It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution.

The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter agon not to exchange, but to fight. We dream of winning but are also prepared to lose – including to lose ourselves, even in the literal sense of dying for a great cause.

Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.

The point, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender to such agon against individuals is to invite one's own ethical degeneration; […]

Agon

Meaning

Noun

Origin

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