The Aggressive Instinct in Freudian Rhetoric - Essay Example

?The Aggressive Instinct in Freudian Rhetoric Introduction Theorists from various disciplines, especially those in the social sciences, have fiercelydebated whether men are naturally more aggressive or destructive than women. Many natural scientists argue that male destructiveness is natural and designed for competition and survival. In addition, male aggression defends kin and the flock from predators or animals of prey. In competitions for females, the fittest, fiercest, most competitive, and most aggressive males will win the competition (Lippa 2005). Thus, nature facilitates natural selection and species survival. This essay discusses whether or not human beings have an instinct to destroy. The discussion mostly applies Sigmund Freud’s feminist accounts of aggression. An Overview The physical manifestation of aggression and the anatomical reactions are the same and natural for both male and female. The steroid hormone testosterone in males is discovered to boost aggressiveness and enhance muscle mass. Males are normally more powerfully built and bigger physically than females (Lippa 2005). In a re-evaluation of studies as far as 1974, Maccoby and Jacklin (1974 as cited in Sandelands 2001, 53) and Moyer (1974 as cited in Sandelands 2001, 53) reported that in every culture throughout history, men are more destructive than women. Men perpetrate more vicious acts and more deeds of planned or personal aggression than women. Dabbs and Morris (1990 as cited in Lippa 2005, 131), in an investigation of Vietnam vets, discovered that males with increased levels of testosterone were more prone to have a background of multiple sexual partners, substance abuse, power competition, and criminal behaviour. Almost all of these men were not financially well-off; in men belonging to a superior class, the specific social situations or career may affect whether or not their violent behaviour is redirected and manifested through social ‘authority’ (Lippa 2005, 131). Nevertheless, genes are not the only element in aggression. Environmental factors largely influence aggression, as well. The body reacts physiologically to feelings or sensations emanate from new experiences (Cavell & Malcolm 2007). For instance, as reported by Booth and colleagues (1989 as cited in Goodwin et al. 2011, 85), testosterone level in males was discovered to vary after aggressive activities, like sports competitions. Levels of testosterone rose following a victory and fell following a defeat. The researchers emphasised that the level of testosterone is directly related to the creation of social hierarchies. In addition, culture significantly influences the manifestation of aggression (Goodwin et al. 2011). According to Ashley Montagu (1973), in almost all cultural groups, the issue of territoriality is more associated with social factors, kinship, and tribalism. Moreover, in numerous cultures, like Pygmies, Australian aborigines, Bushmen, Pueblo Indians, and others, the males are not hostile, warlike, and destructive. There are cultural groups which do not promote or instil aggressive behaviours (Montagu 1973). Genetics, environment, and culture are vital and interdependent on the issue of aggression. Still, as shown by existing findings, it is logical to argue that males have greater tendency to destroy or show aggressiveness than females. Furthermore, there are findings from child development regarding the higher natural inclination of men towards aggression (Goodwin et al. 2011). Chodorow (1978 as cited in Mansfield 2007, 29) reports that throughout the preoedipal stage, boys need to separate from their dominant mother to attain a manly gender character, whilst girls can sustain their relationship with the mother of babyhood, and their identity formation is not pressured by reliance on her. As mentioned by Mansfield 2007, the need of the boy to gain self-sufficiency and separation from the mother leads to a heightened need for power and aggression in grown-up men. The Freudian Account While other theorists tended to look on aggression as an aberration and sought ways of combating it... Sigmund Freud firmly included aggressive behaviour within the psychosexual framework of the human being (Harding 2006, 5). In a nutshell, Freud initially focused on sexuality but he eventually realised that aggression served a major function in helping men prevail over the resistance of women to their sexual cues. After more than a decade Freud suggested that human instinct comprised only aggression developed from a vicious death instinct (Harding 2006). Within the perspective of these two premises, Freud began to determine an array of components of human aggressiveness. He believed that constructive aggression, fostering the growth of the sexual impulse, may be distorted into sadism. He recognised ‘hate’ in the aggressive instincts towards and the ego’s negation of, distasteful and traumatic experiences (Harding 2006). According to Abel (1989), this hate towards an unpleasant ‘other’, disrupting a sense of security and happiness, was ascribed to an instinct towards self-preservation. Eventually, Freud strengthened his theory of aggression by suggesting that aggression is a main reaction to painful experiences. Painful experiences here imply death of loved and despised ones and emotional injuries, particularly egotistical wounds to the self (Zillman 1998). Within this development, aggression can be observed slowly surfacing from sexuality until it is identified as a main feature of human instinct