The Presence Of One Inhibits The Other
James W. Prescot, writing in 1975 (updated with 1989 data): “I am now convinced that the deprivation of physical sensory pleasure is the principal root cause of violence. Laboratory experiments with animals show that pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other. A raging, violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of its brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal's sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior. When the brain's pleasure circuits are 'on,' the violence circuits are 'off,' and vice versa. Among human beings, a pleasure-prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors, and a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience, or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities. As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down.”
The article, with the emphasis in the original, covers a lot of ground: it attacks the Judeo-Christian basis for the denial of bodily pleasure; the way the culture and laws of the United States allows some addictive drugs that give people competitive edges (more in the culture than law) or that either deny pleasure or encourage violence and bans the drugs that enhance pleasure; the relationship between sexual repressive cultures and the amount of pornography (in place of normal sexual expressions); the relationship between sexually repressive cultures and incidents of rape; the inverse relationship between corporate business structures and family closeness; that it's best not to let babies cry themselves to sleep but see to their needs in order to build a relationship based on trust; and much more. It doesn't go into much detail about the above, but much conventional wisdom—wisdom still "true" today—is called into question. It is a remarkable article.
Wikipedia links to a dicussion of the article between Erik and Josh at Kuro5hin. It's worth checking out in full, as Josh ultimately uses Python to show that a key relationship Prescott tries to flesh out is not statistically significant.
