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The desire to obtain money: A culturally ritualised expression of the aggressive instinct

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2006

Ralf-Peter Behrendt
Ralf-Peter Behrendt*
Affiliation:
MRC Psych, The Retreat Hospital, 107 Heslington Road, York, YO10 5BN, United Kingdom
*
rp.behrendt@btinternet.com
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Abstract

Social behaviour is but an expression of instinctive mechanisms whereby the aggressive instinct is of particular importance, having given rise to most of the complexity of social behaviour through processes of phylogenetic and cultural ritualisation. The role of the aggressive instinct is to dynamically maintain the ranking order in a group, and much of social interaction is concerned with this, including monetary exchange.

What is certain, is that with the elimination of aggression, … the tackling of a task or problem, the self-respect [in] everything that a man does from morning till evening, from the morning shave to the sublimest artistic or scientific creation, would lose all impetus; everything associated with ambition, ranking order, and countless other equally indispensable behaviour patterns would probably also disappear from human life.

— Konrad Lorenz (1963/2002, p. 269)

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 178 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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