Of Look-At-The-Cute Doggie-Dogs And Man
I had an interesting Twitter light-conversation with friend-of-the-project Ed Latimore yesterday and today.
His point: There are no rites of passage to turn you from child into adult.
My counter-argument: There are, but everyone fails at them.
So permit me a bit of a tangent today, because we’re going to talk about domesticated man.
This is important, so buckle up, folks.
Dystopia
A while back I posted about a little-known experiment series that’s come to be known as The Mouse Utopia Experiments.
In the Mouse Utopia Experiments, mice were given everything they needed to live, ostensibly to see what would happen when overpopulation occurred. The results were surprising.
You see, overpopulation didn’t occur. What instead happened was that population stagnation occurred and the mice and later rat colonies lost their minds and became totally degenerate, engaging in sexual promiscuity, murder, rape, cannibalism and all sorts of good things you would want to include if you ever wrote a horror story about being marooned.
That’s not really the lesson of the day, but it’s relevant.
So I drew the natural conclusion that what we see in human civilisation has parallels in mouse utopia.
The answer to this problem as I concluded was to build difficulty into your life. In this article, let’s explore that.
We’re All Children
Let’s go back to the Twitter exchange.
Ed defined adulthood as being “able to operate with autonomy in the social system the subject is raised in.”
Basically, if you can function in society, you’re an adult. That seems to be how the world sees things.
My counterargument is that this is only because everyone would fail the tests that were present.
So I might define rites of passage to adulthood as:
- Married
- Children
- Owns their own land
- Farms their own land
- Hunters and gathers their own food
- Is financially solvent
- Effectively independent from any outside influence
- Able to fight and defeat intruders
- Willing to serve and kill for the tribe
Etc.
Now, I’m not sure I agree with all or any of those things, but historically, those are the sorts of things you’d look at as indicators of adulthood.
Most people nowadays would fail at all of them. I wouldn’t pass the test either.
What’s interesting is that Ed included the disclaimer of “functions in society” as a hedge.
It’s interesting and brings me to the point I want to make.
This Dog Is Not A Wolf
Check out this fine specimen of an animal:
Now, I love dogs. Not only are they great companions and interesting to watch and learn from, but they’re a testament to engineering. Humans have biologically engineered wolves to fit into every form from an Old English sheepdog through a Pug and a Great Dane.
And how they’ve done so is pretty remarkable too.
Essentially, dogs are wolves that have the predatory instincts bred out of them. This is domestication and it’s basically selecting over many generations the dogs which haven’t developed their full range of instincts and drives.
When you see wolf pups playing, they are similar to any other canine puppies. They’re friendly, they play, they don’t hunt and their primary drives are the oxytocin bond they have with their pack members.
Dogs are the same to start with, but they’re perpetual children. Wolf pups stop playing as they mature and become predators because their environment selects for that. A dog’s environment specifically selects against that.
Final Thoughts
Most people don’t have autonomy of their actions. It’s very well to say, “I’m a functioning adult” in a society that provides everything you need and catches you when you fall… but a dog is the same. Dogs biologically function (well, except for the more grotesque breeding monstrosities that occasionally come to the fore) just like their ancestors did.
But they function because someone gives them food, takes them for walks and showers them with love and attention for the sake of fun.
Most people who function within society couldn’t function without it. That same society protects them from the very rites of passage they need to escape it (or build a better society or what have you.)
Now, I’m no rugged caveman – I’m very much a dog as opposed to wolf, so I won’t beat you on the head with moralising.
But just think about what your ancestors of a few centuries ago would have had to learn in order to reach adulthood. Go a few thousand years if you’re brave.
Then think about the difference between a wolf and a dog, and see how you might tamper with your neuroplasticity to reach real adulthood.
Hence a maxim of this site: