On politeness and aggression

As I have been watching some wildlife (especially, wolf-related) videos (including videos of captive wildlife) where it is possible to observe interactions between members of the same family/group, I have begun wondering whether we truly understand the context behind some of these interactions which we are inclined to classify into those of affiliation/bonding/cooperation vs. dominance/aggression.

In our societies, manifestations of aggression are considered impolite and also we tend to attempt to ‘outgrow’ aggression or at least to channel aggression into acceptable (non-aggressive) displays – an aspiration that stipulates that aggression is instinctual and ‘the easier response’ while non-aggression is more difficult and ethical as well as more cognitive and self-willed.

These aspirations are noble, and I do not object to them but it is also true that through relinquishing aggression, we have adopted values and directions that lead the entire polite and cooperative society away from localized (interpersonal or intergroup) strife right toward eventual social, political and economic (as well as health-associated) crashes (because no alternative social mechanism are in place to limit reproduction and consumption) the costs of which are often enormous.

I am not advocating for reverting to interpersonal and intergroup aggression.

I believe that the fault in the human civilizations lies with the simultaneous direction of these ‘noble notions’ toward two objectives one of which is openly pursued (that of creating a better, more compassionate, enlightened society aka the sincerely noble intent) while the other is masking behind these ‘noble claims’ (with the true purpose of maintaining economic systems of slavery aka pretense nobility).

These two interactive forms have been observed, for example, in the history of Christianity where a religion which gave rise to many beneficial social institutions and practices was misused by those who wanted to unite the formerly smaller tribal groups into larger communities which could work together for the benefit of the exploiter.

Strife on a localized level is an unwanted phenomenon for those who seek to enforce cooperation and dissolution of social as well as cultural boundaries on a smaller scale in order to profit from these larger communities of workers that are not differentiated enough to be able to realize and defend their identity but that are united enough in their decency to pull one another through in order to reduce mortality rates and to be able to produce more (without the social support costs suffered by the exploiter).

Under these conditions, competition is encouraged only as far as it benefits the exploiter and their resources.

Competition does not represent values specific to local groups but specific to the vaster interest by the exploiter and competition is not entirely eliminated because it can exhaust the low levels of spite that people might have (those who spite one another, will not have enough energy to spite the growingly distant and ‘omnipotent’ oppressors).

Regardless of the changes in aggression and politeness patterns in human societies, animal societies seek to retain both aggression (which insures against overexploitation of resources and which ensures local adaptations to the very specific habitats) and politeness (which insures against mortality and benefits the groups through increased survival due to cooperation and enjoyment due to social interactions).

However, I believe that the human history of contrasting aggression and politeness (in the wider sense of this word which also entitles goodwill, advised action etc.) has misguided us in how we perceive wildlife behaviour.

From our experience, we think that aggression is ‘a primal and primitive response’ and we should somehow overcome it or transform it in order to act in a more civilized (advanced) manner.

In our view, this can be achieved through constraint or sublimation.

I do not intend to claim that animals never use aggression in a purely aggressive, instinctual manner, nor that they do not engage in these processes of overcoming impulses.

Wildlife biologists claim that animals teach their young to behave, to apologize, to resolve conflicts without causing harm to one another etc.

Also, many of the activities that animals apply in order to avoid aggressive conflict (that involve intermediate actions between competitors, e.g., scent-marking, displaying as well as bonding actions between group members in order to elevate the relationship above aggressive impulse and above the threshold that is necessary to be able to show tolerance) imply that animals consider aggression the last resort and that they actively try to avoid it or to postpone it (by performing intermediate acts).

Thus, functionally, many seemingly ‘aggressive or defensive acts’ serve the same objective as polite interactions in our society.

They are in place to regulate our communication and to avoid conflict.

Only our acts of politeness have different outward appearances and we have a hard time understanding that scent-marking has the same function as greeting one’s neighbour and offering them occasional assistance in gardening.

While we might claim that our ‘manners’ involve a greater effort, animals, in fact, exert a lot of energy in maintaining scent-marks or displaying (even evolving the pathways to ensure displaying and other manifestations of resource-guarding).

It is hardly a greater effort in a human who does not spend much energy in order to say ‘hello’ or to tolerate a slight nuisance for the sake of community than it is in an animal who can die if they invest too much energy in non-feeding activities.

However, I also believe that many of the wildlife interactions that we perceive as aggressive are not aggressive (or even dominating) at all and that they arise out of the relatively limited scope of expression that animals have in order to communicate the complexities of their moods, emotions, intentions, feelings including serious concern for one another’s wellbeing and warnings that cannot be expressed in words.

Animals do not use a ‘vocabulary’ that we use (words in our languages can express even abstract states while animals who also experience these abstract states must express them through their postures, gestures etc.).