that should be merged with, and strengthened by, love so as to achieve its beneficial possibilities and regulate its destructive possibilities (Zillman 1998). In the aggression theory that has been gradually explained with the introduction of psychoanalytic developmental psychology, it has been more and more understood that even though innate or natural phenomena have a biological explanation, their growth is altered by initial attachments with primary ‘others’ and the emotional character of that attachment along the range of gratification and dissatisfaction (Harding 2006). Hence, according to Mansfield (2007), the psychoanalytic explanation of aggression has shifted from an interest in urges and impulses to a concern with the growth of constructive behaviours, intelligence, and emotions and the explanation of the range of emotions like hatred, resentment, and enmity, which may or may not be related to aggression. According to Marcowitz (1982 as cited in Shaw 1999, 89), there are four kinds of behaviours that should be clarified in an aggression theory (Shaw 1999): (1) activities toward an object, such as assertiveness, exploration, and dominance; (2) instrumental aggression to accomplish a goal or aggressive behaviour that occurs as a reaction to frustration or in response to an attach; (3) hatred, in which the aim is the destruction or humiliation of the object; and (4) sadism, the infliction of pain or humiliation on an object for the purpose of sexual excitement and gratification (p. 89). Thus the most important role of psychoanalysis is that it was the pioneer of an aggression theory that explains how and why aggression is a natural or biological component of human psychic form and thus a phenomenon to be understood and not ignored or avoided. Freud, in his famous discourses on sexuality, tried to explain the direct connection between sexuality and aggression theoretically. He proposed that the linkage between aggressive and sexual instincts represents a vestige of times when socialisation abilities were still undeveloped to guarantee sexual prowess and, thus, procreation (Zillman 1998). The connection, in that case, is viewed as a mirror of an antiquated but still biological and practical tendency to forcibly seize women. Hence Freud views the inclination to act aggressively towards the sexual target as trait, not as deviant (Zillman 1998, 4): An admixture of aggression characterises the sexuality of most men. There is an urge to overpower the sexual object. The biological significance of this urge lies in the necessity to overcome the resistance of the object by means other than persuasion. The probable connection between aggression and sexuality relates to both females and males. Nevertheless, it has been proposed that it relates to females and males in dissimilar, distinctive ways. As commonly known, Sigmund Freud regarded sex-based aggressive tendencies to be a common male attribute (Abel 1989). Freud considered it evident that cruelty or, sadism, is basically the expression of aggression in an amplified way, and he thus viewed cruelty as a male attribute. Freud discerns a relationship between sadism and aggression (Abel 1989, 46): As regards... sadism, the roots are easy to detect in the normal. The sexuality of most male human beings contains an element of aggressiveness—a desire to subjugate; the biological significance of it seems to lie in the need for overcoming the resistance of the sexual object by means other than the process of wooing. Thus sadism would correspond to an aggressive component of the sexual instinct which has become independent and exaggerated. His argument about masochism is less clear-cut. In his seminal works he proposed that masochism is a resultant force that arises from the reversal of sadism. Soon after, Freud changed his argument. Even though he still argued that masochism may, on occasion, arise from sadism he afterwards proposed that masochism is as major a dynamic as sadism (Harding 2006). Nevertheless, Freud completely believed that masochism is a common female trait that develops from main sexual tendencies to overwhelm the entire womanhood, and that it is adverse to masculine attributes (Shaw 1999). He thought, according to Harding (2006), masochistic men put themselves into a womanhood position, subliminally wanting a castration, acting the submissive role in sexual intercourse, and procreating. However, Freud equated as well masochistic tendencies to the actions of children fearful of an authoritarian, possibly cruel father: “The masochist wants to be treated like a little, helpless, and dependent child, especially like a naughty child” (Zillman 1998, 17). This argument remains widely known and applied in the current field of psychotherapy. As expected, these Freudian arguments have been at odds with feminist perception. On the assumption that Ovid can be charged of having supported unsympathetic views of women by depicting them as individuals devoid of sexual drive who desire to be defiled, Freud can thus be charged of having further promoted such views (Zillman 1998). Apparently, numerous behavioural disparities between males and females as regards to Freudian theories are present in numerous cultures and cannot be refuted. The degree to which such disparities are biologically established or merely the outcome of assimilation is somewhat inconclusive, though. Freud may certainly have been thoughtless in envisioning the essence of femininity from his findings on the mostly culture-based sexual behaviours of his clients in Vienna (Shaw 