''The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution'' is a book by British primatologist Richard Wrangham.Wrangham R., ''The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution'', Pantheon, 2019. Wrangham argues that humans have domesticated themselves by a process of self-selection similar to the selective breeding of foxes described by Dmitry Belyayev, a theory first proposed by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in the early 1800s. Charles Darwin disagreed, as have most evolutionary biologists since. According to

paleoanthropologist Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship ...

John D. Hawks John Hawks is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also maintains a paleoanthropology blog. Contrary to the common view that cultural evolution has made human biological evolution insignificant, H ...

, Wrangham follows scholars including

Kenneth A. Dodge Kenneth Dodge is the William McDougall Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He is also the founding and past director of the Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy a ...

in dividing human

aggression Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...

into two types. The first type, "reactive aggression", is when individuals attack in response to provocation. The second type, "proactive aggression", is planned, premeditated, and involves deliberate tactical strikes. To explain his idea, Wrangham invited readers to imagine a commercial airline flight. Other primates crowded into such a space would react by, in Hawks' words, "ripping one another limb from limb". Humans do not because they have a comparatively very low tendency to reactive aggression. Proactive aggression, by contrast, is so highly developed in humans that we must put elaborate security measures in place to prevent others from carrying out plans to bring the plane down. Wrangham offers a new perspective on a topic that has been investigated notably by Konrad Lorenz and

Erich Fromm Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the U ...

,Fromm E., (1973) ''The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness'' whose research is briefly acknowledged.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodness Paradox Books about violence 2019 non-fiction books English-language books Books about men Evolutionary biology literature Biology books Human evolution books Profile Books books

See also

References