>Random individual violence does not seem to be innate except as an aberration. You can walk in any tightly-packed megapolis of millions (an environment that was presumably never encoded / selected-for in our DNA) and not really worry that one of the thousands individuals you come across will simply go berserk for the fun (or benefit) of it. "Rage" of various forms happens, but typically under intense stress conditions.
to me this analysis is not starting off in the right direction. We're talking about Neolithic people here so it's appropriate to use more straight up evolutionary law of the jungle thinking. Sudden violence is in us from the get go. Look at so many other mammals, they use violence with each other to sort things out at the drop of a hat. Look at how we portray cowboys, and indians (or fasts, and furiouses?). I'm not even saying that the picture is accurate to history, I'm saying the picture is accurate to how we think, viscerally, and such films excite us, not because of memories because we were there, we weren't. Just because it's how we think.
So I'd start out the analysis with, we are violent animals at the base of our brain, or is it at the base of our evolution, but animals don't kill each other that often. On top of that we are extremely social animals, you can walk down the street surrounded by strangers and not hit them. But also on top of that we are thinking, calculating, theory of mind imagining: this person has been irking me for awhile now, if I secretly kill them, my problems will be solved.
I'm not saying it's anywhere near that simple or that that's accurate, but we need to think that way. We've seen some papers recently here that said it's not appropriate to think we have 3 brains in 3 layers, wrestling with each other, because they're more intertwingled than that. So this kind of noodling only takes us so far, but I have the sense that it's the right kind of thinking.
I don't think our violence is aberrant at all, but we did "invent" being extremely social, and then etiquette, and then even the term aberrance to talk about some behaviors which are unusual within that framework. Rabies might be aberrant behavior in dogs, and anxiety conditions, but otherwise they're pretty basic. And anxiety is so prevalent we have to assume it's adaptive anyway.
Starting with Freud, an aspect of psychology that is not as widely understood as it should be is the notion of unconscious thought, and unconscious motivation. (The term subconscious is associated with a more woo-woo theory of Jung's, that we share subconsious awareness with other people, is why unconscious is the usual term.) It's very difficult for people to grasp that they don't actually know what they are thinking, but it does leak out.
If you are talking to somebody and say "I'm not saying that you're X, I'm saying that you are Y", you are definitely thinking that they are X, or at least a substantial part of you is. That's where you got the idea to deny it from. It can be broken down plainly in computer programmer terms. While the brain isn't "just like a computer", in order for you to compare X and Y you have to use the subroutine or the struct or the class for X and the other one for Y, they are separated at some place in your mind. You can't say X without the X part of the brain lighting up. What makes you say "I'm not calling you X" is another part of your brain lighting up to say "this is an unpleasant thought, better not be accused of saying it, that will be socially awkward".
"Children blurt out the truth, children say what we are all thinking." We have additional brain processes that children have not developed yet, but we didn't lose the thoughts they have, that's why we understand them. It's all that shame and judgement we fear from other people and apply to ourselves that starts to tear our coherent ideal self (that we think we are) apart.
So, imho we don't get anywhere by imagining we are a "good people" walking around who sometimes aberr; we are complicated collections of competing selfish ideas, some of which are nasty.
to me this analysis is not starting off in the right direction. We're talking about Neolithic people here so it's appropriate to use more straight up evolutionary law of the jungle thinking. Sudden violence is in us from the get go. Look at so many other mammals, they use violence with each other to sort things out at the drop of a hat. Look at how we portray cowboys, and indians (or fasts, and furiouses?). I'm not even saying that the picture is accurate to history, I'm saying the picture is accurate to how we think, viscerally, and such films excite us, not because of memories because we were there, we weren't. Just because it's how we think.
So I'd start out the analysis with, we are violent animals at the base of our brain, or is it at the base of our evolution, but animals don't kill each other that often. On top of that we are extremely social animals, you can walk down the street surrounded by strangers and not hit them. But also on top of that we are thinking, calculating, theory of mind imagining: this person has been irking me for awhile now, if I secretly kill them, my problems will be solved.
I'm not saying it's anywhere near that simple or that that's accurate, but we need to think that way. We've seen some papers recently here that said it's not appropriate to think we have 3 brains in 3 layers, wrestling with each other, because they're more intertwingled than that. So this kind of noodling only takes us so far, but I have the sense that it's the right kind of thinking.
I don't think our violence is aberrant at all, but we did "invent" being extremely social, and then etiquette, and then even the term aberrance to talk about some behaviors which are unusual within that framework. Rabies might be aberrant behavior in dogs, and anxiety conditions, but otherwise they're pretty basic. And anxiety is so prevalent we have to assume it's adaptive anyway.
Starting with Freud, an aspect of psychology that is not as widely understood as it should be is the notion of unconscious thought, and unconscious motivation. (The term subconscious is associated with a more woo-woo theory of Jung's, that we share subconsious awareness with other people, is why unconscious is the usual term.) It's very difficult for people to grasp that they don't actually know what they are thinking, but it does leak out.
If you are talking to somebody and say "I'm not saying that you're X, I'm saying that you are Y", you are definitely thinking that they are X, or at least a substantial part of you is. That's where you got the idea to deny it from. It can be broken down plainly in computer programmer terms. While the brain isn't "just like a computer", in order for you to compare X and Y you have to use the subroutine or the struct or the class for X and the other one for Y, they are separated at some place in your mind. You can't say X without the X part of the brain lighting up. What makes you say "I'm not calling you X" is another part of your brain lighting up to say "this is an unpleasant thought, better not be accused of saying it, that will be socially awkward".
"Children blurt out the truth, children say what we are all thinking." We have additional brain processes that children have not developed yet, but we didn't lose the thoughts they have, that's why we understand them. It's all that shame and judgement we fear from other people and apply to ourselves that starts to tear our coherent ideal self (that we think we are) apart.
So, imho we don't get anywhere by imagining we are a "good people" walking around who sometimes aberr; we are complicated collections of competing selfish ideas, some of which are nasty.