1999). He could have severely misjudged the level to which gender disparities as regards to sexuality are absolutely influenced by genetics (Goodwin et al. 2011); and by attributing to females a natural masochistic trait, he could certainly have perpetrated a serious mockery and discrimination of women. It has been proposed that Freud’s view of females as convenient victims of sexual violence has helped build an environment unsympathetic to women who have been harmed by violent and intensely aggressive men. Particularly, it appears to have aided in keeping the purported ‘rape myth’—the assumption that females totally take pleasure in being victimised—alive, and thus continuously makes females weak and at risk (Jonte-Pace 2003, 252). It has been reported that males who promote aggression as a way of resolving problems or conflicts also have a tendency to embrace the theory of the masochistic woman. The myth is hence very convenient for several males. Yet more commonly, and in spite the important findings about the detrimental effects on women who have been sexually harassed or violated, almost all men appear to think that the rape myth contains some realities (Jonte-Pace 2003). Without doubt, the prevalence of such assumptions cannot be blamed to the works of Freud alone (Harding 2006). Nonetheless, it seems that the Freudian account of women’s masochistic sexual tendencies has, as claimed, not really invited compassion and consideration for women who have been sexually violated. Then again, Freud might have overvalued the function of physical strength and force in the supposed subjugation of women. In any case, in quite a few of the closest relatives of human beings, apes and monkeys to be exact, competition over sexual access is evidently lacking; and the females, for a certain period of time, vigorously seek sexual interactions from the males in their herd (Goodwin et al. 2011). In his theories, Freud put emphasis on the male as the vigorous, aggressive party. Libido is believed to stimulate males more than females. Aggression was evidently a resulting dynamic (Lippa 2005). This condition, according to Shaw (1999), did not significantly alter with the subsequent inclusion of a death instinct. The components of the death instinct, nothing like the components of other instincts of aggression, are claimed to work towards self harm or destruction. In order to protect or prolong life, such instinctual dynamics have to be constantly adapted into seemingly controlled aggressive or destructive behaviours (Shaw 1999). Men are believed to handle the aforementioned adaptation better than do women. More particularly, men are believed to quite skilled at this adaptation that they can use the saved strength for sexual engagement. Within this Freudian perspective, therefore, women not just become the prey of the larger adaptation success on the part of the men, but are further violated by allowing themselves quite frequently to be the focus of self-destructive instincts (Sandelands 2001). Basically, Freud’s argument is that aggression or destructive instincts can be “traced back to the original death instinct of living matter” (Abel 1989, 46). An apparent virtue of Freud’s theory of death instinct is that it presents a probable function for the destructive instincts. Freud, in his early works, does not appear certain whether to categorise these instincts as ego or sexual (Jonte-Pace 2003). An analysis of several of Freud’s major theories about aggression in his formative works reveals an important dilemma for a sexual-ego polarity. However, Freud fails to mention whether aggressive behaviour is to be categorised totally as sexual impulse. He eventually relates aggressive behaviour to cruelty. He categorises cruelty as a constituent sexual impulse, but states that “the fundamental psychological analysis of this instinct has... not yet been satisfactorily achieved” (Abel 1989, 46). Yet, Freud introduces the assumption that “the impulses of cruelty arise from sources which are in fact independent of sexuality, but may become united with it at an early stage” (Fromm 1976, 487). The message is that aggressive behaviour does not in any way originates from sexual instinct, and that it develops from the ego instinct. In 1915, Freud revises the aforementioned assumption to argue that sadism “arises from the instinct for mastery” (Abel 1989, 47). Earlier, Freud introduces the intriguing proposal that aggressive behaviour is a dynamic in every instinct, such as ego and sexual instincts (Shaw 1999). Within the perspective of examining Alfred Adler’s assumption that aggression is an impulse distinct from the ego and sexual impulses, Freud claims (Handlbauer 1998, 58): I cannot bring myself to assume the existence of a special aggressive instinct alongside of the familiar instincts of self-preservation and of sex... Adler has mistakenly promoted into a special and self-subsisting instinct what is in reality a universal and indispensable attribute of all instincts. The above Freudian argument has a certain value, according to Jonte-Pace (2003), but it appears to risk his dedication to a clearly binary justification for psychic variance and for psychic performance on the whole. Moreover, Freud connects ‘hate’—an occurrence directly associated with the aggressive instinct, although hate is a ’feeling’, not an instinct— to the ego (Parens 2008, 50): The true prototypes of the relation of hate are... derived... from the ego’s struggle to preserve and maintain itself... [Hate] always remains in an intimate relation with the