Why Is There So Much Aggression?
An analysis
People are becoming more and more aggressive. In the following, I analyze the causes.
The word aggressive comes from the Latin words ad, meaning ‘to’, and gradi, meaning ‘to step.’ It means ‘stepping towards something.’
Aggression is a movement and therefore an emotion, because this word comes from the Latin words ex and motion and means ‘outward movement.’ An emotion is an outburst of feeling. A feeling, on the other hand, is a body state – and a trigger for emotions. I explain this in my article “Feelings Are Not the Same as Emotions.” Aggression is, therefore, an expression of a body state.
A hungry lion uses aggression to catch prey. An attacked lion uses aggression to fight. A captured lion uses aggression to get free. A mother lion whose cub is in danger uses aggression to protect it. Even a cow needs aggression in the genuine sense of the word when eating: it has to move towards the grass and it has to bite on it – of course it is much less aggressive than a lion looking for food.
Aggression is natural and serves survival. It arises in the face of danger, of which there are three types:
Lack of biological needs such as food and water,
Threat from another life form or the environment,
Imprisonment.
This is how aggression arises in a body: Every life form needs energy to stay alive. The energy is obtained through food, stored in the body, and used to maintain all vital bodily functions. In the event of danger, the life form needs as much energy as possible to avert it. In animal life forms, the body is constricted for this purpose. This slows down or even blocks bodily functions, such as digestion and healing. Most of the energy is now available for the extremities. This makes sense, because dealing with the danger is now the top priority.
A constricted body state is appropriately denoted as ‘anger,’ because this word has the root *angh- meaning ‘tight, constricted.’ The word fear comes from Proto-Germanic *feraz, meaning ‘danger.’ The greater the danger, the greater the constriction. In nature, a danger doesn’t last long. Either the animal can avert the danger – or it dies. If it survives and the danger is gone, the body relaxes and all vital functions return to normal.
We humans also naturally become aggressive in the face of danger. But unlike animals, we can also imagine being in danger. This imagination comes from social programs. As with real dangers, there are also three types of imagined danger: imagined lack, imagined threat, and imagined imprisonment.
Suppose you have written a report for your boss. You have worked on it for days, are proud of the result, and expect praise. The desire for praise or recognition is not natural, but a learnt need. I explain how it arises in my book “Being Free – Get Out of the Box.”
You present the report, but receive no praise. You experience a lack. This lack is imagined because it comes from a program. Nevertheless, you feel it physically. This is because your body does not distinguish between a real and an imagined lack; it does not distinguish between a real and an imagined danger. It reacts with constriction, and you, therefore, become aggressive. I explain the connection between mind and body in my article “Why and How You Have Much More Influence on Your Body Than You Think.”
Suppose someone calls you an idiot. That is a mental attack. Most people consider this an insult and react aggressively. But this threat is imagined and not real, because it doesn’t jeopardize your physical survival. What do you care about someone else’s opinion? It’s only important to you because you’ve been programmed that way.
99% of your actions and thoughts come from programs. They create a mental prison. This imprisonment is imagined and not real, because you could leave this prison at any time. But most people don’t even realize that they are mentally imprisoned and to what extent. If you don’t know you are in a prison, you can’t escape it. I describe this in my article “Why the Question ‘What Am I?’ Is Important and Magical.” It takes a lot of work to free yourself from your programs. I describe a method in my article “How to Become What You Truly Are in 7 Steps.”
What effect do your programs have on you? Much of what you do, you do because you have been programmed to do it; in other words, you function. But “something” inside you doesn’t want to function. That’s why you do a lot of things with some reluctance. This creates tension in your body every time and, therefore, a small portion of aggression. You rarely live out this aggression because you have learnt to function. If tension is not released through aggression, it remains in the body. It becomes latent aggression.
Imagined dangers are often more harmful than real dangers. A lack of food, for example, you can usually remedy. But you can usually not remedy an imagined lack. You can’t force your boss to give you the praise you crave. So you will either suppress your resulting aggression or direct it at something uninvolved. Maybe you swear; or you bang your fist on the table; or you numb yourself with drugs, alcohol, or sugar; or you distract yourself somehow.
But even if you swear, bang your fist on the table, numb yourself, or distract yourself, the imagined lack remains because you still have the need for recognition; and so your body remains tense; and so you remain latently aggressive. And every time something reminds you of your lack, you become a little more tense and therefore more latently aggressive. If you long for praise, anyone who receives recognition reminds you of your lack and triggers you. If you long for love, every romantic couple and every romantic film reminds you of your lack and triggers you. And the mental prison of your programs constantly triggers you, anyway.
Imagined dangers can become chronic, causing the body’s tension to become chronic. Over years and decades, the body becomes more and more tense ... and therefore the latent aggression becomes stronger and stronger. And one day, a minor event breaks the camel’s back. It creates an outbreak of aggression, the intensity of which is disproportionate to the trigger.
Naturally, aggression is directed against the cause of the danger, such as an attacker or a prison wall. But all imagined dangers have their cause in social programs. You learned these programs when you were growing up by copying the behavior of your parents and other people; they adopted the programs from their parents; this goes back countless generations. Aggression arising from imagined dangers has no addressee. It can, therefore, only be directed against something or someone that is not the cause of your aggression; or it is directed against yourself.
If your boss does not praise you as expected, he is not the cause of your lack; the cause is the program that makes you expect praise. If someone calls you a jerk, this person is not the cause of your anger; the cause is the program that makes you take this person seriously.
If the aggression is directed outwards, it can range from a punch on the table to vandalism to injuring or even killing another life form. If the aggression is directed inwards, it is directed against yourself. This can manifest as self-harm, such as carving your skin, drug use, or suicide. You know that this is harmful to you, but the energy of aggression is stronger than your reason. Long-suppressed aggression can also gradually lead to physical or mental diseases.
There are more and more people on this planet. And the social programs are also becoming more. New rules and laws increasingly restrict us individually and collectively. As a result, more and more people are becoming more and more latently aggressive. As a result, there are more and more outbreaks of aggression – sometimes outward, sometimes inward.
The only proper solution is to free oneself from one’s programs; and everyone must recognize and do this for themselves. The fewer programs control a person, the fewer imagined dangers they experience, and the closer they are to their truth.
“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself,
and make a change.”
(Michael Jackson)
Further reading:
Article “Feelings Are Not the Same as Emotions”
Book “Being Free – Get Out of the Box”
Article “Why and How You Have Much More Influence on Your Body Than You Think”
Article “Why the Question ‘What Am I?’ Is Important and Magical”
Article “How to Become What You Truly Are in 7 Steps”
I feel like we learn to read people's aggression (or we can literally pick up on it) behind their mental attacks, like when they call us a jerk or an idiot, and it's innate to physiologically respond to aggression coming at us. But either way, don't we have an innate drive to respond to sociological threats that can affect our social standing and inclusion?
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