I do not think that their ‘limitation’ is the consequence of the limitation of their inner world.

It appears that anything a species evolves is intertwined with their environment and many gestures and other signals serve several functions at least one of which ties the individual to their habitat and essential survival strategies.

Animals evolve their bodies and means of expression in accordance with their lifestyle and their lifestyle is based on their interactions with their environment (foraging, defense, home etc.) as well as their interactions with ‘friends and foes’ (predators, competitors, allies, kin) and their objectives (reproduction, survival etc.).

Rarely an attribute is evolved that does not relate to sustenance and fundamental objectives.

For example, some canids have evolved communication properties that allow them to cooperate through coordinated gaze (Ueda, S. et al., 2014).

In the more cooperative species, there is a starker contrast between facial colouring and eye colour as well as eye colour and the dark pupil.

Thus, for example, highly cooperative species would have face colour in which the eye stands out and the iris would also be lighter than the pupil.

With such pattern, others can follow the individual’s gaze because they can easily see the eyes on the background of the face and they can follow the direction of gaze because the pupil stands out in the eye itself.

However, these traits have not been evolved for exclusively social reasons and they also serve cooperation, e.g., cooperative hunt where individuals must act as a cohesive unit and body positions, gestures, sounds, gaze and other cues are used in order to act harmoniously.

Humans might frown upon these multifunctional traits because we have also striven to differentiate ‘the pragmatic’ from ‘our ideals’ where material gain is contrasted with, for example, friendship.

On the other hand, I will repeat myself, animals are far better skilled at preserving environment, at staying within sustainable limits and even at benefitting those whom they ‘exploit’ (e.g., advancing health of their prey) and it is through this intricate union with their surroundings and their social group as well as their population animals can achieve the state of the least amount of suffering without leading themselves toward a crisis that take a toll on everyone.

Everything that they do is linked to their habitat and their society, and thus it is impacted by environment and society and it impacts environment and society.

As a result, overstepping some boundaries will be reflected in the individual’s condition and the individual becomes a living part of their environment where nothing that they do is without consequence to themselves and others.

In human societies, we sometimes evolve traits and skills that are detached from our environment and/or even our society (in its real and not constructed sense).

We do not receive feedback from ‘the natural reality’ and we only receive feedback from ‘the social reality’ and our sustainability relies on how realistic (or how reflective) our social reality is.

There have always been trade-offs in the human society.

For example, artists or scientists who have developed skills that are largely cognitive and communicative but barely ‘practical’ (in the immediate sense of self-provisioning and self-defense etc.), are faced with the danger of lower immunity (lack of awareness of the consequences of their actions on their own health and wellbeing) as well as with dependency (often on benefactors that have not necessarily been the most humanitarian of people) and the risk of producing work that is later refuted because it does not hold as society develops and gains better insight into truth (which is also founded in nature and natural states).

Therefore, I think it is well-advised that animals do not often evolve traits and skills that are not interwoven with the rest of the natural processes and that are not informative of their position and their condition in the environment and in their society.

I also believe that animals are most cautious to evolve new traits and skills because this might imperil their instinctive responses.

While we sometimes frown upon instincts, as well, what are instincts but the well-wishing and blessing by our ancestors who have tried and failed and succeeded in their attempts to perfect the species?

If some trait or skill becomes altered, many mechanisms that ensure not only our survival but also the survival of our loved ones (e.g., our children) can be threatened because many of our activities and choices are based on what has been learned by our predecessors through millennia teaching us to avoid danger and to find shelter, food, mate etc.

Additionally, cognitive processes are costly (brain is a huge energy-devourer) and a decent basis of instinctual knowledge (that effectuate instinctive means of survival where our cognition can rest or process new observations) can spare us energy for exploration, affiliative interactions etc.

The reason for this tirade has been to show that animals use their range of gestures, vocalizations, body properties etc. for several purposes and that many of the traits that have been evolved to feed, to reproduce, to defend etc., are later applied also to achieve additional purposes.

For example, if an animal has developed nails that can dig food out of the ground, they can later use these nails to scratch their buddy’s back in the act of allogrooming (although in some species acts of allogrooming and invertebrate foraging might be combined).

If an animal has developed fur to protect themselves from weather, this fur can also protect their young or other group members as they cuddle up to stay warm.

But I also think that sometimes the character of the act changes with the context.

For example, when a badger scratches their partner during allogrooming, they are not attempting to get larvae out of their partner’s hide or to find a concealed bumblebee nest.

When a fox screeches out a warning at their child, the message is that of care and worry rather than when the fox screeches a warning at a competitor (stay away, it is mine etc.).

Growls can convey hostility or contentment depending on pitch and context.

