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Aggression, anger, rage, hate, and hostility are all too frequently lumped together in psychoanalytic thinking as expressions of the death instinct. If we examine these five states individually, it becomes apparent that each has its specific role in normal life. Aggression is not necessarily destructive at all. It springs from an innate tendency to grow and master life, which seems to be characteristic of all living matter. Only when this life force is obstructed in its development do ingredients of anger, rage, or hate become connected with it and, eventually, ruthless aggression.
Even anger, rage, and hate have their legitimate role in human behavior in response to adequate external annoyance. If a man hits you or attacks your character, anger is the normal reaction. If he is bigger and more powerful than you, a feeling of helplessness may step up the anger to legitimate rage, and, if the facts convince you that he deliberately intended to do you harm, you would be neurotic if you did not hate him. If one lives constantly in an unfriendly environment, as in the case of