I watched an unreasonably large number of those 70s/80s style nature films when I was a kid. Richard Attenborough, Marlin Perkins, and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom were regular guests in our home. They also served regularly as time-fillers on the frequent days on which my 3rd grade teacher was hung over or possibly still drunk. I always enjoyed them, but I think kids end up seeing a lot of these things as a form of social conditioning (even though I doubt most adults realize it). This is life in the U-S of A, kids. Law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest. The weak eaten by the strong. Everything is a competition. Some baby bunnies live and others get eaten; that's just the way of the world. No point in trying to change it.
Even at a young age I had some issues with the way this rather ham-fisted metaphor was presented. I suppose there are some life lessons to be extracted from nature, but like most things we selectively learn only the worst lessons. Glorify the predator, have only token sympathy for the prey (whose sole reason for existing is to be eaten), and solve the problem of being abused in a hierarchy by rising to the top of it. Only the strong survive, so be as strong as possible. Just think how great life will be when everyone else is afraid of you. Do I read too much into these things? Sure, probably. But that doesn't mean there aren't lessons worth learning amongst the bad ones.
Every prey animal has some kind of defensive adaptation. When the Big Cat attacks the herd of antelope, they scatter in different directions. It's not a terrible plan. The lion can only chase (and potentially eat) one of them. Being a smart predator, she chases the most vulnerable ones. So the young and the old get eaten and, hey, fuck 'em.
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The old are useless and the young ones who aren't smart enough to escape are better weeded out of the herd.
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The problem, of course, is that eventually every antelope becomes the one that isn't fast enough to run away. It's only a matter of time until all of them meet the same fate when they're too old to be useful anymore.
The water buffalo isn't fast enough to run away. They get into that sweet little defensive circle (adults outside, the young and old inside). When the lion comes looking she has to think a bit harder; how hungry am I? There are a lot of them and those horns look pretty sharp. I might be able to get one, but is it worth the risk? It would be so easy if there was some way to make them scatter. Ah, crap. Looks like they're going to stick together. Where are the antelope?
Social Darwinism and the "life is like the jungle" attitude that are so pervasive in our society have a single purpose: to convince you that you are an antelope. The only thing you can do is run away. You'll be OK so long as there are other people around who are even more vulnerable. You could try to stop them, but why? Every time they eat the poor, the geezers, and the kids who are defenseless, you live another day.
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Don't try holding your ground against the big, strong predator. Don't stick together or they'll eat all of you.
Just imagine how much different our politics and society would be if we were less eager to say "As long as they're eating someone else, I don't care" and more apt to get in a big group and ask the lion if it feels lucky.
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Osric1 says:
Well said!
Hobbes says:
God I loved those videos. I was the geek who voluntarily watched them on Saturday mornings instead of Darkwing Duck.
Comrade PhysioProf says:
I wanna be a bower bird.
Daniel says:
This is a Hall of Fame Gin and Tacos post. It would be nice if we could help each other out a little more on this blue marble, instead of actively trying to screw each other.
leon says:
Socialist (and I mean that as a compliment).
Zebbidie says:
Fuck me there are a lot of rabbits and gazelle. And the lions and tiger die out everytime the world changes – not very good at coping despite all the roaring and teeth. There is a lesson there as well.
SHG says:
DAVID Attenborough. Richard's his older brother.
Bette Noir says:
Cinematically speaking: Randy Newman's "It's Lonely at the Top" is perfect background music for this post.
Bravo, Ed.
anotherbozo says:
Coincidentally I was reflecting yesterday on the Roman Empire, and how it was presented in classes. Much emphasis on the engineering marvels, awesome development, and its power per se, never mind it was all built on the killing machine known as the legions. And yet if memory serves it was the often peaceful agrarians–aka rabbits–that they brutally conquered and enslaved who were considered the barbarians.
The predatory viciousness of this empire was soft-pedaled in school, the "advantages" of being under Roman "civilization" emphasized. Further in my ramblings, I was imagining how, say, a Howard Zinn or Edwardo Galeano might have taught world history… and dared to challenge the worship of power that underlies so much of the way it's taught. My particular school didn't show us many nature films, but we were being conditioned quite well in history class to the same ends.
SaltyJustice says:
I wrote my Philosophy exam on this topic, more or less. Many philosophers attempt to glorify the predator (Nietzsche's superman, Hobbes' Leviathan, I'm sure Ed already knows all about that) but fail to see that the prey are the ones who don't have to worry about dying. They can eat grass anywhere, predators have to put their lives on the line every time they want to eat. What they call glorious, I call stupid. The Law of the Jungle is full of crap.