self-preservative instincts. Yet Freud fails to clarify the exact connection between aggression and hate. Aggression in the Media There has constantly been a disagreement about whether media depictions of aggressive behaviours promote violence and destructiveness in the larger society. The issue is that there is no unanimously agreed upon definition of aggression (Harris 2009). There are also several theories of aggression, including Freud’s. As been mentioned earlier, these theories can be psychologically or genetically based; however, it is very difficult to take these two apart. For example, Freud characterised instincts that could result in hostility, and argued that aggression may let loose such natural drives (Harris 2009). At times the aggression may be undisruptive or safe, like aggression in sports competitions, but it would attract the destructive energies in a generally reasonable manner—a mechanism called ‘catharsis’ (Cavell & Malcolm 2007, 128).Yet, sometimes, catharsis may not happen, and the instincts may not be freed. Such occurrence, according to Freud (as cited in Bryant and Vorderer 2006), may result in criminal behaviours. Basically, Freud argues that media depiction of violence would function as an instrument for the freeing of destructive energies. Particularly, fierce video games requiring aggressive movements, like shooting, punching, and bashing, would obviously represent aggressive amusement, and hence should lead to a diminution of the urge to behave violently or aggressively (Parens 2008). Nevertheless, according to Cavell and Malcolm (2007), existing findings do not substantiate the idea that behaving violently during amusement frees contained fury and destructive emotions. Even though the instinct theory of Freud has been debunked, according to Cavell and Malcolm (2007), the notion that aggressive energies can be freed through amusement is often exercised as a basis by school administrators, parents, and others for the approval of violence in the media and destructive play. The Freudian assumption that it is a sensible move to find expression for resentment has become extensively propagated and recognised in contemporary society. Written media and self-professed professionals usually claim that it is good to express and, thus, ease anger (Harris 2009). Yet, as stated previously, experimental studies commonly have not substantiated the idea of catharsis. In fact, numerous studies reported the contrary: acting aggressively has a tendency to further stimulate fury and aggression. For instance, Anderson and Bushman (2001 as cited in Harris 2009, 284) performed a revolutionary literature review on aggressive video games and discovered that engaging in such games was associated with stimulated physiological arousal and aggression and to diminished socially healthy behaviour. Indeed, they discovered that the connection between aggression and media violence was nearly as significant as the connection between cancer and smoking (Harris 2009). In other words, consumption of media violence not merely numbs individuals to aggressive behaviours; it promotes destructive self-perceptions and habitual aggressive reactions and heightens resentment, as well. Conclusions Almost nobody would challenge the belief that humans have an instinct to destroy, or that aggression is biologically or genetically based. It is also logical to assume that it emerges in reaction to threat and dissatisfaction. And it is obvious that, in addition to violent aggression, there is healthy aggression as well. Aggression builds particular implications for all individuals as their destructive instincts surface and form in the framework of their interactions, experiences, and attachments. Basically, human aggression acquires some sort of sense from the manner others bring up, interpret and react to aggressive actions and reactions. And ultimately, the inclination to destroy or elicit aggressive behaviours, as reported by some current studies, is heightened by exposure to media violence. References Abel, D. (1989) Freud on instinct and morality. New York: SUNY Press. Bryant, J. & Vorderer, P. (2006) Psychology of entertainment. London: Routledge. Cavell, T. & Malcolm, K. (2007) Anger, aggression, and interventions for interpersonal violence. London: Routledge. Fromm, E. (1976) The anatomy of human destructiveness. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Goodwin, S., Friedman, T., & Dunlap, J. (2011) Aggression. London: Academic Press. Handlbauer, B. (1998) The Freud-Adler controversy. Michigan: Oneworld. Harding, C. (2006) Aggression and destructiveness: psychoanalytic perspectives. New York: Psychology Press. Harris, R. (2009) A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. New York: Taylor & Francis. Jonte-Pace, D.E. (2003) Teaching Freud. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lippa, R. (2005) Gender, Nature, and Nurture. London: Routledge. Mansfield, A. (2007) Masculine norms, trauma symptoms, emotional skillfulness and aggression: Understanding the connections. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest. Montagu, A. (1973) Man and aggression. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parens, H. (2008) The development of aggression in early childhood. Lanham, Maryland: Jason Aronson. Sandelands, L.E. (2001) Male & Female in Social Life. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Shaw, J. (1999) Sexual Aggression. New York: American Psychiatric Publication. Zillman, D. (1998) Connections between sexuality and aggression. London: Routledge. Read More