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Fearing and Fighting
liability to be violent, no doubt, lies both in the genetic background and family upbringing. E.g. a failure of attachment when young, can make one cold, irreverent of human life, aloof, and emotionally distant. A greater inner emptiness and sadness is the basis of these persons' need to be powerful, strong and aggressive. It is always easier for them to be mad than sad.
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Thus the programs that lead to excessive violence are probably a compound of hereditary brain defects such as errors of monoamine systems, and failure to achieve adequate personal and social attachments. The latter may in turn be a compound of genetic inadequacy and oppressive social conditions. We cannot deal with the genetics easily, if at all, and we are only beginning to understand the 'amines', but we can improve at least some social conditions. Obviously the causes of aggression are very complicated and it is not limited to those who are 'socially deprived or backward'.
These various pathological manifestations of anxiety, fear, and depression are obviously the result of distortion and overactivity of programs that are useful to alert the organisms to possible dangers. Like all other brain programs these have a genetic background but are elicited and reinforced by environment. The pathological overaction may be hereditary or due to past or present stimuli.
4. Control of Aggression
The control of aggression is very complicated. It involves many different brain regions and is influenced by many chemical substances. There are three areas in the basal parts of the brain whose effect is to increase the tendency of violence and no less than six parts that reduce it, the latter lying further forward in the brain. The Neocortex1 has greater influence and in man it could dominate these basal zones. There is continual interplay between the tendencies to violent actions that spring from the lower centers and the restraints imposed by the learned
1. Neocortex-the most recently evolved part of the brain essential for many of the special human programs, such as those for speaking, thinking and conceptual planning.
