Books in Brief: The Imperial Animal

The Imperial Animal, by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox (Holt, 308 pp., $6.95).

Big-brained Cro-Magnon man has ruled the earth for forty thousand years. How was he formed—and for what? Some million years ago, his small-brained, jungledwelling, apish ancestors gave up vegetarianism and took to roaming the grassy plains; the males hunted, while the females gathered and nurtured. The new, hunting life required greatly increasing technical and social skills, for which the big, modern brain rapidly evolved. A mere ten thousand years ago, however, man suddenly leapt “backward” into agriculture and again, two hundred years ago, into industrialization, causing human population to expand four thousand-fold. To survive in such numbers and concentration, the big brain had to think up complex, bureaucratic ways of organizing human action—which, ever since, have alienated the hunter within each man. Hunting-man still wants, and needs, to do the things he learned in bands of only fifty people, during a million nomadic years: to be free; to own and exchange property (women were the first exchangeable); to compete with his fellows for status and women; to frighten away or kill external enemies; to participate intimately in male adventures, risks, deals, treaties, cabals, contests, initiations and rituals; to contribute to the community and be publicly esteemed for it; to receive a fair and sufficient share; and to intervene benignly in the lives of others. Hunting-man’s woman still wants: to mother children; to be protected while mothering; and to hold the community together by face-to-face dealings. Hunting man’s child still wants: to learn from mother how to be a communicating, learning human being; to explore near mother; to learn interesting things without any special teacher; and (if a boy) to merit and survive the arduous initiation into manhood. Today, civilization burdens us with oppressive bureaucracies, while our weapons of necessary defense have become too dangerous to use. We cannot voluntarily go back to being hunters, and so we must try to find a species-compatible way to go on surviving as modern man. A readable, provocative book, and a refreshing antidote to Walden’s One and Two.

RM

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R. de Mille

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The Imperial Animal, by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox (Holt, 308 pp., $6.95).

Big-brained Cro-Magnon man has ruled the earth for forty thousand years. How was he formed—and for what? Some million years ago, his small-brained, jungledwelling, apish ancestors gave up vegetarianism and took to roaming the grassy plains; the males hunted, while the females gathered and nurtured. The new, hunting life required greatly increasing technical and social skills, for which the big, modern brain rapidly evolved. A mere ten thousand years ago, however, man suddenly leapt “backward” into agriculture and again, two hundred years ago, into industrialization, causing human population to expand four thousand-fold. To survive in such numbers and concentration, the big brain had to think up complex, bureaucratic ways of organizing human action—which, ever since, have alienated the hunter within each man. Hunting-man still wants, and needs, to do the things he learned in bands of only fifty people, during a million nomadic years: to be free; to own and exchange property (women were the first exchangeable); to compete with his fellows for status and women; to frighten away or kill external enemies; to participate intimately in male adventures, risks, deals, treaties, cabals, contests, initiations and rituals; to contribute to the community and be publicly esteemed for it; to receive a fair and sufficient share; and to intervene benignly in the lives of others. Hunting-man’s woman still wants: to mother children; to be protected while mothering; and to hold the community together by face-to-face dealings. Hunting man’s child still wants: to learn from mother how to be a communicating, learning human being; to explore near mother; to learn interesting things without any special teacher; and (if a boy) to merit and survive the arduous initiation into manhood. Today, civilization burdens us with oppressive bureaucracies, while our weapons of necessary defense have become too dangerous to use. We cannot voluntarily go back to being hunters, and so we must try to find a species-compatible way to go on surviving as modern man. A readable, provocative book, and a refreshing antidote to Walden’s One and Two.