24. H. Treffry Dunn, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and His Circle (London: E. Mathews, 1904), p. 64.
25. Quoted in Modeste Tchaikovsky, The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, trans. Rosa Newmarch (London: J. Lane, 1906), pp. 274–75.
26. Quoted in Frank Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 86.
27. Quoted in Jacques Hadamard, The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945), p. 15.
28. Jeremy Bernstein, Einstein (New York: Viking, 1973), p. 172.
29. Graham Wallas, The Art of Thought (London: Cape, 1926).
30. Quoted in J. A. Fuller-Maitland, Brahms (London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 69–70.
31. Henri Poincaré, “Mathematical Creation,” in The Foundations of Science, trans. G. Bruce Halsted (New York: Science Press, 1913), pp. 383–94.
32. Irvin Ehrenpreis, New York Review of Books, 1984.
13
Why Human Beings Become Violent
MEN WHO COMMIT violent crimes are not infrequently told by magistrates or judges that they have behaved like animals. This is grossly unfair to other species. Nature is red in tooth and claw when one species preys upon another in search of food: but destructive violence between members of the same species is comparatively rare, and usually only occurs under special circumstances of overcrowding or shortage of food. Man is uniquely violent and cruel. When murder or other violent behavior occurs, man is behaving only like man, and not at all like any other living creature. Deliberate cruelty seems peculiar to the human species. One might argue that a cat playing with a mouse is enjoying the exercise of power; but it is unlikely that the cat is capable of entering into the mouse’s presumed feelings of terror and helplessness. Men, on the contrary, seem to enjoy subjecting their own kind to violence and cruelty, even when their victims are helpless and totally at their mercy.
I want to underline the distinction between aggression and destructive violence. There is some degree of aggression between members of the same species in many varieties of animal, and this aggression serves useful biological functions. An animal has to be able to compete with others for whatever resources of food are available. Many species obtain and defend territories, which has the effect of spreading the animals out and ensuring that each will gain a fair share of what is going. Aggression is also employed in establishing a pecking order in animals which live in groups. Groups of animals need to have a hierarchy if peace is to be preserved; and nomadic groups, like baboons, need leaders who can give orders and be obeyed if the safety of the group from predators is to be preserved. Aggression between males often occurs during the breeding situation as part of sexual selection, and occasionally results in serious injury or death. But most contests of this kind are highly ritualized; and the defeated animal is generally allowed to slink away without deadly wounds being inflicted.
In man, aggression also serves some positive functions. We need to be able to stand up for ourselves, to compete with our fellows, to define ourselves as separate individuals, to give orders, and to exact obedience under certain circumstances. For all these functions, some degree of aggression is needed. These positive aspects of aggression are reflected in our language. For example, we speak of “attacking a problem,” of “getting our teeth into a subject,” of “mastering a difficulty.” The idea that aggression is an innate drive like sex, which produces accumulated tension requiring discharge, cannot be maintained. But man is certainly endowed with a considerable potential for aggressive behavior which can be evoked by various external stimuli; and some might argue that we are preprogrammed with a greater potential for aggression than is appropriate to modern circumstances. Washburn, for example, writes:
Throughout most of human evolution, man was adapted to ways of life radically different from those of today and there has been neither the time nor the control of breeding to change the biology of human aggression from what was adaptive in the past to what is adaptive now. Throughout most of human history, society has depended on young adult males to hunt, to fight, and to maintain the social order with violence.1
Aggression, therefore, is a potential response which we share with other animals and which, at least at the dawn of history, if not today, was biologically adaptive. The same cannot be said of destructive violence and cruelty, which are not only blots upon the human escutcheon, but which serve no obvious biological purpose. Indeed, one might argue that violence and cruelty are actually maladaptive. Edward O. Wilson has argued that reciprocal altruism in human societies, and to some extent in animal societies also, is an adaptive device which is likely to promote the well-being of each participant.2 Kindness to other human beings is likely to pay in terms of reproductive potential and survival; or, as a friend of mine used to put it, “Civility is cheap, but it pays rich dividends!” Violence and cruelty, therefore, are phenomena which are not only repulsive, but which demand explanation.
Regrettably, the violent behavior of human beings is far too common to be explicable in terms of psychiatric abnormality. Violence is potential in all of us. However, in all Western societies, there are a number of individuals who lack the normal degree of control over immediate impulse. These are the so-called aggressive psychopaths who commit violent offenses of various kinds, and who may show an almost complete disregard for the feelings of their victims. There is considerable overlap between the groups of individuals who commit dangerous driving offenses, sexual offenses, and violent offenses.
