Omaha Beach Scene from Saving Private Ryan.

Donald Trump is not the world's only "gaslighter:" making things up that have no foundation in reality. Then accumulating "followers" who embrace his undocumented views. This happens frequently in the academic world.

One of the strangest theories that has gained a foothold in academia is the view that human warfare is a manifestation of "male aggression."

One of the most poignant illustrations of how nonsensical is a theory that attributes warfare to male aggression is the sad opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.  Click this link to see the pathetic young men being slaughtered. Nothing more bizarre to imagine that this attack at Omaha Beach (ordered by General Eisenhower) was a manifestation of the male "aggressive instinct." 

Why the development of such a bizarre theory? Carolyn Marvin provides us with an answer: We pretend men are aggressive warriors so that we can "kill them more easily."

Since Blood Sacrifice maintains the Nation, then in order to maintain the nation, it is necessary to kill (sacrifice) men (and others) "periodically" (Marvin's term).

But still we feel guilty about sending young men to die. So we pretend that it is their "aggressive instinct" that is the cause of war. Thus, because of their unruly aggressiveness, in some sense they "deserve" to die. 

Who ever heard of a war that was instigated or perpetuated based on the "aggressive instinct" of soldiers? Not a single historian would make such an argument. An entire academic theory or discipline based on a fantasy or, one might say, a form of false consciousness.