Collective Violence as the Satisfaction of the Ego’s Aggressive Instinct
Abstract
This paper reinterprets collective violence as the satisfaction of the ego’s aggressive instinct, moving beyond the entrenched dichotomy of biological determinism and social constructionism. Against the “by-product hypothesis”, which interprets coalitional killing as a cultural artifact or rational strategy, this paper exposes this view as a moralistic fallacy, an ideological attempt to renounce humanity’s forbidden knowledge of its own aggressivity. What is often cited as proof of an “innate aversion” to killing—the initial revulsion of perpetrators—is here revealed as a symptom of the civilizing process: guilt and the vigilance of the superego transform instinctual repression into disgust. In modern warfare, what appears as rational duty or institutional obedience is reinterpreted here as a veiled form of instinctual satisfaction: “dark fun” disguised in moral rationalization. Therefore, collective violence is neither a Darwinian compulsion nor a cultural contingency, but civilization’s negotiation with a repressed drive that incessantly seeks expression through sanctioned forms. By unveiling the aggressive instinct beneath civilization’s ethical veneer, this paper illuminates how collective violence is a primordial epiphany disguised as rational duty. The conclusion insists that the way forward lies not in denial of this instinct but in its sublimation, i.e., in transforming destructive energies into activities that preserve life, transcend the self, and create values.
References
- Brannigan, A. (1998) Criminology and the Holocaust: Xenophobia, Evolution, and Genocide. Crime and Delinquency, 44(2), 257–276.
- Roscoe, P. (2007) Intelligence, Coalitional Killing, and the Antecedents of War. American Anthropologist, 109(3), 485–495.
- Strachey, J. (1961) Sigmund Freud Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
- Ramírez, J. M. (2021). The Seville Statement on Violence, An Inspirational Scientific Step towards Peace. Cadmus, 4(4), 86.
- Cahill, S. E. (2002) Beastly Bodies in Human Hands, Heads, and Hearts: Reflections on Animal Abuse as Dirty Play. Symbolic Interaction, 25(4), 431–435.
- Durrant, R. (2011) Collective Violence: An Evolutionary Perspective. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16(5), 428–436.
- Fine, G. A. and Corte, U. (2022) Dark Fun: The Cruelties of Hedonic Communities. Sociological Forum, 37(1), 70–90.
- Pinker, S. (2011) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking.
- Baumeister, R. F. and Campbell, W. K. (1999) The Intrinsic Appeal of Evil: Sadism, Sensational Thrills, and Threatened Egotism. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 210–221.
- Gat, A. (2019) Is War in Our Nature? What is Right and What is Rrong about the Seville Statement on Violence. Human Nature, 30(2), 149–154.
- Elias, N. (2000) The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.
- Ciardi, J. (1982) Dante Alighieri The Inferno. United States: Signet Classics.
- Hinde, R. A. (2007) Bending the Rules: Morality in the Modern World from Relationships to Politics and War. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Nietzsche, F. (1924). The Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. New York: The Macmillan Company.