Some of these abnormals suffer from genetic defects; others show what appears to be delayed maturation of the central nervous system, as evidenced by the persistence of electrical brain-wave patterns which are characteristic of childhood. Many psychopaths show a failure of socialization, in that they have never formed ties of mutual regard with others, and thus live in a world which they assume to be hostile or indifferent to themselves. Those who feel that nobody cares for them, themselves care for nobody. The development of conscience, that is, of an internal regulator of behavior, depends much more upon the wish to preserve love and the esteem of one’s fellows than upon the fear of punishment. Since many psychopaths come from homes in which there has been little love and a good deal of physical punishment, it is not surprising that they have not developed a normal conscience. A child cannot respond to the withdrawal of something which he has never had. It is understandable that those who have never felt themselves to be loved or approved of are not affected by the withdrawal of love or by disapproval. When we read of children being ill-treated or of old ladies being beaten up or raped, it is natural that we should wish to revenge ourselves by inflicting savage punishments upon the criminals. But the history of penology amply demonstrates that savage punishments have little deterrent effect and may increase resentment and hatred in those who suffer them. The people whom we most wish to punish are those least likely to respond to punishment.
Although many psychopaths show both a lack of control of hostility and also an abnormal propensity to behave in cruel ways toward their fellowmen, much of the cruelty which they exhibit is casual rather than deliberate. Thus, they may injure someone whom they are robbing or sexually assaulting because they do not identify with their victim or care what the victim feels; but this is obviously a different matter from the deliberate exercise of cruelty for its own sake. In Holland and elsewhere, criminologists have experimented in bringing violent criminals face to face with their victims. In some instances, this has brought home to the offender for the first time the realization that his victim is a human being like himself, with the consequence that he has wished to make reparation.
It is possible that we may be able partly to understand the psychopath’s lack of control over immediate impulse in terms of physiology. Psychopaths are emotionally isolated, even if not physically so; and, in other species, isolation appears to produce heightened reactivity to dangerous stimuli, which can be demonstrated by measuring hormonal responses. Huma
n beings who have not learned to mix with their fellows in early childhood often show inappropriate aggressive responses. Sometimes they exhibit too little aggression, and fail to stand up for themselves when this would be appropriate. Sometimes they overreact with excessive violence because they perceive threat where none exists.
However, the people whose personalities are so abnormal as to warrant the label “psychopath” constitute a small proportion of the human race. The human tendency toward violence and cruelty cannot possibly be blamed upon them alone, although studying such people can illuminate our understanding of similar behavior in normal people.
Chemical substances can so impair the functioning of the normal person’s brain that he becomes temporarily like the psychopath in being unable to exercise adequate control. Alcohol plays a significant part not only in dangerous driving, but also in crimes of violence. Football games appeal to adolescent males because they provide opportunities for so-called macho displays which bolster feelings of developing masculinity. But such displays are apt to be converted into something far more dangerous if alcohol is available. Modern society provides too few opportunities for young adult males to express the aggressive feelings to which I referred when quoting Washburn’s remarks. If I were home secretary, I would try to triple the price of alcohol. I am quite sure that there would be some decrease in violent crime as a result.
Alcohol is not the only chemical which can turn normal aggression into dangerous violence. Increasingly, other drugs, like amphetamines, barbiturates, and heroin produce similar effects. This is partly because of their direct action upon the brain, and partly because those addicted to them are driven to robbery in order to get money to supply their need for drugs.
A second factor predisposing toward violence and cruelty is ill-treatment in childhood. Throughout human history, children have been treated abominably. In The History of Childhood, a book by ten American historians, Lloyd DeMause writes: “The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused.”3
We know that parents who batter their babies have, in most instances, themselves been deprived children who have been made to feel inadequate and ineffectual. Such parents, faced with a child who will not instantly obey, or who persists in crying, perceive the child as a threat to their own self-esteem, and retaliate with violence. Some of these parents make demands on their children for the affection which was not given to them when they themselves were children, and react with resentment when the child is unable to fulfill their needs. Baby battering is one instance of how personal maladaptation can override the basic biological behavior patterns which usually ensure that the immature are protected. Helplessness generally inhibits violence in human beings as well as in other species. In the ritual contests referred to earlier, the losing animal will often signal his defeat by presenting a vulnerable part of his anatomy to the winner. This inhibits the winning animal from further attack. One of the most distasteful features of human violence is that it may persist even when the victim is entirely at the mercy of his attacker.
The fact that human beings who have been neglected or ill-treated in childhood seem more prone to treat others violently argues that a good deal of human cruelty is revenge. I share the dislike which many psychologists exhibit for so-called hydraulic models of the mind; but clinical experience makes it difficult for me to conceive of any model which does not allow of resentment in some way being stored in the long-term memory. If one allows that the accumulated irritation of a working day can be abreacted by kicking the dog, which is surely a commonplace observation, I see no reason why resentment should not be stored for much longer, perhaps even for a lifetime. The fact that memories of past humiliation and ill-treatment tend to persist accounts for a number of cases in which a violent act seems disproportionately savage when compared with the provocation. The violent act is revenging a whole series of rejections, humiliations, and the like, none of which by itself would provoke extreme retaliation. A good deal of human violence can be described as the worm turning; the person who has for years felt himself to be at the mercy of others suddenly turning the tables upon them.
