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b ehavioral science's classic formulations--that frustration and
aggression go hand in hand.
But frustration is an experience we cannot dodge. Fashionable as
it is to think that none of us can be happy until we fulfill our potential,
fulfilling our potential to its limit is an absolute impossibility. If a
bacterium were allowed to fulfill its potential, within only four days, it
could produce more progeny than there are protons in the universe.29
Fortunately, reality's constraints have kept bacteria from acting out
their full reproductive possibilities.
Human males, like microbes, have reproductive capacities that
could swamp the solar system. During his lifetime, each man produces
enough sperm to inseminate every woman on the planet many times
over. (A single ejaculation contains between 100 and 300 million
sperm--a supply sufficient to impregnate almost every woman in
North America.)30 But the individual's sexual potential is something he
can never fulfill. Men everywhere from Sri Lanka to Savannah,
Georgia, watch women go by and fantasize possessing them sexually.
In his imagination, each male couples with thousands of females by
the time he dies. Yet in real life, the average Joe has mated with only a
few.
Even chimpanzees endure this ignominious fate. The dominant
chimp in a group hordes all the ladies for himself. Subordinate males
are starved for sex. When the head chimp is not looking, the lesser
beasts sneak up to friendly looking females and make supplicating,
seductive gestures. If the lady seems willing, the furtive Romeo tries to
lead her off to some secluded spot where the couple can catch a
moment of forbidden love. But all too frequently, as the pair skulks
into the shadows, the lordly top-ranking animal catches a glimpse of
their departure and punishes the impertinent commoner brutally for
poaching on his harem.31 The result for humans and chimps alike is
frustration-- an inevitable, inescapable frustration. If the psychologists
are correct, the upshot should be an ever-growing buildup of
aggression.
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