Essay 6 - How Hunters Evolved

HUNTER CHARACTERISTICS:

1. able to make connections between seemingly unrelated things

2. can only perceive their environment in terms of “self units” - how their environment interacts directly with them; need environment to interact with them - to see the environment reacting to their presence (as opposed to interacting with one’s environment to gain a deeper understanding - in other words... curiosity); usually leads to Hunter being perceived as completely self-absorbed

3. often speak metaphorically - have difficulty expressing selves in a way that others clearly initially understand (meaning is often misunderstood), which leads to frustration, anger, and self-doubt

4. need to be praised - often have low self-esteem (directly related to ability to communicate effectively - i.e., communicate well = higher self-esteem; communicate poorly = lower self-esteem); because of the aggressive nature of the hunter, this is often translated into self-praise, leading to others’ perception of the Hunter as egotistical

5. analogies in animal kingdom with lions, wolves and, of course, higher primates - not with hawks, snakes, spiders (think: mammal)

6. are often people of extremes - either/or people; they appear not even to be aware that a happy medium could exist; this often makes the Hunter come off as extremely unreasonable


The Hunter is a specialized creature and not well suited to our current lifestyle. First, there were the Gatherers (most primates are gatherers). These humans needed a way to feed themselves during seasonally lean times and observed that catching small prey was fairly simple. However, problems arose when their growing populations required more meat than small prey could provide. Gatherers, being highly receptively empathic - as are many of their animal cousins - had trouble with killing.

Understand that this is not a value judgement. When one empathically senses another’s pain/suffering, the situation will often become unbearable. (I think specifically of an experiment conducted some time ago with Rhesus monkeys. Two monkeys were placed in a cage with a glass wall between them. The first monkey was given a button which, upon pressing, would dispense food pellets. Unfortunately, it also caused the second monkey to receive a low-voltage - but nonetheless painful - electrical shock. It took the first monkey several pushes on the button to see a causal relationship between his getting food and the other monkey’s pain, but once the connection was made, the first monkey refused to push the button again - even when he was hungry!) The hunt was soon left to those who seemed not influenced by the animals’ pain - those who were far less receptively empathic.

Hunters were borne of a specific need; their role was specialized - probably more so than any other group of humans that ever existed. Their problem was that they were too good at what they did. Their success made the sedentary (Farmer) lifestyle easier; the human was now able to turn their attention to other things besides the constant quest for food. This life was uninteresting to the Hunter, who began to put forth ideas - ideas that made a connection where others saw none - ideas that inspired the Gatherer to create.

VERY quickly - on the evolutionary timeline - the Hunter/Gatherers had changed from food gathering nomads to sedentary Farmers in a rapidly changing industrialized world. Their very proximity to each other brought about a “tuning out” of their empathic sense. In fact, it turned out that the most successful Hunters and Gatherers were those who had the least developed empathic sense. This change signaled a “war” against the Hunters. Not to imply that this was a conscious effort, but with so-called “civilization” came a whole new host of rules, regulations and laws - both of man and god - solely designed to keep the Hunter in check.

Notice how our laws affect the Hunter - how they attack the Hunter in a most basic sense. The Farmers were now telling the Hunter, “Well, you’ve had a good run, and we surely appreciated everything you’ve done, but we don’t find your behavior acceptable anymore”. At first, this was not a problem to most Hunters - there was still enough wilderness to explore, animals to hunt were plentiful, and the Hunters’ survival skills still served them well. Our modern lifestyle evolved in the blink of an eye - in the grand scheme of things - but the Hunter brain simply could not keep up. We have a huge group of people who are still working within the biological parameters of 40,000 years ago. How could these people possibly be perceived as “normal” when they are so obviously maladapted to this life?

In order to cope with the complete disarray of modern life - since the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution - the Hunter brain create a whole slew of coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, these coping mechanisms were socially unacceptable - as they would have to be for the Hunter brain to receive the proper kind of input - interaction/reaction. The social evolution of the human caused certain Hunters to develop an unbelievable array of what are now termed mental illnesses. These are not anomalies - these are the primitive human brains’ way of coping with an advanced world.

Let us assume that the above is correct and take a look at many “mental illnesses” from the Hunter point of view. Suddenly, Tourette’s Syndrome, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Bi-polarism, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Affective Disorders, and yes, even ADHD can be seen in a whole new light. The set of behaviors associated with these “disorders” suddenly become the Hunter brain’s way of getting a reaction - that is, causing the environment to interact - but without the Hunter being consciously aware of it. Having seen a person suffering from extreme cases of any of the above-mentioned disorders, can there be any doubt that these behaviors will undoubtedly get a reaction from others - each and every time?

I have seen, firsthand, a person with Tourette’s who, in addition to muscular tics, would just call out and yelp loudly at random. This young woman most definitely got reactions from everyone within earshot. These reactions did not in any way make her psyche feel any better, but under the assumption that this theory is correct, it provided her brain the interactive/reactive stimulus it craves.

So, there is my basic description of the Hunter and the “mechanism” by which the Hunter brain works. I have no idea what the brain chemistry is like in each disorder. I simply put forth a possible explanation for the impulses which drive the Hunter and over which the Hunter has no real conscious control. These are not anomalies, people. They are our extensions.