Konrad lorenz on aggression summary and war
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On Aggression
book by Konrad Lorenz
On Aggression (German: Das sogenannte ond (tyska). Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression, "So-called Evil: on the natural history of aggression") is a book by the ethologistKonrad Lorenz; it was translated into English in [1] As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." (Page 3)
The book was reviewed many times, both positively and negatively, by biologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts and others. Much criticism was directed at Lorenz's extension of his findings on non-human animals to humans.
Publication
[edit]On Aggression was first published in German in , and in English in It has been reprinted many times and translated into at least 12 languages.[2]
Content
[edit]Programming
[edit]Further information: Instinct
According to Lorenz, animals, particularly males, are
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Konrad Lorenz () used animal behavior in an attempt to demonstrate how human behavior might be understood. Humans are animals, so it is likely that humans develop behavior patterns by similar mechanisms other animals have. Lorenz listed four main drives (hunger, reproduction, fear, and aggression) which help to create and shape certain behavior patterns. None of them work alone, but he focuses on the aggression drive. Lorenz contends that aggression can only occur within a species: intraspecific aggression, as opposed to interspecific fighting, since the 'motives' behind each are different.
Lorenz stated three functions of aggression: 1) balancing the distribution of the species, 2) selection of the strongest, and 3) defense of the young. These characteristics have important effects on the behavioral development of a species. For example, aggression may allow for territoriality (e.g. in a species where males are aggressive - the more aggressive a male is, the more likely that male
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On Aggression
Review of On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz, translated by Marjorie Latzke, with a foreword by Sir Julian Huxley (London: Methuen, ),
British Journal of Psychiatry ‑6 ().
This is a very remarkable book. The author is famous as an expert on the behaviour of animals; he is also an extraordinarily gifted observer, and in prose which it is a pleasure to read (for which our gratitude goes also to his translator) he conveys a vivid picture of what he has seen in an underwater world and in the life of reptiles, mammals, and birds. In this book he expounds the insights he has derived from these observations, as penetrating as any which psychiatrists have based on the study of humankind. Distance and objectivity are combined with warmth and empathy. One finds to one's astonishment and delight how relevant an understanding of animal behaviour is to an understanding of man, and how many and how important are the lessons which one may derive from it. This particularly relat