My assumption is that apparent expressions of aggression (including non-penetrating biting, showing teeth over food etc.) in wildlife species are not always aggressive in their meaning and that some of these ‘aggressive acts’ are, in fact, acts of politeness comparable to etiquette and good manners and that they are not ‘the easy way’ but they involve a cognitive effort and a conscious application which might be exertive of one’s strength (costlier than instinctual response or impulse).

There might be a difference between, for example, some aggressive acts that arise from an impulse (demanding only as much energy as invested in the physical motions), aggressive acts that arise from a survival-related impulse but are mediated by our cognition (e.g., situations where the individual acts aggressive but either stops the act or reduces its impact) and aggressive acts that do not arise from an impulse at all (or they arise from an entirely other type of an impulse which is communicative and non-hostile in its nature) and that are performed due to tradition rather than due to inherent desire to express these moods or attitudes (e.g., sometimes an individual might not feel dominant but they have to act out the position of dominance because it is expected from them in the particular situation and because the act would benefit them or their group).

There might be different neural and hormonal pathways involved in these ‘aggressive act’ categories as well as different energy expenditure rates.

While in my description I blended together acts that are necessitated by the individual’s role and tradition (but that are cognitive) with acts that are also communicative (but that arise out of impulse due to the social nature of the species where some social acts and responses have become instinctual), I think it might be important to separate:

-acts that are cognitive from acts that are instinctual (due to the factor of decision and reaction must be mustered (in a more ‘forceful’ way) rather than it occurs spontaneously);

– acts that are communicative (social) and acts that are survival-related.

The latter distinction might appear rather arbitrary because, as I have explained before, survival and social communication and deeply linked, besides warnings issued at predators/competitors are both communicative and survival-related in nature.

However, it might be of significance to understand whether the individual acts because they perceive that their action will directly ensure their survival or the individual acts because their actions serves as an intermediate mechanism ensuring their survival indirectly (e.g., reaping benefits from group cohesion or – in the context of strife – attempting to injure vs. attempting to communicate the readiness to injure if the situation is not resolved otherwise).

Thus, some acts that appear directly aggressive might, in fact, be communicative despite the similarity between their outward expression.

I believe that these gestures, positions, vocalizations that have been evolved to serve during aggressive context (e.g., defense or predation) serve another meaning in social group situations and that meaning is not domination/competition but rather an expression of an attitude which is so intense that it necessitates and intense manifestation and therefore becomes displayed through some of the more intense means available to the species.

The closest comparison that I can arrive at is that of ‘bullying’ in groups of friends or relatives vs. bullying in groups of truly hostile individuals.

When we tease one another and even push one another physically around, it depends greatly whether these actions are performed in context of harm-wishing, in context of determining status and helping determine status or in the context of sincere well-wishing (the latter two not being mutually exclusive).

The same act (mockery, slight physical harm) might serve the purpose to intimidate, humiliate etc. when it is performed in one context while in another context, it might be used as a tool of relief, encouragement, entertainment, stopping from other type of harm, education etc.

It is possible that we simply group all acts of aggression/dominance into one type of context in wildlife while the true situation might be far more complex and intricate.

Our assumption that outwardly aggressive acts involve hostility toward those they are directed toward is altogether rooted in how we perceive our own aggressive states.

In fact, we cannot claim with certainty that animals even feel hostility (and similar attitudes and states) when they attack their enemies.

It is true that there are certain hormones involved and other physiological contributions to acts of aggression but we cannot know what perception these states evoke in the animals.

Thus, for example, they might, in truth, perceive acts of aggression entirely differently than we perceive them and these acts might not bear the same meaning to them.

For example, it is possible that some acts of aggression are of ‘selfish’ nature (i.e., attempts to claim one’s status over another) and these acts are also frowned upon by animals where they do not serve the social purpose of cooperation (which is why parents intrude if one of their children attempts to overly dominate another because the lack of balance in their relationship might bring them to harm immediately or later in life if they are unable to cooperate with others respective to their positions in the group).

But other acts of aggression might not be perceived by animals as directed at the other party involved at all (i.e., it is not about the recipient of the communicative message but rather it is about communicating the message itself).

That is to say, perhaps the motivation behind these acts is selfless and directed at those who are not even involved in the act (children, family, social group).

Therefore, when an individual attacks another individual in an offensive/defensive situation, this act might not be perceived by the attacker as directed at the subject of the attack.

Instead the motivation behind the attack (keeping oneself alive, keeping one’s children alive, keeping one’s family alive, keeping one’s home to oneself etc.) might be the main guiding force and the animals might thereby perceive aggression or dominance as acts of love or attachment, or care.

It is somewhat similar to how we would feel if we attacked someone who, for example, threatened our country or our family.

Patriotism, altruism etc. can also manifest themselves as acts of aggression but, in the human society, they are acts of aggression toward an aggressor and they involve an element of judgement and clash of values.