Elder Futhark says:
If memory serves, buffalo do not actually group together to save the youngsters. The big males muscle their way to the center, and fuck the scrawny weaklings, the vulnerable youth, the old and wretched. The Fischer-Price fetishists playing with their simplified toys (mathematicians) will tell you the behavior boils down to the r/K strategy. r is the growth rate. K is the carrying capacity of the environment. Quantity or quality of offsrping? If it is easy to pump out babies, then fuck the babies!
The business world, the human social world is much more complicated than these toy equations, which, truly produce no insight beyond the obvious. But this world is a grotesque, bizzare nightmare world that has no resemblance to Wild Kingdom. You have to go back to the proterozoic to see a similar behavior. The emergance of multicellular creatures. Super creepy. And, of course, if you happen to be a Deist, you have to explain why parasites do so well, because pedators are nothing more than that. (In other words, Randians, you have to explain how the overwhelming empirical evidence that the rich are the Parasite class jibes with the theoretical conceit that they are somehow the Producer class).
Prudence says:
Ed, you're thinking of David Attenborough, who's my fantasy dad, thanks to the fact that my childhood was entirely voice-over'd by his soothing yet enthusiastic tones, despite often being arse-deep in guano and covered in bugs. He was also the Comptroller of BBC2 back in the day, and one of his most memorable decisions was to greenlight Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Dickey, the brother, is all Lady Chatterley's Lover and Jurassic Park.
John says:
I am now, is often the case, reminded of the great social commentary in Aliens:
"I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamned percentage."
MM says:
There will always be lions. Admitting this fact does not necessarily result in A) the glorification of the the lion, or B) apathy regarding survival strategies. The sense of powerlessness that is so ubiquitous in modern American culture, in other words, has less to do with blindly following the "Law of the Jungle," than it does with the highly comlex, information-saturated, techno-hedonistic way of life that Western Capitalism has promoted.
JohnR says:
Of course, any "defensive huddle" kind of depends on a strong defensive ability in each individual. Imagine sheep (or some other equally hapless animal) doing the "come at me, bro!" circle, and see how it works. Far more common is the flocking or herding up that both makes it harder for the predator to pick out an individual and makes it less likely that any specific individual will be "chosen" by the predator. Scattering and hoping for the best is only one strategy, and not necessarily the best one.
Tim H. says:
Hopefully it'll become obvious, even to Wall $treet that their quest for the free lunch can't last forever. And maybe they'll think about Henry Ford and the relationship between wages and sales.
Elizabeth says:
Defensive huddles, yes. Working cooperatively, yes. Have to add…. stampedes too. "Down, Rama down!" and Mowgli rode Rama and the rest of the herd over Shere Khan's nasty head and smooshed him.
airguitarnightmare says:
As usual, the dim-witted among us cannot even get Darwin right. He wrote about humans. I'll give you a hint: Screwing each other over (a la "Aliens", great call @John) is NOT what he said helped us survive. Christians don't understand Christ, Constitutionalists don't understand the Constitution, and Social Darwinists don't understand Darwin. Idiots Rule.
Andy Brown says:
More likely we're sheep, who've been told we're much better off than either antelope or water buffalo. After all, we've got the man to shoot any lions or wolves that show up. Never mind that that the lions and wolves are gone and that the man is our only predator. The story of the jungle (or of terrorism, or of scary black and brown men) is just meant to keep us glad to be in our sheep cot.
Drouse says:
The 'law of the jungle' meme has been ingrained so deeply into our cultural template that it has become destructive. On the lower end, it serves as a social control keeping the majority at each others throat. This keeps challenges to the top to a minimum. At the upper end it ensures that only the most ruthless, amoral bastards rise to the top thus perpetuating the system. And we wonder why we're in the shape we're in.
Aslan Maskhadov says:
Social Darwinism and capitalism go together like peanut butter and jelly. Everyone loves to believe that if they succeed, it is because of some kind of inherent greatness, perhaps evolution. Initially it was believed that there was some inherent connection between success in capitalism and Protestantism. Confucianism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Islam were supposedly a brake on economic development. Then lo and behold, some Catholic countries become successful- suddenly Judeo-Christianity is the key to success! Uh oh, now Japan's an economic power! It must be due to their specific version of Confucianism. Oh wait, now China and Korea are successful, I guess Confucianism is good all around. Oh wait, India is succeeding…it must be the Hinduism.
Bullshit- all bullshit.
jazzbumpa says:
Tom H wins joke of the day:
Hopefully it'll become obvious, even to Wall $treet that their quest for the free lunch can't last forever.
LO fucking L
JzB
Andrew says:
The emergance of multicellular creatures. Super creepy. And, of course, if you happen to be a Deist, you have to explain why parasites do so well, because pedators are nothing more than that. (In other words, Randians, you have to explain how the overwhelming empirical evidence that the rich are the Parasite class jibes with the theoretical conceit that they are somehow the Producer class).
