Savages Among Us

 

 

Freud stated that sex and killing were the oldest and most powerful human desires. Within sex there can be aggression as in sadomasochism. Yes, for survival, sex and aggression play an important role. Moreover, aggression can be defined as hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another, readiness to attack, and to confront without provocation. Additionally, Murray, “Explorations in Personality” called aggression a need. His definition: To overcome opposition forcefully, to fight. To revenge.  An injury, to attack injure or kill another. To oppose forcefully or punish another. This essay pertains to the  primitive “thinking” of savages.  

To begin, let’s refer to the study of anthropology, missionaries, sociologists and others as to early origins of aggression and killing.  Fraser’s “Taboo and the Perils of the Soul” provides insight into these primitive and savage cultures around the globe. One definition of savage: a brutal or vicious person. Primitive: relating to, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something. The following description of taboo and treatment of killing enemies is not at all consistent with describing these peoples as savage. Primitive, in some ways.

Numerous places of study ,such as, but not limited to the island of Timor, the people of Paloo, the Gallas of East Africa  etc. ruthless cruelty was not directed toward their enemies .Killing a man was governed by a number of observances which were taboo. For our purposes, taboo is about a sense of something unapproachable and is generally expressed in terms of prohibitions and restrictions. “ For instance, when bringing back the head of the vanquished foe, the leader of the expedition is submitted to restrictions such as sacrifices that are offered to appease the souls of the man whose heads had been taken. These people think that some misfortune would befall the victor were such an offering omitted. The ceremony consisted of a dance accompanied by a song which the death of the slain man is lamented and his forgiveness is entreated-“be not angry” they say “because your head is here with us, had we been less lucky, our heads might now have been exposed in your village. We have offered the sacrifice to appease you. Your spirit may now rest and leave us in peace. Why were you our enemy? Would it not have been better that we should remain friends? Then your blood would not have been split and your head would not have been cut off.”

Another example of attitudes toward enemies, changing, after their death, into guardians, friends and benefactors was exemplified by bringing home a head from a successful headhunting exposition. “For months after its arrival that head is treated with the greatest consideration and addressed with all names of endearment of which their language is capable. The most daintily marshals of food are thrust into its mouth, delicacies of all kinds and even cigars. The head is repeatedly implored to hate its former friends and to love its new host since it has now become one of them. It would be a great mistake to suppose that these observances which strike us so horrible are performed without any intention of ridicule. Even in North America, when a Choctaw kills the enemy they go into mourning with certain severe restrictions. They mourned over their dead and they will mourn for their foe just as if he were a friend.”

It’s obviously apparent that these non-industrialized people employ animism (human qualities), magic, superstition, and the omnipotence or great power of their thoughts (ideas become more important in that they dominate and block out, distort external reality). These people, with their spirits, were benevolent and malignant. They attributed, in animism, as being able to cause natural events. They believed that animals, plants and all of the inanimate objects in the world were animated and powerful. They believed human individuals were inhabited by similar spirits such as souls which live in human beings and can have their habitations and even migrate to other human beings. These were vehicles of mental activities and were to a certain extent independent –dualistic in their bodies. The system of animism, spirits and souls were considered independent. In essence, the souls of animals, plants and objects were constructed on the basis of human characteristics. Thus, the problem of death, a natural occurrence, was prolonged. They believed in immortality. In other words, animism likely provided a basis or ground floor for traditional religion. Halloween – honoring the saints, praying for the recently departed souls who have not yet reached heaven - ghosts, goblins, skeletons-trick or treat? Death is scary. More about that later.

The 10 Commandments provided the attempt to thwart and prohibit the desire for aggression and killing. For example, the Commandments: I am the Lord thy God, thou shall not have strange gods before me; thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; honor thy father and thy mother; thou shall not kill; thou shall not commit adultery; and thou shall not steal morally pertain and counter hate, aggression, exploitation, disrespect and domination. On one hand we are not supposed to kill, but Sampson and David are heroes as they overcame great and significant odds. Protestants at war with Catholics for over 20 years with unparalleled killing; Crusades, called Christian, going to the “holy” land to kill Muslims are  just a few examples of contradiction, irrationality, hate and death. Both Moses and Jesus did not, in any way, pursue aggression, death and destruction toward others. However, with religion we have soul, immortality, sin and other examples of the supernatural and magical thinking. And these ideas came first from savages!

The idea of God, the son of God and he died for your sins are examples of a belief in magic. If you’re good, you go to heaven and if you’re bad you go to hell. If you pray, you can control the reality or fragility of nature within human existence. Sports provide examples of magical thinking. What is supposed to happen when followers from different teams pray to the same God? How is waving a white, or blue piece of material, in unison, supposed to result in a touchdown? How is yelling “Go Team Go” supposed to result in some magical act on the field? Often, the opposing coach calls a timeout just before the kicker attempts a field goal. The timeout is supposed to make the kicker miss the field goal. At the recent NBA finals, the opposing fans started counting when Giannis was about to attempt a free-throw. Their counting, out loud .That action was supposed to make him miss his shot.

Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Sir Thomas Moore and many others believed in the power of their thoughts and in fact even died for their beliefs. After Henry cut off their heads, he displayed them how? I forgot, the king can’t be a savage. His thinking is supreme, just ask God. Unfortunately, having a belief with consensus, willing to die for the thought or being king or God like doesn’t mean that it’s the truth, logical, or insightful. Thoughts and beliefs can express the primitive, the uneducated, paranoid, hate, lies and sickness.

