Every day seems like a journey through the whirlwinds of aggression. Little wonder one in every 100, or 2.3 million, Americans are in jail. A boggling 46 percent of Americans have at least one mental disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
She’s a cool customer, that Ziva David. When it comes to kicking butt she knows all the techniques. If you threatened Jethro or Tony she’ll shoot you. Pow! Rifle or pistol. She’s a great shot with both. Who wouldn’t want to be like her?
Then there’s Sam Hanna. He is a former Navy SEAL who is built like an All-Pro linebacker. Sam has some underworld contacts. And when he hits you, you stay hit. Thud. Don’t bother getting up. He’ll just hit you again.
Tuesday night. You watched Ziva do her thing on NCIS and you watched Sam buddy up with G. Callen on NCIS Los Angeles to take down some terrorists posing as migrant workers. You watched late-night news and its reports of murder, robbery, gang violence and high school shenanigans. All slide through your mind like channel surfing.
Wednesday morning. Coffee and the morning news. A 12-year-old shot and killed another 12-year-old—police theorize they were playing with a gun. A Sears delivery truck was hijacked and its load of appliances wasn’t, well, delivered. Another baby—this one in Maine—went missing. Three Iraqi police were killed in an ambush. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Great. The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel is backed up for four miles because some idiots decided to play bumper cars or yak on their cell phones … a few years ago an accident was caused by a man who was shaving. Was anybody hurt? Who cares. Tow that scrap out of the way so people can get on with another wacky Wednesday.
Yeah, let’s go to work and put up with that dork from supply, blatting about how he never got the order when he knows darned well you put it in his fat little hand at the end of business Monday. You cannot understand why they keep him around just to make your life miserable. Yeah. Probably that.
The Wednesday night commute home involved another Interstate traffic jam, almost getting T-boned by a red-light runner, a checkout clerk that had the personality of a hornet (can’t they at least look at you?) kids on bicycles, dogs on missions, howling jet fighters, and the neighborhood gossip waiting at the end of your drive. Why does she always have to say, “Have a good one?”
Too many days in our suburban lives have been reduced to similar chains of aggression run amok.
A typical American is exposed to 200,000 violent episodes on television before celebrating his 18th birthday, according to an American Academy of Family Physicians’ position paper on media and violence. Weapons are displayed and used an average of nine times per hour—66 percent of America’s favorite TV shows contain violence. What’s worse, 41 percent of the violence is shown in a way that makes it humorous or funny.
Television is not the only training ground for aggression. The Internet and computerized video games make contributions. News reports and the behavior of those we encounter during a routine day also are aggression delivery systems.
Little wonder the United States leads the world in a few shocking categories. This country has 2.3 million people in jail. That’s more than the combined prison population of 35 European countries. The American Psychiatric Association estimates 46 percent of all Americans are burdened with at least one diagnosable mental disorder.
Is aggression responsible?
Aggression. That pleasant sounding word that answers to the meaning of physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone, according to psychwiki.com. It’s not quite that easy, however. There is violent aggression and passive aggression and overt aggression and covert aggression—types caused by anger, confusion, discomfort, fear, over-stimulation fatigue, alcohol, drugs, depression, diseases, child abuse, conditions, age, and a rare disorder named Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.
We want our children to aggressively pursue their dreams and goals. We want our football teams to be aggressive, aggressive researchers studying our ills, and we respect aggressive business folk. Aggression means getting things done. We do not, however, want it to go too far. That would mean arguments, fist fights, road rage, and sand-box tantrums are aggression.
The jeers and jabs and insults swapped in any high school hall are aggression. Aggression is both the center of religion and the scales of hatred. It is a defining part of us, a core behavior we can neither eliminate nor defeat. The best we can do, according to legions of psychiatrists and scientists, is control it.
Some researchers claim aggression does not visit those who have not been exposed to it. That exposure can take the form of child abuse, playground bullies, spankings, and, yes, television programming. Still, there seems to be something else at work.
The Amish who live in rural areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana are humble folk who believe they are on earth to serve others. Rather than personal gain, they strive for humility. Violence in any form is against their religion. To the point they will not defend themselves if attacked.
A website maintained by Peaceful Societies (peacefulsocieties.org) outlines a dozen other societies that are noted for customs and laws that control aggression. Those societies are built on respect for others. The Zapotec of Mexico, for example, believe aggression is a disease that should be treated instead of punished. The G/wi of Africa’s Kalahari Desert simply ignore the offender until he gets the message and moves on. The Tahitians believe aggressive acts of anger endanger a person’s health and well-being.
Whoa. Sociologist Robert Faris joined Diane Felmlee Anderson Cooper in a study of school bullying. The study was commissioned by CNN
and reported on the network’s Anderson Cooper
360 news show.
“Family background of kids does not really seem to matter in their aggressive behavior,” Faris said. “Instead, what really matters is where they are located in the school hierarchy.”
Since man developed the ability to record his thoughts, aggression has been a dominating theme. Themes that range from the clash of armies to seeking out and destroying demons to the theft of gold and jewels. After centuries of attempts, the source of human aggression continued to evade the best minds in history.
But, then, those best minds did not have computer.
Ongoing research has pinpointed the amygdala as the wellspring of aggression. Actually, there are two amygdalae, one located behind each ear. They are about an inch long and part of the Hippocampus, which in turn belongs to the Limbic system. This is considered one of the most important parts of the brain and handles functions such as memory and emotion. The amygdalae are in charge of your mental and emotional states. Especially your sense of fear.
Is this an important link to aggressive behavior? Is aggression a switch that helps control everything from autism to post traumatic stress disorder? Researchers don’t know yet. They’re working on it. In the process they are uncovering fascinating data about how aggression is expressed by different age groups and by men and women.
UP NEXT
PART II: Is the child assertive or aggressive? Is it behavior that should be corrected or is it just the way the cookie crumbles with kids these days. The Health Journal pursues these questions in the children’s segment of aggression.
PART III: The cost and treatment of adult aggression may have reached a crisis level in the U.S. And the cost is not just money.