It is difficult for us to perceive that we might act aggressively toward someone out of ‘noble intent’ and it would be our motivating force and our mental state during the act of aggression (we would not feel hate but we would feel love for those whom we defend etc.) but the subject of our aggression would not be ‘the bad guy’ in our eyes, nor their defeat would be a victory over them.

They would simply be the counteracting force in our environment and society, and our act would not be about them at all but rather about our values.

Pre-Christian cultures perhaps had a more similar attitude toward their ‘enemy’ to that which I am attempting to describe.

The concept of ‘the worthy adversary’ was meaningful in the Greek, Roman and other cultures but this adversary was still perceived as somewhat evil if not through their personal wretchedness then through the lower quality of the values they represented (which is in itself an interesting phenomenon because much of the cultural and social intolerance we condemn in our predecessors was not directed at individuals or even at the identities of these individuals on a personal level but rather at abstract concepts that were compared and judged instead of judging people).

I think that animals do not perceive their adversaries as evil.

Moreover, I do not believe that there is even a ‘war on values’ among animals even though values might be the fundamental motivation behind conflicts.

I think that during these acts of aggression animals are often (not always) guided by motivation which is unrelated to the actual adversary but the act itself is directed at the adversary (who is not good or bad, nor they represent some values/states that are better or worse – they are simply just playing their part).

Therefore, animals might not perceive aggression as founded in attitudes that involve hate, humiliation, anger that is personal etc.

Accordingly, when they perform similar acts within their groups, these acts might be based on the same noble notions (related to defense and intense proclamation of values).

Thereby, acts that appear dominant put-downs or strife around food etc. might be such but also they might not be such.

Their aim might be that of manifesting the same values that motivate actual attacks (and not that of manifesting emotions and attitudes that we think motivate actual attacks).

It could be compared to passionate conversations that we, too, have in our families (including at our dinner tables) about what is meaningful to us, what we love, what we care about and why we are using these blessings and the fruit of our effort, why we are grateful for them.

For example, some acts of apparent hostility over food might actually be testimonies to the reasons why the family is eating at all – a reminder what they have been investing such effort in, a sort of a prayer before the meal, so to speak.

If it were true, it is possible that the physiological reactions to such manifestations are very different when the act of aggression is directly survival-related (e.g., when the individual is truly hungry and defends their food) and when it is communicative of the motivations behind the aggression (e.g., when the individual acts aggressively in order to remind themselves or others of the values behind the aggression that perhaps helped to acquire provision or to defend it).

Under the first scenario, the reaction would likely be that of tension and fear or irritation while, under the second scenario, the reaction might be that of excitement and a certain exultation or a willingness to join in with a similar manifestation.

These two types of reactions might be difficult to tell apart because they could show up through similar displays.

Referring back to the ‘polite aggressive/defensive/dominance interactions’, i.e., acts that serve to prevent conflict and to ensure peace in the local population, these acts might also lack in actual hostility toward the competitor and the display itself might be a ‘patriotic’ statement or a statement of what I am willing to do to protect my family.

Such shift in our perception of animal attitudes might adhere a whole new meaning to the intensity of some of the aggressive/defensive acts because they might not be acts of selfishness but acts of loyalty and love.

What I wished to communicate in this post is that:

1. Aggression might not always be an impulsive state but it might be a state of ‘civilization’ – a produced, aware response that involves expenditure of energy above the levels of acting on impulse, aimed at maintaining traditions, roles and values;
2. Aggressive/dominating acts might not always carry a message of aggression/domination but rather a message of other intense attitudes that are communicated through these manifestations because animals have a limited use of expression and their postures/gestures/vocalizations serve several functions thereby natural defense might be translated into other meanings in an affable social context while exhibiting the same behaviours;
3. Animals might perceive acts of aggression differently than humans do and their perception might not even involve hostile attitudes toward those who ‘suffer their aggression’ and instead they might be guided by motivation of values which is why some acts of aggression in friendly social situations might be manifestations of those values and not manifestations of ‘oppression’.

Quite often, it is astounding how animals are capable of forgiving one another and not hating their enemy.

I wonder if this could be a consequence of them realizing that they are all acting out of the same values.

Their acts of aggression or defense are not acts against particular individuals or particular species (such as in our societies where we wage wars against, for example, social identities).

They act out of love for home, love for family.

And even if this involves acting against someone at a particular time, it is not about personal dislike for that someone or about devaluation of that someone and not even about contrasting the quality of values represented by both parties.

It is about achieving values and not the strongest individual must win – but the individual with the strongest abilities to uphold their values must win.

As the values are commonly shared (although differentially pursued), it might be easier to accept defeat or a state of ‘persecution’ because the individual that ‘lost’, did not ‘lose’ entirely because their own values still prevailed – albeit through another.