Homo dominus

This book redefines what it means to be human. I know it takes some audacity to make this claim, and I do not do so lightly. Many stronger intellects have offered their opinions on what humanness is. Philosophers, scientists, poets, politicians, writers, priests, ayatollahs, bartenders, cabbies, indeed in almost every occupation and persuasion, in almost every language and dialect, in almost every habitable place on the planet, virtually everyone has an opinion about who and what humans are. I would not ask you to put my views ahead of any of these others, but for one small difference in how I approached the problem. Rather than dwelling on the Who, the What, or the How of human nature, I focused on the Why. Why do human beings do what they do? Why do we build things? Why do we believe in God? Why do we paint pictures? Why do we kill each other? Why do we worry about who we are? Every time I thought I had an answer to a Why question, I forced myself to ask why again, over and over, until every question eventually resolved in my mind to a single root concept. This core idea I took to be the essence of humanness. It is simply this: that human nature is dominated by a propensity for control; that our species emerged from apedom through evolutionary enhancements in our ability to control events and their consequences; that these enhancements were sustained over time because they solved the prevailing problems of the natural world more quickly and surely than any prior or subsequent evolutionary strategy among the apes. Control is therefore the defining attribute of humanness. It is ultimately the answer to every Why question regarding human nature, as the balance of this book will demonstrate.

Now, you may bristle at the suggestion that human beings are controlling creatures. In common usage, the word control generally has a negative connotation, a tint that casts the human species in a less flattering light than we would prefer. But a moment’s honest introspection should convince you that your need to control events, to manage their consequences, to shape and maintain your world in accordance with familiar and cherished personal expectations is as accurate a description of your humanness as any other label you can name. Control, as we shall define it in this book, is the root pattern that dominates human life. It is not something we simply choose to do; it is our fundamental nature, the primary operating characteristic of a unique biological machine developed over millions of years. Other species, our ape peers and contemporaries in ancient times, did not take this path, and none of them became human, at least not to the degree we did. Although they started at the same evolutionary point with the same genetic structure and potential, these other apes never adopted control as the central theme of their life histories. As a result, they have come to control very little of the world around them. We humans, in contrast, display a powerful and pervasive drive to move and shape the world to fit our internal expectations and standards. Only one evolutionary line emanating from our ancient apelike ancestors leads to a true controlling species. It is ours, and that propensity to control is what makes us human. My goal in the following pages is to demonstrate how the specific qualities of our species, the human signature if you will, support or reflect our propensity for control. The way we think, the way we walk, our languages, our cultures, our gods, our wars, our loves, all make more sense in the context of a control strategy. In some cases, I believe, they only make sense in this context.

Understanding us is no small task. The sheer scope of this undertaking necessarily limits the analysis of some topics and themes. My apologies in advance, but keep in mind my goal here. I want to show you first that understanding our origins requires that you understand our propensity for control, and what it means in operational, biological, neurological, behavioral, and evolutionary terms. To make this point, I must focus first on the ideas and issues that best illustrate the principle. If this general thesis has merit, then over time we can start filling in the details. If it does not, that is, if you should conclude that control does not define the human species, then this work will at least have staked out a position against which productive counterarguments may be directed.

A word about the title of this book, Homo dominus. I chose it deliberately to nudge you out of your comfort zone about who and what we are. You may know the human species as Homo sapiens, after Linnaeus (1758). It translates roughly as “the Wise.” Had Linnaeus focused on other aspects of our nature, besides our supposed wisdom, he might have chosen many other names. In fact, in each chapter of this book, I suggest an alternative species name (with apologies to Latin scholars). As you may have surmised, I think that the name Homo dominus, the Controller, fits the true human species better than Homo sapiens. My quest in this book is to persuade you of this view, to show you how we became Homo dominus, and to explore how, or whether, our path might eventually lead to Homo sapiens.