Konrad Lorenz, "On Aggression". Written in 1963 (!)
I wish I have read this book couple decades ago.
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Human social behaviour is permeated by
cultural ritualization to a degree which we do not realize for the
very reason of its omnipresence. Indeed, in order to give
examples of human behaviour which, with certainty, can be
described as non-ritualized, we have to resort to patterns which
are not supposed to be performed in public at all, like uninhibi-
ted yawning and stretching, picking one’s nose or scratching in
unmentionable places. Everything that is called manners is, of
course, strictly determined by cultural ritualization. ‘Good’
manners are by definition those characteristic of one’s own
group and we conform to their requirements constantly; they
have become ‘second nature’ to us. We do not, as a rule, realize
either their function of inhibiting aggression or that of forming
a bond. Yet it is they that effect what sociologists call ‘group
cohesion’.
The function of manners in permanently producing an effect
of mutual conciliation between the members of a group can
easily be demonstrated by observing what happens in their
absence. I do not mean the effect produced by an active, gross
breach of manners, but by the mere absence of all the little polite
looks and gestures by which one person, for example on enter-
ing a room, takes cognizance of another’s presence. If a person
considers himself or herself offended by members of his group
and enters the room occupied by them without these little rit-
uals, just as if they were not there, this behaviour elicits anger
and hostility, just as overt aggressive behaviour does; indeed
such intentional suppression of the normal appeasing rituals is
equivalent to overt aggressive behaviour.
Aggression elicited by any deviation from a group’s character-
istic manners and mannerisms forces all its members into a
strictly uniform observance of these norms of social behaviour.
The nonconformist is discriminated against as an ‘outsider’ and,
in primitive groups, for which school classes or small military
units serve as good examples, he is mobbed in the most cruel
manner.
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