Sources of political violence, political and psychological analysis

• Main Author: O. B. Balatska
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House "Grani" 2015-05-01
• Series: Granì
• Subjects: політичне насилля; агресія; деструктивність; інстинкт смерті; мортідо; деструдо; фрустрація; відносна депривація
• Online Access: https://grani.org.ua/index.php/journal/article/view/250

This article is about the origins of violence, including political one. The correlation between the concepts of violence, aggression and destructiveness is described in the article. Different definitions of the mentioned concepts are given. In the article, the sources of violence and aggression are analyzed in details. In particular, psychoanalytic theories are represented, such as: instinktyvizm, behaviorism, frustration aggression theories, the concept of relative deprivation, the concept of aggression as a learned reaction. Among the psychoanalytic theories, a special attention is given to the learnings of S. Freud, W. Reich, E. Fromm. Also, there are the views about the destructive nature of S. Spielrein, W. Stekel, P. Federn, E. Weiss in the article. The essence of such concepts as death instinct, Thanatos, mortido and destrudo is revealed. Based on the learnings of E. Fromm, the difference between the two basic types of aggression – innocent, biologically adaptive aggression and malignant destructiveness, whose origins come from the structure of nature, is emphasized. The basic types of aggression, including – pseudo­aggresion, defense, conformist and instrumental aggression (innocent aggression); sadism, necrophilia (malignant aggression) and others are mentioned. We also consider the following approaches to determining the nature and sources of aggression and violence such as instinktyvizm (K. Lorenz) and behaviorism (J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner et al.). Special attention is paid to theories of frustration aggression (J. Dollard, N. E. Miller, L. Berkowitz et al.), according to which the causes of aggression and violence are hidden in a particular mental state – frustration. The particular importance of the theory of T. R. Gurr, in which the source of aggression and political violence are defined through the concept of relative deprivation, is underlined. Another approach is described in the article ­ the concept of aggression as a learned reaction (A. Bandura, G. Levin, B. Fleischmann et al.). Supporters of this approach believe that aggressive behavior is formed in the process of social training.