The so-called evil - By Roberto Marchesini
The recent events, regarding the bear Daniza, bring us back to the theme of aggressiveness. This thematic and this psychological component are often misunderstood by our culture which is based on good feelings, or better, on the cheap sentimentalism that, on the contrary, stands on the media especially when it comes to animals. Thus, on internet, we can find bears that save crows or dogs that try to revive fishes, with hyperbolic shares and accurate comments such as “it’s lovely!”, “how cute is that?”, “what a tenderness!”.
All these things reveal that the contemporary human being has an incredible need to find a contact of sympathetic sharing on the cord of universal love. Undoubtedly, this need works as a retaliation - I imagine - meaning that it tries to compensate for the equally pervasive “culture medium” of violence to which we are subjected on a daily basis, through the media, with terrifying images and movies, where the violence becomes the content and, if anything, not the means - albeit unseemly - of a message.
However, by now things get complicated and it becomes difficult to separate the boundaries of the four fundamental of the communication such as: the media, the pragma, the sign and the meaning from this mess... after all something about it has already been said by Marshall McLuhan, but now I would say that we went beyond it. Anyhow, this is not the point. The fact is that the human voyeurism inevitably throws people into the pool of horror - it is enough to think about how many visualizations are received by violence movie and of decapitation - and then it is most likely that there are attempts to distance this wreck that is not sweet at all taking shelter in the warm and cosy nest of other species, to which we ask the task of continuing our sweet childish dreams, performed by the great mythological director that was Walt Disney.
If the Greeks had the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Westerners (us) have The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, so it is natural then that we seek comfort in our own myths or in indulging in sweet childish regressions.
Therefore, other animals need to carry out the task of being “secure bases”, even though of an exclusively regressive order. Animals need to be able to comfort us and give us that amniotic reassurance that the Vitruvian Man is no longer able to provide us. However, what is not acceptable is to pretend to cancel, in the non human animal, everything that does not fit within the space of our fantasies. This form of anthropocentrism, however, is very subtle because in appearance it makes a eulogy of animals’ virtues but in reality animals’ features are denied in order to support an image that is part of our needs. One of the key aspects concerns the aggressiveness, a central component in the behavioural expression of all species, including the human being.
Thus, aggressiveness is stigmatized as pathological when it occurs and it is denied or allowed to pass in silence, only because it does not fit the ideology of universal harmony. Actually, often aggressiveness is the expressive instrument, which allows an animal to realise those same predicates that we like so much. For example: how could a mother's love be expressed without the ability of defending her pups with her nails and teeth? Moreover, intraspecific aggressiveness is the component which allows the dispersion of the individuals in an area, allowing the allocation of resources and the development of eco-systemic balances.
Another small detail – quoting the great Charles Darwin - are all the adaptive predicates, in fact, even the ones that move us the more - are the result of a process of burin which is extremely refined that is called selection; in this selection aggressiveness played a key role. In the sexual selection aggressiveness in showed in the ritualized forms of courtships, competitions, and even in choreographic expressions of wedding rituals, exactly as Niko Tinbergen well understood, analyzing the dance of the stickleback. In order to define aggressiveness as a deviant behaviour – that is what is now happening against the bear Daniza - is an enormity under the ethological profile. Additionally, there is also another aspect, which would make us smile if it was not tragic as a thermometer of the creeping anthropocentrism that characterizes our culture. Animals’ aggressive expression cannot be treated as a reprehensible act that needs to be punished. No one would think to confine the clouds or tear down the sky if it hails. The way of dealing with the issue of Daniza demonstrates how the anthropomorphism destroys the interests of the other species in the moment in which it turns them into almost-human fetishes.
Aggressiveness occurs whenever the subject, human or non-human, needs to defend its own inalienable prerogative. Aggressiveness is one of the various behavioural tools that support the existence of the individual.
The only way to deal with aggressiveness’ consequences is first of all to avoid, demagogically, the denial of citizenship. Then, aggressiveness’ manifestations need to be known on the basis of the circumstances and situations, which make them more likely to occur. Finally, once all these things are acknowledged it is possible to find the way to limit the risks due to aggressiveness, and in turn to find solutions, which are able to steer aggressiveness’ expression.
Lorenz had already realised the importance of knowing aggressiveness in order to live with it, because denying the reality is a stupid way – or maybe a cunning one, for whoever works as a demagogue – to deal with problems.
Trad. di Chiara Rubbianesi