A good example of what I mean can be found in Muriel Gardiner’s book The Deadly Innocents.4 Tom was a rejected child whose mother banned him from mixing with the rest of the family. He was kept in a shed at the end of the garden, and whipped if he made any attempt to get in touch with his ten siblings. Eventually, he became delinquent. When the facts of his life became known to the juvenile court, he was removed from home and put in charge of an uncle and aunt. Unfortunately, the uncle turned out to be a violent alcoholic who resented Tom and who treated him almost as cruelly as had his mother. Tom found a stray kitten with a broken leg which he tended with great care and gentleness. The kitten was the first creature with which he established ties of affection. One afternoon the uncle came home early from work, and, in a fit of rage, strangled the kitten in front of Tom. When Tom attempted to bury it, the uncle trod the little cross he had made into the ground, destroying the grave. At this point, Tom seized one of his uncle’s guns (for this took place in America) and shot his uncle, his aunt, and another woman who was living in the house.
In Tom’s case, isolation had deprived him of the opportunity to learn how to handle aggression or to gain self-esteem from relationships with siblings or other companions. Repeated ill-treatment and humiliation had induced a sense of chronic resentment. The provocation he received was extreme; but his response of triple murder is only explicable if his whole history is taken into account. He had been made into a scapegoat by his mother; and scapegoats, whether single individuals or whole categories of persons, like blacks, untouchables, or other groups made into outcasts, deeply feel their lack of status and are rightly resentful as a consequence.
The connection of injured self-esteem with violence goes some way to explaining why it is that, in Britain, murder is overwhelmingly a domestic crime. It is our nearest and dearest who know us well enough to get under our skins and who have the power to humiliate and to provoke us. One way of making the inadequate feel more so is to be critical or contemptuous of their sexual attractiveness or performance. Men are particularly vulnerable in this respect, and it is not surprising that wives and mistresses are so often victims of homicide. As the criminologist Norval Morris has put it, “You are safer on the streets than at home; safer with a stranger than with a friend or relative.”5
This is perhaps the place to make the point that the widespread misuse of the word “sadism” has given rise to the supposition that a great deal of human violence and cruelty is partially sexual in origin. I have argued elsewhere that most sadomasochism is not what it seems; that, to use the terminology employed both by Russell and Russell6 and by Abraham Maslow,7 sadomasochism is “pseudo-sex” rather than sex itself, using sexual behavior patterns to establish dominance relationships, as happens in other primates. So many human beings in Western culture show an interest in sadomasochistic literature or films that it is not possible to argue that such interests are abnormal. There are many people who are uncertain of themselves and ineffective in sexual relationships, and such people may need sadomasochistic fantasies or rituals in order to become fully aroused. Their fascination with sadomasochism springs from their need to establish dominance (or to have the other person establish dominance) before they can venture upon a sexual relationship.
There are a few instances of murderers combining sexual excitement with the act of killing, of whom the so-called Monster of Dusseldorf, Peter Kürten, is one. John Christie was a necrophilic who had intercourse with the corpses of his victims; but such cases are exceedingly rare. I do not believe that torturers usually become sexually aroused when inflicting pain upon their victims, nor do I think it likely that riot police have erections when wielding their whips and clubs. This is
not to deny that such distasteful activities may facilitate a weak man’s sense of his own dominance, and hence minister to his sexual potency in subsequent sexual situations; but this is not to say that the exercise of cruelty is itself sexually exciting.
A third factor predisposing the normal person to violence and cruelty is the human tendency toward obedience. The experiments of the American psychologist Stanley Milgram are so well known that I need refer to them only briefly. They are summarized in his book Obedience to Authority.8 To Milgram’s surprise, around two-thirds of normal people would deliver what they supposed to be extremely painful, possibly near-lethal electric shocks to a subject whom they were told was engaged in an experiment on the effect of punishment upon learning, simply because they were urged to do so by the scientist in charge of the experiment. Obedience to authority is clearly adaptive in human society, as it is in the societies of animals who live in groups, to which I have already referred. A stable dominance hierarchy promotes peace and order within a society, makes possible organized resistance or escape if danger threatens, and allows for instant decision-making by individuals in positions of authority. Human societies could not function if we did not have a built-in tendency to obey managers, chiefs, and policemen. But there is also a dark side to this tendency. The excuse that they were only obeying authority is the one most frequently offered by those arraigned for torture or the slaughter of prisoners, from Eichmann down.
The film Your Neighbour’s Son is an accurate reconstruction of the methods used in Greece to train potential torturers when the colonels were in power. Young men, mostly from rural areas, were subjected to a regime in which they suffered extremes of physical punishment and humiliation, while at the same time being told that they belonged to an elite group for which they had been especially selected. Total loyalty to the regime and instant obedience to orders, however irrational, were demanded of the recruits. Thus, they were made to eat grass or a burning cigarette; crawl on their knees to the canteen; and were frequently beaten and made to perform exercises carrying a full load of equipment to the point of total exhaustion. One torturer said, “We were forced to learn to love pain.”
Churchill's Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind Page 28