We are all hunters, predators, warriors. Every
one of us. I do not care whether you are a card-carrying member of PETA, a
strict vegetarian, an avowed pacifist, or have never laid a finger on a hunting
rifle or compound bow let alone fired a bullet or bolt into an animal.
We are all hunters by the sheer dint of historical
and biological forces. We are all the offspring of forebears that hunted for
millennia and thrived because of that evolved prowess for hunting.
Let’s toss all the contemporary arguments pro
or con hunting aside, the titled observation is not telling anyone to abandon
whatever moral precepts they possess regarding hunting, animals, and any
perceived cruelty to animals.
To declare human beings as a hunting species
is not a value judgment but a statement of fact.
Evolutionary biologists, paleo-ethologists,
and anthropologists from Robert Ardrey to Richard Wrangham have gone so far as
to say that what makes the human species so distinctly different from its
simian brethren is this very penchant, this evolved drive to hunt.
Other animals can and do hunt, some solitary
and some in packs, but no animal exceeds the human animal in applying technology
to the solo hunt or the exceeding depths of cooperation in the human-pack hunt.
Dolphins may work together to “bubble-net” a
school of fish but this is in no way a match for the hauls fishermen made off
the coasts of New Foundland even 400 years ago. Wolves may hunt in families
[the pack idea is a bit of a myth] and bring down prey larger than themselves,
but the wolf is still no match for our forebears who brought down mammoths and other
gargantuan prey that we just may have hunted to extinction.
There are many authorities in the field of
human development who surmise that our ability to communicate and cooperate so
successfully was borne out of this evolutionary group-hunting path. There is also
some very convincing evidence [from Dr. Richard Wrangham particularly] that the
combination of meat and fire, i.e., cooked meat, is what led to the relatively
sudden growth spurt in the neo-cortex. Robert Ardrey surmises that the birth of
the individual began with the mastery of the bow and arrow, that is, hunting
technology that allowed one to break free of the pack.
Now, whether we hunt or not in our own personal
lives matters not a whit to the fact that you, me, every human you meet is here
because ancestors who put millennia into developing the skills and attributes
that make a good hunter survived and passed along some of those successful
hunting attributes to you.
The human brain is wired to be alert to
patterns, to clues, to solving. Why? To better track prey. To better understand
whether this sign means good foraging or that sign means “Uh-oh!”
Our modern hunting selves have little need to
hunt or forage for ourselves anymore, we allow the market to provide but that
does not mean that these hunting bits of our selves lie fallow.
It has been surmised that this inherent
“solving” is part of the reason we enjoy puzzles, mystery films, suspense
television, thriller novels to the degree we do. We are looking for clues,
paths, tracks. It is also the reason we abhor spoilers, our intellect craves
the hunt, the tracking and even this weak tea of trying to out-guess the third
act of “Law & Order” fulfills some inherent need.
Is there any danger to being a hunting species
that perhaps never hunts?
Possibly.
Consider this, hunting animals are keen and
alert to their surrounding environment. This is, of course, necessity. Flagging
attention may mean missing a meal, or missing the signal that a larger or
smaller but venomous predator has you in its sites.
Flagging of attention is not rewarded with full
bellies or long lives, let alone the passing along of your unsuccessful hunter
genes.
Hunting animals must be reflective animals,
that is reflecting and adapting to the external environment they are currently
in.
External Reflection. This is key.
I repeat—This is key.
Why?
Philosopher John Gray [the real philosopher
and not the “Men Are from Mars/Women Are from Venus” guy] states [and I
simplify] that the human animal has gone from being a reflective being for the
most part to a self-reflective one and this is the cause of many self-inflicted
woes.
This is that key difference. Successful
hunting animals are keen observers of their environment well aware of signs of
prey, signs of good foraging ground, and also signs of potential upper-apex
predators. Hunting animals must reflect on all that is before them, all the
sights, sounds, scents, tastes on the air, the shift of wind signaled by the fluttering
of the hairs on your arms.
As we progressed technologically, civilization
was and is able to do more and more of our actual hunting and gathering for us,
but this mere 40,000 year blip of agriculture is nothing in the scale of
millennia when the hunting attributes were key. We can no more minus out the
seeking and the solving of the hunter mindset than we can minus out familial
affection. Hunting instincts are part and parcel of who we are as a species.
But, with the hunting prowess left with little
to nothing to work on it has, in many cases, turned inward. Our powers of reflection
have turned from reflections of the external/actual world, to self-reflection.
We spend far more time pondering the fallible recreations of the real world inside
our skulls than what goes on in the actual world. John Gray and others say that
is a bit of a problem.
And we can’t turn that off. Reflection, that
is.
If we do not reflect, we are no longer human.
The key is whether we embrace the hunter’s reflection of the world, the
external reflection that allows us to see and recognize patterns, tracks, make
real associations, the day to day concrete observations that make up a sort of personal
science, a pragmatic mechanistic understanding of the world comprised of the
real and not the imagined.
Or, we mull and chew over only our own thoughts
and the phantoms inside our skulls. Looking for dubious patterns and tracks in
the words and acts, the perceived slights of others that may, in fact, be
indicative of nothing.
All the while keeping in mind, that being lost in thought also means
being lost in the world.
It is inescapable that we will hunt and track
whether self-reflective or outward reflective, this is a symptom of being a hunting
being.
I wager that one form of reflection is of far
more value than the other.
[Coming Soon: Part 2-The Stillness of the
Predator-Animal]
For Pragmatic Drills in Predator-Awareness,
Situational Awareness Drills, and Indigenous Hacks see the No Second Chance Program & The RAW Subscription Service.]
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