On Aggression
This is a part of a series I’ve decided to launch for myself in which I attempt to write 1 paragraph (3–10 sentences) about something a day. It will not be perfectly curated or articulated, and there will certainly be punctuation problems. You’ve been warned.
2/5/21
Freud wrote that aggression is inherent to man’s disposition, though he wasn’t the first to theorize it. In fact, it seems to be a thread throughout not just philosophy or psychology, but also literature. Many question whether aggression is natural or learned as a part of a nurture process. But why should we first assume man’s natural state at birth is “good”, as if the blank slate is positive white space? Just as the void could have a positive charge, couldn’t it equally have a negative one?
Perhaps growth and learning is the process in which we may acquire empathy and control for uncontrolled, undisciplined aggression we may be born with. And the means for which we gain empathy, discipline, morality is through art. Art literally and abstractly teaches one how to see, imagine, and interpret the world around. If art and philosophy are what make us distinct from animals, then by conclusion, what makes us LIKE animals in our instinct for aggression, as a form of protection we have from birth onward?
