[kaimwa]

Symbolic Warfare

I was listening to philosopher Jordan Peterson articulate about how wolves have symbolic ritualised warfare. To paraphrase - two alpha wolves fighting is very costly for the group. If they both end up tearing each other apart then a third wolf will come along and easily usurp both of them. They won't be able to take part in the hunt and the group may starve. This has resulted in wolves having some kind of ritual where they prance around each other and make themselves look big until one of them falls down and exposes its neck and the ritual is over.

This talk had me thinking about the human condition and how we all engage in ritualised warfare. Especially in sports. You have two teams supported by two tribes gathering in an arena to do battle and hurling vocal slogans to the opposition. They battle it out with some rules. There is a victor at the end. The winning side has the sense of feeling they are higher in a dominance hierarchy. The losing side picks themselves up and can try again next time. Society remains stable. We can all try doing the same thing next week.

Perhaps this is our symbolic warfare.