 

Animism, magical thinking, and omnipotence of thought is the attempt to employ “thinking” by narcissists to not only protect inner anxiety, conflict and insecurity but additionally to “exert power over “or to control the unpredictability and dangerousness in the reality of living. In omnipotence of thought, this level of “thinking” is characterized by structural conditions within a person’s mind (the projection of emotional impulses) into the external world. Thus commonly, this form of ”thinking “is characterized by the following - assumptions: a distortion of factual information; employment of illogical and non-rational connections; creation of falsifications, instead of facts; invention of fabrications in an attempt to bring mental relief from an unchangeable and rigid emotional position {Trump won, election was stolen}. Not surprisingly, spirits, demons, and a dualistic soul is the strategy of the mind’s attempt to bring mental relief from the emotional mental conflicts. Note, the absence of intellectual, rational, objective or scientific thinking. Related, to the primitive form of “thinking,” do not forget the interpersonal behavior that accompanies this deficit. With aggression, hate and scapegoating, the following is found: appeasing, making amends, propitiating, robbing of power, subduing, incurring favor, manipulating, exploiting and even killing. It is not surprising that omnipotence of thought can also be found with a diagnosis pertaining to obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, delusional {conspiracies} and phobic disorders.

 Let’s turn to politics for a moment. Mitch is the head Republican in the Senate. He controls how the Republicans vote. His stance, since January, can be described as anal retentive or withholding. He is against legislative support for the majority. His stance has been “no.” Yes, he was one of 11 Republicans that voted to keep the government operating until December. That debt was primarily established by Donald’s tax reduction for the wealthy. Trickle-down economics is an example of magical thinking. The majority of people are not entitled but the private sector of: coal, gas, farming, pharmaceuticals and powerful others are entitled to government benefits. By the way, Kentucky received approximately 9.7 billion in federal-aid which is about 38.5% of that state’s general revenues. Sounds like entitlement to me.

Our mores, tradition, customs, in many ways, are savage. Yes, we wiped out the Indians. Who are the savages?  Our Pentagon requested $715 billion for the defense budget in 2022. We have the best killing machine military in the world. We even use artificial intelligence to kill.  We are good at waging war and killing and employ many slogans, magic and omnipotence of thought for justifications. Killing our own is called “friendly fire.”  There is nothing friendly about killing it’s a savage act.   What about “collateral damage?” Collateral is defined as additional but subordinate, secondary.  Depicting others as subordinate and secondary is savage as well.  Let’s kill them there is supposed to accomplish what? Let’s get rid of the Saddam; wipe out Iraq; wage war in Afghanistan so we can accomplish what? 

A small arms survey stated that US citizens account for 393 million or about 46% of the world’s total of civilian arms fire. This amounts to 120.5 firearms for every 100 residents. Could there be a relationship of guns and death? Figures from the U.S. Census for disease control and prevention show a total of more than 38,300 deaths from guns in 2019. More than 23,900 were suicides. We’ve had more than 711,000 deaths from Covid-19. Many of these deaths are the result of the omnipotence of thought -I’m healthy, I’m young, I’m strong, I believe in Donald, I can take bleach, ivermectin, I don’t have to wear a  mask, I am going to pray etc. Omnipotence of thought is a primitive animism belief compared to believing in science, wearing a mask and getting vaccinated. For these Covid-19 dead, their fragile internal thought and emotional system dominated the external, scientific and perceptual world of reality.

Aggression and killing remains a most powerful human desire. Not surprisingly there’s been much research around frustration, conflict and stress as it relates to aggression. Briefly, frustration is an emotional state arising as a natural course in life’s events. With aggression, we find typically anger and attack. 1.  The intensity of the aggression is related to the strength of the instigation (stolen election) 2. The degree of frustrated response for an unsuccessful goal attainment (Trump lost) 3. Inverse function of anticipated punishment or threat of punishment -omnipotent thought (Trump and capitol police are on our side). 4. Degree of insecurity coupled with underlying anxiety.

Aggression can be directed toward the frustrating agent, against another person or self. Often the aggression is displaced anger {father or some other authority figure} on a scapegoat. It’s so easy not to take responsibility or admit self as being the cause of one’s problems. Therefore, find another to blame. Minorities and parents are often blamed for the misfortune of others. If one typically uses verbal aggression that becomes the habitual mode of action. Related, if one anticipates minimal aggressiveness in return, that results in aggressive reaction like in the capitol riot on the sixth and attacking a place of worship or some other vulnerable venue.

In summary, the United States has too many savages. In 2020, hate crime data submitted by law enforcement agencies totaled 15,136. Of this number, almost 62% were race or ethnicity related. The FBI stated that hate crimes reached its highest level 12 years. Not a good sign. With the Republican response to Covid 19, economic, social and political stress and conflict levels or aggression have been exacerbated in the milieu per hate and scapegoating. Animism, magical thinking, omnipotence of thought continue and remain at primitive levels. Just listen to Fox news, social media and hate radio. Sorry Ellis and Beck, Cognitive therapy, the challenging of irrational modes of thinking appear to be in a losing battle. Lies, conscpiriousy, and paranoia run rampant. Too many remain emotional, thinking savages and God can’t help them.

Reference

Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo .W.W. Norton and Company