Chapter 14 – Human Aggression: Killing and Abuse

As a group, many writers claim that we are a killing and abusive species, while others claim that we are not ( Zuckerman, 1995). Some claim that we are basically moral, while others claim that we are corrupt. If we learn anything from the examples of human behavior presented in this book, we should realize that as a species, we are a mixture of good and bad traits (an antagonistic duality, expressed in historic, religious, and philosophical literature), occasionally expressing altruistic behavior, selflessness, remorse, and sympathy, and at other times we are often prejudiced, egotistical tyrants, selfish to the core, and unable to understand the feelings of other humans ( Simon, 2008). It is no secret that human behavior is diverse, and attitudes toward killing vary considerably. In addition, certain events in the lives of people often change them in one way or another, bringing out pleasant features at times and unpleasant features at others. War and the killing that accompanies it, for instance, are especially detrimental to the mental homeostasis of a person and his or her family who experience it ( Livshits and Kobyliansky, 1991). Lacking predators, we have modified the forces that influence our environmental carrying capacity (e.g., predators, parasites, and inadequate supplies of food); we have also overpopulated the Earth, and with our dominant and aggressive dispositions, we have put undue pressure on ourselves, providing an incentive for increased dominance struggles, including warring on one another ( Russell, 2001). Unpleasantly, we can relate the human population and the Earth to a cage of rats. The scenario goes something like this: purchase a pair of rats, confine them to a cage, feed them, and let them reproduce. At first, the rats are generally a harmonious group, but with an estrus cycle of 4 days and an ability to have litters almost every 21 days, the population will soon grow out of bounds, and they will become more aggressive toward one another. Certain individuals will become overbearingly dominant, despotic, if you will. Eventually, they will kill one another and pollute their environment. We can allow them to continue increasing their population size and suddenly make their food scarce and watch closely at how their degree of aggressiveness rises. In many respects, we are those rats, and our confinement is within the bounds of Earth. If we could, we might provide them with a cognizant brain, technological skills, and other human attributes and record the resultant increase in behavioral complexity and deception and intolerance. We, like them and all other animal species, ignore the signs of overpopulation and impending doom. Under normal environmental circumstances, the numbers of organisms are brought back into bounds because of predation, parasitism, and the abundance of food. Because we ignore these signs and lack predators to keep our population down, we have additional problems, all contributing to a stressful existence, for example, several forms of environmental pollution, global environmental changes, dwindling resources, and all of the consequent environmental abuse pointed out in Chapter 16. As our populations grow out of bounds, we will find that certain resources will be in more demand, and we will fight other subpopulations of our species with technologically advanced weapons to get what we want. And in the process, we will destroy the only cage we have. We should once again recall the outstanding differences between human personalities. There is a gradation of behavior from subordinates to tolerant dominants to towering intolerant, despotic dominants in groups of people around the world. Certain individuals in these hierarchies are more willing to kill than others. The perpetrators of killing sometimes go to extremes in their killing, while some get others to do it for them. Some people say that there are legitimate reasons for war, but most wars occur because of differences between dominant, aggressive, and intolerant world leaders and the coalitions or covenants to which they belong. Killing appears to be well engrained in our species, and it is found in most other predaceous animal species as well. It is a trait that actually assists all species in their survival and reproduction. Kill or be killed, express yourself in ways that tell your foe that you are not to be dealt with or hide to avoid killing. At times, however, we (psychopaths and “normal” people alike) kill for pleasure. At the other end of the behavioral scale, there are people who abhor killing of any sort. Many individuals in our population even refrain from eating meat because of what they feel are atrocities committed to domestic animals from which the meat is taken ( Andreopoulos, 1994). Yet, as a species, we most often feel no guilt for killing another animal: we kill agricultural animals; we fish certain species even to the brink of extinction; we hunt wild species as a sport, killing multitudes of feral individuals simply for our pleasure or by taking land for building upon or growing crops to feed our masses; and we sometimes kill one another, and often without feelings of empathy for the people we kill or their distraught families. But where does this killing trait originate? It is worth looking into this phenomenon to understand more about who we are and why we do these things. Fishing is a sport that is loved by many people. However, as explained, it is a form of killing or torture in the eyes of the animal being caught, as well as in the eyes of some humans. People who are avid fisherpersons are generally not concerned with using a barbed hook or a net to catch, subdue (dominate), and otherwise traumatize a fish, whether it is for sport, food, or some mystical ingredient to promote sexual dominance in those who eat it. When it jumps out of the water, we get excited and comment about the pleasure of the fight. As it gets close to the boat, we may remark about its natural beauty. If the fish being brought in is large enough and strong enough, we often do not hesitate to comment about how much of a fighter it was, and then, for our safety, we sometimes clobber it mercilessly with a blunt instrument before bringing it into the boat. If it is a trophy fish, it may end up on the wall for all to see. The numbers of predators such as tuna, cod, and swordfish have dropped by two-thirds over the past century, while small prey fish have sometimes doubled due to the lack of predation ( Carey, 2006). Fifty-four percent of the predatory fish population has declined in the last 40 years alone. Is it possible that there are too many people to feed with the size of available fish populations? It thus is clear that the culprit in dwindling fish populations in global oceans is worldwide overfishing, especially of tuna, groupers, and other big, tasty fish that are slow to reproduce. According to a Monteray Bay report, 85% of the world's fisheries are either fully exploited, overexploited, or have collapsed. There are people who hunt and fish and people who strongly criticize those who do them. The US Fish and Wildlife Service found that almost 75% of Americans believe in hunting. However, they may not agree with the methods used by people who fail to teach themselves proper hunting procedures. For instance, 62% of them believe that many hunters violate laws and use dangerous or unethical hunting practices ( Posewitz, 1994). In addition, poachers, people who take plants and animals illegally, are commonly found in all countries, often resulting in the dwindling of populations to unstable numbers, in spite of laws to protect them. In arguments about the values of hunting, representatives of the hunting population rightly point out that farming kills animals by taking away habitat; by poisoning ground water with pesticide and fertilizer; by pollution from fossil fuel–using machinery, refrigeration, and transportation of produce; by the intentional killing of local herbivores to protect crops; and by machinery passes that kill ground nesting animals. Farming is by definition more environmentally intrusive than the selective, in-person culling of one or few wild animals. Wildlife exploitation and the pet trade are discussed at length at the end of this chapter, revealing how animals are mistreated for profit. The overexploitation of large mammals such as whales is carried out in an immoral fashion, with deceit and selfishness.