Oasis Songs: Musings from Rav D
Friday, November 15, 2024 / 14 Heshvan 5785
Next week, I will be away on a week-long meditation retreat as part of the teachers’ training program in which I am participating. My weekly writings will return the week of November 25th.
Summary: The recent “Jew hunt” in Amsterdam was not only about antisemitism; it was also the latest example of the resurgence of social violence. I have returned to the work of Konrad Lorenz to explore how aggression, once channeled through outlets like sports and protests, now often fuels conflict, yet there is a way to turn the tide.
Reading Time: Six minutes
Benji Jefferson was big, 6’9” to be exact, and over 300 pounds. He was an offensive lineman on the Huguenots, my high school football team, and we all knew his skills on the field would take him far. Although he never became an all-star or even a top-ranked player, he did make it into the NFL, playing for the Cleveland Browns for a year, as well as a few other teams. I think his professional career lasted six years or so.
But in high school, William Benjamin Jefferson was our star, the guy who could lead the “Purple Wave” to victory. That’s why the entire school was so shocked when he was stabbed in the lungs at a high school party in the neighboring town of Mt. Vernon. There was an intense rivalry between the two teams and cities. Taking out Benjy definitely would have improved Mt. Vernon’s chances. The violence of football had spilled out into the larger world.
As a shorter Jewish kid, American football was not my thing, and Benji was on the periphery of my experience. When I began to hear rumbles among the student body, however, about the need to head to Mt. Vernon and exact retribution, it didn’t much matter that football wasn’t my jam. A part of my soul got fired up. Mt. Vernon had attacked my people, my city!
Our desire to seek the initial cause for a given bout of violence is sometimes about learning how to prevent a future flare-up, yet more often, it seems to be about pinning blame on someone. Our first impulse is to blame those who are not part of our tribe, so we start the clock of history at the moment that is most convenient toward this aim.
Take the recent pogrom in Amsterdam as a case in point. On social media, many were quick to blame the unsavory actions of some Israeli soccer fans who chanted despicable things about Palestinians and tore down some Palestinian flags from buildings as the justification and reason for the attacks on the Jewish fans. However, according to Dutch media reports and police investigations, the attacks on the Jewish fans were pre-planned and premeditated; those plans were laid before the reprehensible behavior of the Maccabi fans, as both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have reported.
In other words, the pogrom-like attack on Jews was independent of the unruly Maccabi fans.
While we are indeed seeing a globalization of the Intifada that should concern all Jews, as well as those who care about civilization, there is a larger frame that we need to appreciate besides antisemitism. We are witnessing how the normal guardrails against civil violence are being dismantled.
This has me thinking back on Conrad Lorenz’s classic work, On Aggression, that appeared in 1966. It is a seminal work in the study of violence, aggression, and human behavior, most likely the first sustained exploration of human violence. Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist and ethologist; in his book, he presents a detailed examination of aggression from both a biological and psychological perspective. He explores the origins and functions of violence, its implications for human society, and how various forms of aggression are exhibited in animals and humans.
One of Lorenz’s key arguments is that aggression is an inherent and natural part of animal behavior, including humans. He emphasizes that aggression is not merely a result of frustration or environmental stimuli, but is an instinctual behavior shaped by evolutionary pressures. Aggression evolved as a mechanism for survival, ensuring that individuals could defend themselves, protect their territory, as well as compete for resources, mates, and dominance.
We can understand two of the types of violence he discusses: “predatory aggression,” because we all need to eat, but also “defense aggression” because we need to protect ourselves from real threats.
However, as Lorenz suggests, human aggression has become more complex. Cultural, social, and psychological factors further shape how it is expressed while at the same time, in healthy societies, the outright expression of aggression is often socially unacceptable.
He also argues that society has not eliminated this instinct; rather, it has been redirected or channeled into socially permissible forms. During times of upheaval and unrest, such as we are facing today, we have lost ways to adequately express or channel our aggression in healthy ways. This is also a part of the Amsterdam story.
Ultimately, societal dysfunctions can lead to war, which is where we find ourselves today. Here, too, Lorenz has something interesting to say, positing that war is a deeply ingrained behavior in humans, akin to a ritualized form of aggression. He suggests that war often serves to release pent-up aggression that cannot be expressed through peaceful means in society. This release ultimately provides individuals with a sense of catharsis or satisfaction.
One compelling aspect of Lorenz’s work is his discussion of sports as a safe outlet for human aggression, one through which individuals can channel their violent impulses into structured, socially acceptable activities. It is purified violence where no one is harmed.
Given the unsavory culture surrounding European soccer, I am unsure how well contemporary sports is fulfilling this function as a relief valve. In a similar way, protest movements used to be a socially acceptable way to lobby for change in a non-violent, prosocial manner. Increasingly, they have failed in this goal, as they also turn destructive and violent. Both sports and protests have sadly become accelerants for more violence, not less.
In the years since On Aggression was published, researchers have shown that animals are not driven solely by their instincts. Like humans, they possess complex cultures. Violence, in other words, is not merely a primal mammalian drive but part of a more universal form of socialization.
This newer understanding provides us with some hope because it reminds us that culture can create or minimize violence. For a long time, it did just that.
The great Pax Americana, which blossomed after the conclusion of WWII, ushered in a long period of relative peace and prosperity. Because that peace was imperfect (as all human endeavors are), with its winners and losers, we are now witnessing the destruction of those gains. It has been replaced with a much darker culture.
Violence has returned. It won’t be easy to find our way to a new era of peace.
Yet here, once again, we do know which qualities lead to more peaceful cultures in both the animal and human realms: empathy, altruism, and prosocial behaviors.
While we all express those qualities at times, our institutions can play a large role in promoting and scaling up those behaviors so that violence can again be returned to the periphery, or channeled into socially acceptable forms such as sports. Many people have liked to blame war on religions, yet in today’s world, many of our religious communities are actually the forge in which we learn and practice empathy and altruism. Neveh Shalom is a beautiful example of that.
Part of the rise of social violence stems from the lack of trust in, and the disintegration of, many global, national, and local institutions that have brought us together. More than ever, we need to salvage the ones we can while developing new institutions that can foster prosocial behaviors.
If you work within an institution, ask your co-workers what your workplace can do to strengthen the values of empathy and altruism within your workplace. It may seem like a small step, yet if enough of us take that task on, we can begin to stem the rising tide of social violence.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav D
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