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Cain a farmer?
SS51000 (SS51@NEMOMUS.BITNET)
Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:48:13 CST
E. Silverman raises the possibility that sacrifice functions to
discharge aggressive impulses inimical to social integration. This is
interesting, and--I think--plausible if we assume that increasing size
of human societies was rendering direct aggression less tolerable. This
would suggest viewing sacrifice as a way-station between extroversion of
aggression in extremely small societies, and introverion of aggression
in extremely large ones. The repugnance many contemporary people seem to
feel toward animal sacrifice--stigmatized as "cultism" or even
"satanism"--may be an example of what Freud wrote about: disgust for a
"transcended" phase of development. Psychodynamically, then, I propose
EXTROVERSION-SACRIFICE-INTROVERSION as possible correlates of social
evolution. --Bob Graber
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