Predation – The Binding Chaos Lexicon

Obtaining secondary anima through involuntary interactions of unequal force. A predatory interaction drains energy from one agent, the prey, and that energy is picked up by the other agent, the predator.

Expanded explanation

Predation is one of the four interaction outcomes, alongside balanced, rebuffed and unrequited, and the definition describes it as a transfer with two named ends rather than as a kind of behaviour. Two conditions make an interaction predatory. It is involuntary, and the force in it is unequal. Neither cruelty nor intent appears in the definition, which is deliberate, since what makes the interaction predatory is where the energy goes rather than what anyone meant by it. Marsh objects directly to the alternative account. The fashion in academic and scientific analysis of human behaviour has been to attribute predatory behaviour to a lust for control, and she reads it instead as a supply problem, since a dependence on secondary anima causes people to become predators and drain the life from others. That is why predation is not confined to the obvious cases. Whether the weaker party is dominated or simply destroyed, the access to their anima is the same, which is why she treats the two as one operation. The response to predation is where her argument turns practical. The healthy response to attempted predation is anger, and post-traumatic stress disorder is a self destructive learned reaction to potential predation now manifesting as widespread anxiety, so what is diagnosed as a disorder in the prey is a response to a repeated transfer. The fact that predation is seldom met with anger is what enables predation.

In Heather Marsh’s words

Marsh reads predation as a supply problem rather than a lust for control, which changes what the remedy would be.

“The fact that predation is seldom met with anger is what enables predation”
Abstracting Divinity

Examples

No intent required: Involuntary and unequal are the two conditions, so where the energy goes settles the question rather than what anyone meant.
Domination or destruction: Both give access to the same anima, which is why Marsh treats them as one operation rather than two.
Anger as the healthy response: What is diagnosed as anxiety in the prey is a learned reaction to repeated predation, and the absence of anger is what allows it to continue.

How others use it

Predation in biology is an interaction in which one organism kills and consumes another, and the metaphor is applied in criminology to sexual and financial predators, in economics to predatory pricing and in psychology to instrumental as opposed to reactive aggression. Trauma research documents the effects Marsh attributes to repeated predation, though it locates the pathology in the response rather than in the transfer. Her account differs on causation, since most explanations of predatory behaviour reach for dominance, sadism or antisocial traits, and hers reaches for blocked access to primary anima, which makes the behaviour a consequence of deprivation rather than of disposition.