survive. All animals have it as well, if you pay attention. It is a mechanism of survival, basically, because sometimes you need to be tough to save yourself from danger.
Something along the lines of Coberst... aggressiveness is a mechanism of dealing with our fear; of death or pain or the unknown. Check yourselves out when you feel threatened or angry or in a defense position. Why do you get like that?
Ultimately, as rational beings, our goal tends to be the eradication any of those base, gut-originated feelings. That is the aim of many therapies and groups, etc. The only downside to enlightened individuals is that the odds of fighting back are pretty slim, and there goes our civilization :P
Unless you are paraphrasing from quotes centuries old, do you mean man as in specificaly excluding women, or do you mean it in its normal sexist form of excluding women as a given?Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
Men are more aggressive than women and this is scientific fact. This is reflected in crime rates for men compared to women and domestic violence casualties and fatalities. I therefore say that your sexist language actually conveys a truth.
To be fair, i think blaze of glory was using the the term "man" in neutral sort of way. also, do be careful of statements like "its a scientific fact" as of this somehow predicates immutability or something. I do think men have a tendency to be more aggressive than women but, i would not suggest that the elimination of men would result in some Utopian paradise of peace and serenity, devoid of crime and violence. I know a lot of women that are far more aggressive than i am. I think aggression is a characteristic present in both sexes, in varying degrees, often manifested in very different ways for very different reasons.