June 6, 1988. AGGRESSION AND THE HISTORIAN: A PSYCHOHISTORICAL VIEW. Peter Gay, Ph.D.

Dr. Gay defined aggression as a wide spectrum of feelings and acts ranging from confident self-adventure to torture. He highlighted the influences that the psychic, social, and cultural milieus have on aggression, and he discussed nineteenth century middle-class culture as a specific example of how culture influences and provides "alibis" for aggression. Dr. Gay reviewed the history of theories of aggression. Included were the polar extremes of ethology and environmentalism. Ethologists conceptualize an innate and universal hostile energy pushing for expression; this is modeled on the animal observations of Konrad Lorenz. Environmentalists, on the other hand, deny an innate hostile core of human nature. They espouse what Dr.