Aggression and property

I suppose that Buddha, with his own penetrating insight into the necessary relationship between attachment, fear, and hatred, could probably have put it all very simply. For according to Buddha, hatred and aggression arise wherever there is attachment (clinging and grasping), for one mobilizes to defend one's attachments. Aggression, in this sense, is property defense. Even in the animal world, aggression almost always occurs as a simple defense of territorial property. But man alone of all the animals has a property in his person, and thus a new form of aggression: man alone will lash out blindly to defend his egoic immortality status and "save face" (save the mask). Each attachment, each property, whether internal as self or external as possessions, acts as a stick point or lesion in choiceless awareness that will fester with the stench of hostility. This lesion, this person/property defense . . . can fuel both oppression and repression, for one aggresses internally and externally to protect the person/property. 

--Ken Wilber, Up From Eden (1980)

I've obviously been reading a lot of Wilber lately. In fact I am in my second big wave of reading him (the first was a year ago, when I read six or seven of his books). This time around has been just as fruitful as the last, and I am more capable of seeing the deep logic in his incredibly complex theoretical system. As I have said elsewhere, philosophy is at its best when it helps one to live better, and Wilber's writings do just that for me. The above quote resonates with my experience lately, in which I have been trying to pay more attention to the moments and occasions when I feel aggression. The notion of "property defense" helps me to interpret many of these instances of aggression, because I am forced to ask myself just what it is I am defending, and why. This process also points up the value of aggression, for in evaluating what I am defending and why I am defending it, I sometimes come to the conclusion that both the defense and the aggression are useful in the specific case. As I have discussed elsewhere, aggression, like anger, is a strong motivator for change, and is thus something to be listened to, rather than suppressed blindly or acted on blindly.

Also illuminating is the recognition that aggression reflect both internal and external property. This internal property is the self. Again, there is a time and place to defend one's self, but I am trying to be more aware of which aspects of my self I seek to defend most passionately, and why.