Published: 2021-12-21

From the Great Hunt to Conflict Management. Rationalization of Aggression as an Attempt to Emancipate from Animal Nature

Katarzyna Kukowska Logo ORCID , Sebastian Skolik Logo ORCID

Abstract

In classical social science paradigms, interpersonal conflicts are treated as impediment to achieving goals or as an inherent element of social life which result from the existence of hierarchy and inequalities building tensions in the social structure. It is not infrequently acknowledged that the culture constitute an armor protecting people against their animal nature, which is the source of aggression. It seems that it is rather the armor which allows legitimizing violence through the use of altruistic punishment. The authors put under discussion the problem of aggressive behavior of a modern man from the evolutionary perspective. Is the occurrence of mobbing, harassment, symbolic violence or stigmatization of strangers and discrimination against minorities a result of conditions common to a man and other hominids shaped over millions of years, or the aftermath of activation of the mechanism of extermination of other species by the representatives of our species which took place tens of thousands years ago? Homo sapiens does not belong to predators, which is the reason why both intraspecies and interspecies manifestations of aggression results in brutality, but also in moral dilemmas for this ape endowed with empathy.

Citation rules

Kukowska, K., & Skolik, S. (2021). From the Great Hunt to Conflict Management. Rationalization of Aggression as an Attempt to Emancipate from Animal Nature. Zoophilologica. Polish Journal of Animal Studies, (2 (8), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA.2021.08.03

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No. 2 (8) (2021)
Published: 2022-01-12


ISSN: 2719-2687
eISSN: 2451-3849
Ikona DOI 10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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