Is aggression innate characteristic of living creatures? Is it possible to impose restraints on it? Can we stop aggression from turning into violence? The questions are difficult but the answers are more so. Aggression, if we look at the history of evolution, is something positive, a tool that protects living beings. Living beings are dependent on nature and have to compete with one another in the conditions, not always in their control, to ensure their survival.

Nature while being the source of life creates contradictory forces each one of which operates firstly for its survival and lastly for its supremacy. Look at the animal world which we are part of. Three things are crucially important for animals; food, territory (shelter) and mating. Food is not always available in abundance. Even when it is, it has to be sought as it may not at one’s door step. Secondly, no species are alone to have it all. Others are there who too have a claim on it. Then there are animals which require different types of food; herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. Herbivores not only have to share what is available with other members of their own tribe and similar other animals but also have to be on guard against carnivores and omnivores for whom they can become food. So herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat herbivores. Omnivores eat both. An herbivore has to beware; it can be eaten while it is eating or is in search of food. A carnivore has to beware as it can be eaten by some stronger carnivore. Likewise an omnivore has to be on its guard against a carnivore and omnivore. Defense lies in being aggressive and agile to stall the aggression coming from outside. If it cannot scare away the predator with a show of aggression, it has to flee. Safety still is not ensured. Display of aggression appropriate to the occasion makes animals safe. In worst cases aggression turns into violence.

Same is the case with the second requirement, territory. Each species needs a space, a safety zone in order to live and flourish. All animals are territorial, some more some less. Each clan tries to choose the best territory that offers it better chances of getting food and being secure. But no place, even chosen by the strongest ones, is fully secure as intruders are everywhere. Intruders have to be dealt with aggression, at times even with violence. The third requirement is mating. Since it is pleasurable, it’s less problematic. Animals have sexual cycles and mating is instinctually driven and fulfills reproductive functions.

Humans too are animals but are one of a kind. They have transcended certain important constraints put on animals by nature. Growth of human brain has led to a very special product called human consciousness that manifests itself among humans as self-awareness underpinned by the perception of time as linear. This in simple terms means that humans can perceive what was (the past), what is (the present) and what would be (the future). This acquired power enables them to connect things, arrange them and above all plan them with a view to producing specific results in the days to come. Consequently, they are able not only to hunt and gather food but also grow what can be stored and consumed as food.

The spectre of scarcity has been eliminated; humans have food more than their collective needs. It’s altogether a different question that inherited and newly introduced socio-economic structures let the half of population starve. This phenomenon is rooted in our being human. Related with this development has been the occupation of almost all the territories on this planet which originally meant for all, humans and animals, a kind of common land. The acquisition of territories has been so rapid that millions of species have been made to lose their natural habitats. Breaking free of sex cycles, humans have become able to have sex anytime with the result that they have outnumbered all other species on this planet which means expanded human power. Paradoxically what made humans better - in the sense of creating better conditions for them - has rendered them worse than animals. Now conscious of movement of time, humans are haunted at subconscious level by their dreadfully trying past marked by hunger, misery and powerlessness.

Collective human mind has become a subterranean cave full of unseen presence of ghosts it has inherited from our forebears who lived in primeval forests stalked by seen and unseen enemies. Such memories have played a significant role in creating the kind of social structures we have. Individuals, groups and nations that operate in such structures have a strong propensity to have exclusive hold on everything whether it is food, territory, sex and above all power to get rid of deep-rooted and all-pervasive sense of insecurity that is not loudly articulated. The fact shows a crucial difference humans have with animals; they want much more than what is dictated by their instincts. The instincts have been humanised negatively. They are controlled by consciousness as far as possible to achieve results other than natural. What’s other than natural is purely human. That’s why each individual, groups or nation, provided there is an opportunity, is ready to possess all the food, (natural resources) and capture all the territories to the exclusion of others. A predator shall not kill its quarry to store it for its future meals, nor shall it mark the territory more than what is needed for survival. Infinite lust is human quality born of a sense of human potential. Lust is connected with the sense of possession and possession leads the way to power. And levers of control spring from power. But power in human domain is a fiercely contested game which all the concerned (individuals, groups and nations) want to win by all means, fair and foul, more by foul than fair. In order to win this war of possession laced power aggression isn’t sufficient; each human can be as aggressive as any other. Violence is what is needed to be victorious. But violence has an ugly dimension; it dehumanises the victor as well as the victim. It deprives them, especially the perpetrator of violence, of species greatest achievement, humanity.

Humanity’s bedrock is sharing of whatever is available. So the victory achieved with the use of violence would be pyrrhic. What a human needs is what was demonstrated by one of the ‘naked philosophers (Nanga Sadhus)’ in Punjab, who admonishing Alexander said: “only the land you stand on belongs to you.” Unless we rise above our animal level needs through an equitable system, human history, to borrow words from Marx, shall not begin. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2023