“As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less 'aggressive' than sedentary ones.

There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a 'leveller' on which the 'fit' survive and stragglers fall by the wayside.

The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The 'dictators' of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the 'gentlemen of the road'.”

"ABC Radio Perspective on ABC News 20/20 on May 29, 1994"

Source: Letter to his daughter (1978), p. 63.
Context: Tin-pot dictators have ravaged Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the aftermath, they have done more to promote communism than the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao. They are the worst tyrants of the post-colonial period. They have destroyed time-honoured institutions and treated their people like animals. They have caused internal divisions and external confusion. The dictator is the one animal who needs to be caged. He betrays his profession and his constitution. He betrays the people and destroys human values. He destroys culture. He binds the youth. He makes the structure collapse. He rules by fluke and freak. He is the scourge and the ogre. He is a leper. Anyone who touches him also becomes a leper. He is the upstart who is devoid of ideals and ideology. Not a single one of them has made a moment's contribution to history.

Vom Schmetterling zur Doppelaxt: Die Umwertung von Weiblichkeit in unserer Kultur (1990), p. 9, 11.
Vom Schmetterling zur Doppelaxt (1990)
Context: Humans belong to the category of herding animals, due to which intra-species aggression at a life-endangering level is obviated. In other words: If, for some reason or another, severe conflicts [... ] of the kind common since the last circa four-and-a-half millennia would have occured during the time of our hominisation, our ancestors would have completely eradicated each other and homo sapiens would have never set foot on earth. For a species that in its individuals was so weak when confronted with many predators preying after them required support from its kind in order to survive. We possess neither claws nor fangs nor the strength to successfully withstand the larger carnivores all alone, however it is as a group that we may survive together though never without sacrifice and courage. When our non-human ancestors began living in packs in order to stand together when facing hazards, they developed a behaviour that we may term 'social intelligence', which is the ability to co-operate with one's species in order to maintain the well-being of all. Modern homo sapiens still possesses this potential, however our culture has effectively damaged it.

[... ]

It must have been a peaceful world, for early settlements at large exhibited no fortifications regarding human attacks. For maybe one or two millennia [after the end of the last glacial epoch], humans obviously lived an untroubled life under these social conditions.

Beating the drums of hope and faith (2004)
Context: I feel for, and identify with, individuals on their spiritual journeys — whether those journeys are hard or smooth. That is why I write about the young man who parties all night and finds it hard to get along with his parents; I sing about the Muslim girl murdered by her father and step mother; I write about the death of a close relative and the struggle of dealing with that parting; I write about conflict within marriage; difficulties being a good parent; religious hypocrisy; consumerism; sexual abuse; religious narrow-mindedness; these are all struggles that are very real within our community. Even if I have not felt these struggles first hand, seeing others around me experience such tests does effect me… the social repercussions of these struggles effect us all one way or another.

Referring to title of an essay by Theodosius Dobzhansky

Paris, France June 1997
1990s

The Four Loves (1960)