Humans as animals

A prevalent myth in our culture, abetted to certain extent by most religions, is that humans are somehow “above” the rest of the animal kingdom, gentler and kinder perhaps. Two world wars in the last century and the yearly litany of “ethnic cleansings”, “wars of liberation”, daily terrorist killings in the Middle East, urban drug wars, and the like should have cured us of this myth, but apparently it hasn’t.

In fact, humans are social animals, running in packs, and share many attributes with other pack animals. Our packs are ruled by “alphas”, mostly male, whether they are the toughest thug in the gang or the multimillionaire CEO of a multinational corporation in a tailored suit. Our civilizations have advanced enough that now an alpha (almost always) male can rule a whole country or even an empire, rather than just a local tribe, but the mechanism is the same.

Like most pack animals, we distrust the outsider, and if they seem defenseless enough we will attack them, or at least exclude them as far as possible. In more advanced civilization the attack may not necessarily be physical, but it will be effective. Ask any minority. Ask those who tried to date or marry “out of their class” or out of their religion or, heaven forbid, across racial boundaries. Ask gays and lesbians.

Like many pack animals, we tend to pick on and exploit the weaker members of the pack. Anyone who has watched playground dynamics can see this. In our culture we generally, though not always, try to train our young out of the more egregious forms of oppression and intimidation, but the subtler forms always remain.

Like most pack animals, we create hierarchies and pecking orders for ourselves. Every group has its leader, surrounded by immediate subordinates who acquire power by association with the leader, and so on down the chain to the lowest member of the pack. This is the same whether we are talking about a street gang leader and his cronies, or a leading politician and his staff, or a CEO and his senior managers. And as in any pecking order, those at the top always arrange to get first pick of the choicest morsels.

Like most pack animals, violence is part of our genetic makeup because it has survival value. Civilization (sometimes) restrains our violent tendencies, or at least channels them toward more socially acceptable forms, such as war and sports. But it remains a potential for every human under the right conditions. One only has to look at human behavior where civilization has been eliminated or its control temporarily suspended.

So the next time the news reports that some minority is being slaughtered in Africa, the Balkans or the Middle East, remember the pack animals. The next time the news reports that another CEO has awarded himself a multimillion dollar bonus while cutting jobs, pay and benefits in his company, remember the pack animals. The next time you hear of some religion or culture in which the husband rules absolutely over his spouses and children, remember the pack animals. The next time a group of “good old boys” beat a gay to death, remember the pack animals. Like it or not, we are animals, whatever bold promises religions or philosophies may make.

Civilization’s great advance is to move humans far enough that we will generally trade with the stranger rather than killing him on sight. Civilization’s great advance is to move humans far enough that we value a few other things besides brute force. Civilization's great advance is to expand our concept of who is in our pack to include more than just our blood kin. But at root we are still pack animals, in evolutionary terms just barely out of the jungle. Any workable political or social system has to account for that.