Abstract

UITE mundane pursuits as well as lofty attempts to achieve the extraordinary turn us against each other in tragic, insidious ways. These pursuits give rise to an "invisible hand" that, far from guiding people toward happiness, steers them instead toward confrontation and aggression. People end up literally making war in order to secure a good life. My aim here is to lay bare mechanisms by which our undertakings make aggressors of us. I begin with an analysis of competition, aggression, and related phenomena.