The fight response is the limbic brain’s final tactic for survival through aggression. When a person confronting danger cannot avoid detection by freezing and cannot save himself by distancing or escaping (flight), the only alternative left is to fight. In our evolution as a species, we—along with other mammals—developed the strategy of turning fear into rage in order to fight off attackers (Panksepp, 1998, 208). In the modern world, however, acting on our rage may not be practical or even legal, so the limbic brain has developed other strategies beyond the more primitive physical fight response.
One form of modern aggression is an argument. Although the original meaning of the term argument relates simply to a debate or discussion, the word is increasingly used to describe a verbal altercation. An overheated argument is essentially “fighting” by nonphysical means. The use of insults, ad hominem phrases, counterallegations, denigration of professional stature, goading, and sarcasm are all, in their own ways, the modern equivalents of fighting, because they are all forms of aggression. If you think about it, civil lawsuits can even be construed as a modern and socially sanctioned type of fight or aggression in which litigants aggressively argue two opposing viewpoints.
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