September 06, 2005
On Aggression
From Konrad Lorenz's book of that name:
In a series of experiments with blond ring doves Craig removed the female from the male in a succession of gradually increasing periods. After one such period of deprivation, he experimented to see which objects were now sufficient to elicit the courtship dance of the male. A few days after the disappearance of the female of his own species, the male was ready to court a whtei dove which he had previously ignored. A few days later he was bowing and cooing to a stuffed pigeon, later still to a rolled-up cloth, and finally, after weeks of solitary confinement, he directed the courtship toward the empty corner of his box cage where the convergence of the straight sides offered at least an optical fixation point. Physiologically speaking, these observations mean that after a longer passivity of an instinctive behavior pattern, in this case courtship, the threshold value of its eliciting stimuli sinks. THis is a widely spread and regular occurance; Goethe expresses analogous laws in the words of Mephisto, "Du siehst mit diesem Trank im Leibe bald Helena in jedem Weibe" [Having imbibed this potion, you will soon see Helena in every female] and--if you are a ring dove--you do so even in an old duster of in the empty corner of your cage. [p. 52]
Interesting, too:
Far-fetched though this explanation of a widespread phenomenon may seem, strong arguments speak for its correctness. As far as I know, there is not a single gregarious animal species whose individuals do not press together when alarmed, that is, whenever there is a suspicion that a predator is close at hand. The smallest and most defenseless animals do this the most noticeable, and in many fish species only the small, young ones do it, while adults do not. When in dagner, some species of fish crowd together to form a body so that they look like one big fish, and, since many of the large, rather stupid predators such as the Barracuda meticulously avoid large prey for fear of choking, these tactics may be a special protection. [p. 143]
Herds and individuals:
The purely quantitative and, in a sense, democratic action of this process called "social induction" by socialists means that a school of fish is the less resolute the more individuals it contains and the stronger the her instinct is [p. 145]... In general, typical herd animals lack any aggressive instinct and with it any individual distance. [p. 147]
Aggression and love:
Intra-specific aggression is millions of years older than personal friendship and love. During long epochs of the earth's history, there have been animals that were certainly extraordinarily fierce and aggressive. Nearly all reptiles of the present day are aggressive and it is unlikely that those of antiquity were less so. But the personal bond is known only in certain teleost fishes, birds, and mammals, that is in groups that did not appear before the Tertiary period. Thus intra-specific aggression can certainly exist without its counterpart, love, but conversely there is no love without aggression. [p. 217]
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