Territorial Imperative

A territory is an area that an animal guards as its exclusive possession against all adult members of its own kind except its mate. Dramatist and anthropologist Robert Ardrey (1966) combined this well-known concept with Maslow’s needs theory (Chapter 4). Territory—a home—provides security, stimulation, and identity. Ardrey argues that the same is true for war, which gives everyone identity in the form of rank, stimulation (“moments of sheer terror amidst endless hours of sheer boredom” as veterans might put it), and security for one’s family, tribe or country. It may be altruistic, which Ardrey asserts evolves from the existence of territory and a family to protect, a notion consistent with but predating sociobiology (Chapter 3).