ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the thesis that bellicosity is an emotive state belonging to the social group and not to the individual; the equivalent of bellicosity in the individual is aggressiveness. Bellicosity as a mental quality seems to belong to the universe of discourse that sees the state as a set of groups, while it is easily modified and becomes a condition of belligerence when the state is understood, and behaves, as a single organism. A group in the mental state of fight/flight is a group that has renounced the use of thought unless it is targeted either at attacking the enemy or escaping them, because it is a group that forms around the psychological need to preserve one’s own existence. The individual may feel driven towards violent action, probably to the basic assumption of fight/flight prevailing in the group at that moment, followed shortly afterwards by dismay and horror, and a complete lack of desire to wage war.