Predators aren't parasitic. Just because one organism consumes another doesn't make the first organism a parasite.
Andrew says:
But anyway, there's not much point in trying to structure society after models in nature, because the whole point of human ascendancy is that we were suddenly capable of transcending instinctual behavior in favor of constant self-reinvention.
Antelope, buffalo, whatever – the whole point is that we're capable of seeing what other things do, how they do it, why they do it, how well it works, and then use all that information to come up with something novel that works better for us, the humans.
Elder Futhark says:
Of course predators are parasites. Ask any virus.
Strangepork says:
…the whole point of human ascendancy…
I disagree that their is a point to human ascendancy, such as it is.
Strangepork says:
Gah…that their should be there. I'm off to self-flagellate…
BillCinSD says:
Capitalism goes with the Law of the Jungle partially because they both assume a large abundance of resources. Where resources are scarce, the degree of cooperation increases and it's not a jungle anymore
Fearguth says:
Thank you, Ed. This is a classic.
Tosh says:
"Survival of the Fittest" is the most misused and misunderstood tome ever stolen and adapted to hegemony (the idea was co-opted by the Robber Barons and their proxy and passed into popular culture.) The Victorian bastardization of that Darwinian notion have lead the uninformed masses to assume the afore mentioned predicated conditions as fact of modern life. "The Fittest," in a strictly Darwinian context, refers to the gene pool and how readily that gene pool can propagate: i.e. thems that be fucking the most. Sexual Reproduction kids (used as a biological condition; get yer minds out da gutter.) Of course, the good, god fearing christians would not let anything so base enter the popular culture. Apex predators occupy precarious niches and tend to render themselves obsolete as habitat and prey adapt to changing condition (this is a metaphor childeren!!!!) Modern culture/business/politics has yet to grasp the distinction which lead me to state (unequivocally): Intelligence has yet to be proven to be an evolutionary advantage.
Tosh says:
I've been drink'n
Tosh says:
But seriously; I believe the (human) intraspecies equivalent of biological diversity is INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY: this is the only way to approach out modern problems. The more ideas we have the better are chances for survival, as we know it.
Tosh says:
@Elder: By that definition, we are all parasitic. Technically speaking, there are two types of parasites: Reproductive and Metabolic. Life consumes life; it is what we we do and everything does it. Scale is the only difference. A virus is a reproductive parasite: it requires a host for a very specific purpose.
Tosh says:
Ed: there is a book titled "The Evolution of Cooperation." It looks at game theory, but has lot-o-aplication
Tosh says:
May seem a little dated, at this point, but…
Tim H. says:
jazzbumpa, wait for it.
Hawes says:
Don't know. Don't you think everyone assumes they're the lion?
The whole appeal of Spencerian Darwinism is that it speaks to those of us who have something, anything that allows us to say we're better then "X".
America says:
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
eau says:
@JohnR – "Imagine sheep (or some other equally hapless animal) doing the "come at me, bro!" circle, and see how it works."
No need to imagine. Round up four or five mama ewes and their littluns. Now try to take the littluns away. Oh, and you may want to wear a cup for this experiment.
And plus additionally also too, (I think) it is safe to claim that while an individual lion is a predator, a pride is a much more parasitic entity (don't want to kill the herd/flock, just eat bits and pieces of it).
Great post, Ed. Even with the Dick/Dave mixup.
Chris says:
I like these Aesop's Fables about unity.
A LION used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.
“UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.”
AN OLD man on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring in a faggot of sticks, and said to his eldest son: “Break it.” The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the Bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful. “Untie the faggots,” said the father, “and each of you take a stick.” When they had done so, he called out to them: “Now, break,” and each stick was easily broken. “You see my meaning,” said their father.
“UNION GIVES STRENGTH.”
Jeff says:
@anotherbozo – Regarding the Roman Empire, know that their killing-machine legions were as effective as they were because they fought united. This was the mantra of their society, after all (seeing as their symbol of state was the fasces, a bundle of wood wrapped in ribbon – the people and the law respectively). They could defeat other peoples because each man of the maniple stood should to shoulder staying in formation as one, just as their Greek rivals did (who were just as warlike, if not more so). To say their rivals were peaceful agriculturalists while they were neither is a fallacy (the Carthaginians were a highly mercantile society who employed mercenaries to do their fighting); even Mars was worshiped by the Romans as a cattle god as well. Their enemies were no less vicious, just less organized. And the word "barbarian" originally denoted those who didn't speak Latin (or Greek, since that's the origin of the word), and didn't take on its pejorative meaning until after Rome was building its empire (even then there were defenders of barbarian society, notably Tacitus).
