What can we learn from the animal kingdom?

Cav, Are you familiar with Kurt Lewin? If so, I'll return later after I dust off my animal aggression book.

Letty, I'm not familiar with that author, but curious.

Well, Cav. I wasn't certain that you were speaking to me, frankly.

Konrad Lorenz was the one that I really wanted to cite. He talked about the ability of animals to defend their territory without all out warfare. Let's take, for instance, a dog. Size of the dog has nothing to do with anything. If an intruder infringed, the defending animal would lie back and expose the jugular vein. When this happened, the intruder would back off. This was termed by Lorenz, as an aggression inhibitor. We are not talking about dogs who are trained in a certain way, but dogs in their natural environment. Cav, it was not instinct, it was a grace in the wild.

When man could no longer look his enemy in the eye, but only push a button, that is when warfare reached an entire new dimension.

As to religion, it has not evolved, but devolved. We are now back to the literal interpretation of the Bible..be we Jew or Christian, or whatever.

Technology has enthralled us, and at the same time controlled us. I admire you, Cav. As I have admired many people in my life. but I still hold on to the fact, that when a person comes face to face with death, someone must be there to simply look and show a caring face. Your wife will do that for you. Goodnight my friend from Toronto.

Very potent points, Letty. I was mulling over the thought of how media coverage during the Vietnam war gave the public a new 'eye' on the realities of war. I have found that during this current war, there is no 'eye' except for the 'vision' that is filtered through the powers that be. It is disturbing and surreal, but not unexpected. It seems we don't really want to evolve or progress, but are content to live in a society of fear, just like the animals. This thread may take some time to evolve, as there are so many thoughts on my mind regarding the topic.

P.S. I am talking to everybody, Letty, but a slow recovery and meds that were giving me bad brain fog (I'm off them now) have messed with my communication skills lately.

Loranz's point was that animals with good weaponry have evolved a series of instinctive inhibitions to using them to excess against their own species - while relatively harmless animals have not done so to any great extent - like doves, who will peck each other to death.

His view was that humans, as previously pretty harmless crotters, who developed the ability to do great harm very quickly in evolutionary terms, ahve no effective inhibitions against doing great harm with the weapons we now have.

He didn't say that the defending dog would turn its jugular to an intruder - but he DID say that, if defeated, a number of pack predators, like dogs and wolves, have developed signals of submission - like turning their necks in a way that exposes the jugular - or exposing tummies and weeing - that inhibit further aggression. In fact he said that the holder of a territory has the advantage over an interloper - since being in one's territory gives strength and confidence.

The basic thesis seems reasonably good to me.

Human lack of inhibition combined with technology we probably should never have discovered so soon in our evolution makes us a sad and destructive animal indeed. I suppose part of the question is, why are we still so territorial, so much like animals, with our gift of self-knowledge/awareness? I suppose it makes us feel comfortable. It is 'hard-wired' into our DNA, but we are supposedly creatures who can overcome the base needs that rule the animal kingdom. I see no evidence that we have achieved this on a large scale.

Hmm - I think it is important to understand these aspects of our natures - I tend to think it is a little like understanding destructive patterns and thoughts - the first part is acceptance - and then learning what can be changes, and what not - and then to live with them, rather than against...

For instance, an unserstanding of territoriality makes patriotism look funny, rather than noble and snivel making!

IMO, this comes from the folks that "over think" themselves. We haven't overcome the base needs that rule the animal kingdon and I doubt we ever will. The "we're able to overcome our biology" people argue that war, eating meat and a host of other things are unnecessary because we can think our way out of them. At the same time many of the same people will argue that those who commit crimes shouldn't be punished because the offender was "born that way" (There are a whole host of people researching "the criminal gene".).

When you break it down we either are or we aren't capable of over coming our genetics (which is very different from determining what is genetic and what is learned).

I'm no stranger to 'over-thinking' fishin'. So many interesting thoughts. I have to work now, but the question of what is genetic and learned interests me a great deal.