ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a thesis which transcends the orthodox psychoanalytic view. The most pernicious phenomena of aggression, capable of transcending self-preservation and self-defense, are based upon a characteristic feature of man above the biological level, namely, his capability of creating symbolic universes in thought, language, and behavior. The symbolic worlds of social conventions, of morals, of religion, of art or of science, transcend the individual psychology of the human beings who have created them. Destructive tendencies in the human species and in human civilization may be fostered by what in biology is called domestication. Organized intraspecific aggression, that is, warfare, is specifically human and based upon the symbolism of political and religious systems, states, nations, and so forth. Intraspecific competition and aggression may be possible under conditions of domestication, while in a species standing in heavy competition with others it would soon lead to extinction.
