E S SAY
FATHER AGGRESSION by Zoltan Tajti Front matters
Examples
At the end of Lord of the Flies, Ralph breaks down in tears when saved along with the other islanders. He does not cry from joy; he cries in sorrow, grieving the passing of the private innocence a mere week prior believed civilisation had formed out of the art of the social and culture. He – they – are saved by gunmen, soldiers taking away by force what others presume to own.
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Alan Sorkin’s Colonel Jessup stands guard on the perimeters of an already established society and state, of a working culture, and mourns the guarded one’s ignorance of their luxury; but Ralph’s mourning rips deeper: the aggression of humans also works from within, at the very onset of an individual becoming a value of member in the function of a group.
Other instances tend to be labelled social establishment, observable patterns claimed to form observable order. Subtle and hidden to the lazy, violence is thus realised as interruption in and hijacking of conversations, in non-negotiated division of spousal responsibilities, autocratic parenting, and autocratic leadership.
Some of us pride ourselves in exercising humility, showing camaraderie and compassion, in practising the first act of passing our personal judgements on law and morality – and some amongst us fail to grasp selective morality is pinned on the firmest foundation of naked violence. Belligerence, hostility have nowhere to go.
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Some instances are prominent. Waging wars, murdering a fellow human, hunting for pleasure, beating up the spouse, the child, a friend, a stranger – all manifestations of the same vice, the prehuman heritage of physicality not yet oppressed by spirit and mind. 0.2 –
It is also realised and entwined in the fabric of verbal grooming as non-cooperative communication, abusive and prodding utterances, hijacking interactions, unbalanced listening times, unprompted opinion and advice, projected insecurities, transferred responsibilities, cynicism, sarcasm, and gaslighting. The list goes on, covering what contemporary language tags as passive aggression, wrongly (it
