"That man is an aggressive creature will hardly be disputed. With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate habitually destroys members of his own species.
"There is no parallel in nature to our savage treatment of each other. The sombre fact is that we are the cruellest and most ruthless species that has ever walked the earth; and that, although we may recoil in horror when we read in newspaper or history book of the atrocities committed by man upon man, we know in our hearts that each of us harbours within himself those same savage impulses which lead to murder, to torture and to war. "
- Anthony Storr
Human Aggression
The more the worker expends himself in work, the more powerful becomes the world of objects which he creates in face of himself, and the poorer he himself becomes in his inner life, the less he belongs to himself. . .
"The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, takes on its own existence, but that it exists outside him, and that it stands opposed to him as an autonomous power. The life which he has given to the object sets itself against him as an alien and hostile force."
- Karl Marx
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844
There is an extraordinary contradiction in the fact that, although violence is inherent in all aspects of human existence, people are generally unwilling to name and condemn the phenomenon. We are mildly amused by violence when it is dished up in the form of one of those ubiquitous television 'cops-
and-robbers' shows, or in some war extravaganza on the bigger screen. The problem tends to be swept neatly and swiftly beneath the carpet, and we continue to behave, most of the time, as though the glossy world of television toothpaste advertisements really was an accurate model for life as it is really lived.
