Aggression: Evolutionary and Anthropological Theories

Anthropology has contributed a great deal to our understanding of interpersonal human aggression (a behavior in which one person uses physical or verbal abuse to attack, dominate, or humiliate another). The evidence suggests that levels of interpersonal aggression vary enormously between societies and do so according to their “stage of social and cultural evolution.” This use of the word evolution, however, is highly misleading because it implies that there has been a simple and unilinear evolution from the primitive and violent to the civilized and nonviolent: In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

During the thousands of years of human prehistory, most of our ancestors lived in small bands of hunters, gatherers, and fishers. In such small and mobile groups, tight controls were exercised over the potential aggression of their members and specifically stigmatized violence (because peaceful cooperation ensured the maximum collective benefit in the food quest). Later, as human beings developed social arrangements more complex than the traditional small band (such as clans, lineages, or later, small states), the larger societies were able to mobilize many more potential warriors for predatory military operations against their neighbors. Aggressivity thus took on a new political and economic desirability for the emerging elites who would be enriched and empowered by such actions. This was enhanced still further with the development of the bureaucratic modern state, which, long before the Christian Era, had become little more than a ruthless war-making machine, favoring violent persons and mercenary politics. Only in the late 19th century did modern states, especially in Western Europe and North America, began to perceive the dangers inherent in continuous aggression and to resocialize their members toward a greater docility, at least in peacetime (muting or eliminating, for example, the blood feud, the duel, and the right of an individual to defend his honor).

To achieve its ends, each culture thus transmitted coded messages that validated or negated violence as an appropriate and manly response to frustration, according to the wishes of the dominant group. Moreover, each culture “chose” how much it would [Page 9]socialize internalized self-control in its citizens and how much it would punish its members for failing to exercise appropriate impulse control. Thus, if we are to understand the causes of aggression, we must first examine the factors that cause it to vary so enormously around the world.