J. Dryden says:
On a reductively metaphorical note, isn't there a problem in that Beck, Limbaugh, et al. have convinced too many of us that our fellow herbivores are actually lions in disguise, while simultaneously convincing us that the real lions have our best interests at heart. Explain to me how else you can sell the "Don't Accept Government Provided Health Insurance" debate, without persuading teabaggers that doctors and the uninsured are out to kill them, while Insurance Companies are there to protect them.
If we didn't have opposable thumbs, we'd be less than sheep. As it is, we're just Yahoos.
JohnR says:
@eau – of course, with rare exceptions, a human being is not a wolf, or even a fox.
The comments about 'social Darwinism' and 'survival of the fittest' hit a button with me, by the way – that stupid phrase has caused more trouble over the years by its misuse and misunderstanding! As has been pointed out, it's all about the descendants, baby; what! what! It's not the 'survival' that makes you fit; it's the kids you have that have kids in their turn. 'Fitness' is measured in retroactive reproductive terms – the line that produces the most offspring is by definition the most fit. The only way survival enters into it is in surviving long enough to pump out the kids. A 20-year-old who has 5 kids and dies is more 'fit' than a 90-year-old who goes childless, to grossly over-simplify.
dick nixon says:
Pretty much agree with you John R, with one quibble–it's not the the production of the most offspring but the retention of these offspring until sexual maturation. Cf. Dogs vs. Wolves–dogs have a 300M worldwide population to some 100K of wolves
–both have the same litter of pups, but one has a symbiotic survival strategy that insures maturation.
JDryden above makes a very trenchant point, that modern paleoconservatives are
tapping into the Weber thesis that in modern, Christian, capitalist societies weath=God's favor. And how can those elected by God realy be working against our collective interests?
anotherbozo says:
@Jeff (who may never return to this thread, but anyway): "Their enemies were no less vicious, just less organized."
True in the abstract, since their "enemies" (and it's hard to call the inhabitants of the British Isles at that time "enemies" of Rome, since they had no conception of where Rome was, until, of course, invaded and conquered) were human, and thus prone to violence. But they didn't have far-reaching ideas of conquest and systematic subjugation as a way of increasing their wealth and well-being. Isn't equating the cultures of the Romans with the "barbarians" (choose one tribe or another) like equating Charlotte Corday with, say, Heinrich Himmler? Or our foreign policy with, say, Costa Rica's? Somehow I think there's a difference.
JohnR says:
Well, yes, Dick – I was, after all, grossly over-simplifying. The key really is how many of those kids have kids of their own. The whole point about evolution isn't that traits are passed on, it's that traits which result in even slightly increased numbers of offspring will eventually (all things being equal) become most common in a population. Sex is all about shading the odds in your (organism's) favor in a changing world.
And don't even get me started on that "money-morality" argument; that's been a staple of human thought since well before the invention of money. Why would Christ have inveighed so vigorously against it, after all, if it wasn't such a big part of contemporary (corrupt! Aiee!) religious doctrine? In that sense, the Roman Catholic Church has always been the literal descendants of the religious orthodoxy Christ fought against (and lost to). They've dispensed with the idea of temple prostitutes, of course (unless you count altar boys), but I've never been sure that was such a good decision. After all, what gets you closer to God than great sex?
Incidentally, how amusing is it that the major protestant churches (at least in the US) have embraced the very same form of corruption that led Luther to take up his hammer?
ladiesbane says:
Sorry, Ed — I loved those shows too, and remember them well, and learned a completely different set of lessons: animals kill from need not greed, that animals fight to feed and protect their young no matter what, that nasty old lions kill baby gazelles but it's nothing personal — baby lions have to eat, too, and the gazelle herd gets stronger as its weak, sick, and aged are removed. And so on.
But the nice lessons of nature shows did not fit with my real-world experience. As a farm kid, I had seen animals kill other animals for jollies, not food; a group of male ducks mating a female to death rather than competing with each other; seen male animals kill their offspring to prevent competition, and females abandon their young.
But my mother told me that animals live by the law of the jungle, and that humans have to try to be better than that, but also that protecting the weak instead of culling the herd creates separate problems. Was it parental commentary that made you see Marlon Perkins as a crypto-ideologue promoting Randian throat-slitting? Because the text only says what the text says, not what you read into it.
mothra says:
Oh, I see what you're doing there. Socialist.
But now that you mention is, I guess I was just born a liberal. I always felt sorry for the prey in those shows. To the point that now I can't even bear to watch them–I hate to see animals die.
eau says:
"Because the text only says what the text says, not what you read into it."
If there was an annoying internet acronym for prostrating oneself in awe, you'd be reading it right now.
Homeopathic medicine new york says:
Once politics was synonymous to morality. Aah. But now it has no such reputation.