On Aggression

This book is a study of aggression in animals, where aggression refers to intra-species conflict for mating rights and territory, and also for protection of the young (against members of the same species or others). Having discussed aggression, ritual behaviour, instincts and the role of displaced aggression, he moves onto discuss various types of intra-specific relationships. Starting with flocking animals and shoaling fish where there are no individual relationships between members of the shoal or flock, and moving on via creatures like rats where the pack is violently aggressive to any rat that isn't a member of their pack, he finally comes to creatures that do have personal bonds with their mate and children, and even with 'friends', such as greylag geese.

The most interesting part of the book comes at the end, where Lorenz discusses the role of aggression in human culture and relationships and compares us to other animals. One thing he suggests is that war is possible because man did not evolve as a predator, with teeth or claws that could kill another member of the species with a single blow. Therefore humans did not develop the inhibitions that prevent predators from fighting to the death, so when we invented weapons there was noting to restrain us from using them to wage war and kill huge numbers of our own species.

Anonymity of the person to be attacked greatly facilitates the releasing of aggressive behaviour. It is an observation familiar to anybody who has travelled in trains that well-bred people behave atrociously towards strangers in the territorial defence of their compartment. When they discover that the intruder is an acquaintance, however casual, there is an amazing and ridiculous switch in their behaviour from extreme rudeness to exaggerated and extreme politeness.

Written in the early sixties, this probably isn't the most up to date book on the subject that you could find, but it is still very interesting.

The cover picture, "Lion Attacking a Horse" by George Stubbs was badly chosen, as early on in the book the author makes it clear that inter-species predation is not motivated by aggression, so a picture of a horse protecting its foal against a lion would have been relevant to the book's topic, but a picture of a lion attacking a horse is not. ( )

Konrad Lorenz’s book, On Aggression, wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I thought it would be an in-depth look at human aggression, and how it affects humanity in general and small populations in particular. Instead, what the book is about is Lorenz’s studies of the aggressive behavior of fish and bird species. While these studies are interesting to read about, and may provide insight into some of the behavior of people, I found it ultimately unsatisfactory in meeting its goal of explaining human aggression.

Full review: http://libwen.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/on-aggression-by-konrad-lorenz/ ( )

The english translation of the german original Das Sogenannte Böse, Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression, this book is a masterpiece. A brilliant essay on animal behaviour by an outstanding scientist, with deep insights into human nature and society. Outstanding! ( )

With vast knowledge acquired primarily from his own animal studies, Lorenz first describes animal instinctive behaviour, then extends his conclusions to include human beings: "Unreasoning and unreasonable human nature causes two nations to compete, though no economic necessity compels them to do so; it induces two political parties or religions with amazingly similar programmes of salvation to fight each other bitterly and it impels an Alexander or a Napoleon to sacrifice millions of lives in his attempt to unit the world under his sceptre. ... All these amazing paradoxes, however, find an unconstrained explanation, falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, if one assumes that human behaviour, and particularly human social behaviour, far from being determined by reason and cultural tradition alone, is still subject to all the laws prevailing in all phylogenetically adapted instinctive behaviour."
CONTENTS:
I. Prologue in the Sea
II. Coral Fish in the Laboratory
III. What Aggression is good for
IV. The Spontaneity of Aggression
V. Habit, Ritual and Magic
VI. The Great Parliament of Instincts
VII. Behavioural Analogies to Morality
VIII. Anonymity of the Flock
IX. Social Organization without Love
X. Rats
XI. The Bond
XII. On the Virtue of Scientific Humility
XIII. Ecce Homo!
XIV. Avowal of Optimism

Neglects external and learned explanations of aggression. and so argues for innate genetic models alone. Assumes that animal studies can explain human social behaviour. Not even clear if instincts are a valid concept as linked to idea of nerves as being for energy flow rather then information flow. But say like the classical 19th century thinkers it usful to help start a discussion ( )