PLAY AND THE CAGED HUMAN ANIMAL

One of the forums on my webforum is entitled 'Untaming the Body' and in the section entitled 'Play as if Your Life Depends on It' a contributor (named Katryn) asked "if play is part of the untamed way of life."

I am forwarding my response to her question and other issues raised in this discussion on this forum since I think it may be of interest to you....

Regarding Katryn's comments about play and whether play is part of an untamed life...

The only comments that I have been able to find about play in the book that she mentioned, 'Neanderthin', are in chapter 10 'Becoming Neanderfit' in which the author states, " The best exercise for you will be the kind you enjoy the most. Hunter-gatherers play a lot because they have a lot of free time on their hands....Be sure to play a lot."

In the book 'The Paleo Diet', the author states in chapter 11 on 'Paleo Exercise', "I must tell you that when asked to choose between doing long, hard, repetitive work, simply relaxing, or having fun, hunter-gatherers - just like their modern descendants - invariably would have opted for the latter two choices."

There are several different issues relevant to this theme.

First of all, wild animals, human and non-human, do not exercise. They simply live their lives and the activities that they engage in within the environments that they live produce their level of fitness. This level of fitness is sufficient to keep them alive or else they become dinner. As well, they are generally in much better physical condition than the average domesticated animal.

As Loren Cordain, the author of 'The Paleo Diet' states in his book when commenting about the reactions of a group of Amazon Indians upon seeing joggers in New York City,"a group of Indians came across joggers exercising in Central Park - and found this concept absolutely hilarious. That adults would run for no apparent reason, to these practical hunters, was comically absurd. In their tropical forest home, every movement had a function and purpose. What could possibly be gained by running to no destination, with no predators or enemies to escape from, and with nothing to capture?...They got plenty of exercise simply by carrying out the day's basic activities - finding food and water, building shelters, making tools, and gathering wood. These activities were more than enough to allow them to develop superb physical fitness. Strength, stamina, and good muscle tone were the natural by-products of their daily routine." He, furthermore states, "no reasonable hunter-gatherers would have lifted heavy stones or run in circles for the mere sake of getting a 'workout.' Convincing them to continue these boring activities - or to develop a fitness plan - would have been impossible."

Therefore, the best possible solution to becoming a fit untamed human animal is to reorganize your life so that you no longer live in the zoo but instead live as wildly as possible and then, simply by pursuing the activities necessary to survive, you will get into excellent shape (or die). That being said, in the ample free time that you would eventually have you would play a lot just like your wild ancestors did.

In the meantime for those who find themselves still in the cages of the zoo, or for those who do not plan to leave civilization (at least until it collapses on its own), the question is how to be as fit as possible. Since deep down we are still to a great extent the same creatures that we were before domestication, it appears that Frank Forencich is using the right strategy - i.e. play. It will be next to impossible to get a human animal to pursue an 'exercise program' for the reasons listed above (except for highly dysfunctional work oriented obsessive types). On the other hand, playing (and coincidentally getting into shape) is in tune with our nature.

So yes, play, play, play yourself into a state of fitness. Seek out the most playful way possible that will enable you to reach your fitness goals and this will help bring out the wild animal in you and at the same time be the method that you will be most likely to continue to engage in because it's fun and you enjoy it.

This leads to the next relevant issue, that of play in civilized society. The overwhelming majority of domesticated human animals have been slaves and a few have been slave owners (who have been engaged on the other side of the domestication equation). The focus of my interest on this site is the slaves and not the owners.

Slaves exist to work for their owners to enable them to have more wealth and power. Slaves playing and having fun is not inherently of any value to the owners since this simply distracts the slaves from doing more work and thus diminishes the wealth and power that can be generated for the owners. Unfortunately for the owners, even the most slavish domesticated human requires some play and fun in its life or it will eventually die.

Farmers have found it necessary to hang tires over pig sties in order to distract the pigs in their prisons and enhance their ability to gain weight so as to generate more food for the farmer. Prisoners in jail are generally allowed some outdoor time when they typically play basketball or some other game and if deprived of this they will typically psychologically decompensate.

Animals need to play. Our domesticated species, however, has been trained to work and works harder than any other species on the planet. When the first European explorers came to America they tried to use the native hunter-gatherer people as their slaves but these newly domesticated humans could not tolerate this experience. They were used to a much more playful lifestyle and were completely unable to handle an existence of hard work.

The philosophy of work rather than play is established in childhood. Domesticated human children do not play as much as wild humans and are therefore much less playful creatures. In an article by Melvin Konner entitled "Hunter-Gatherer Infancy and Childhood: The !Kung and Others" (http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/hewlett/MelKonner.pdf) he states that "the relatively carefree life of !Kung children included a limited amount of useful work", however, "Children were not assigned tasks of any economic importance nor were they expected to feed themselves by foraging, although they often did. They played in mixed-age, mixed-sex groups that meandered around the village camp or the surrounding bush....traditional !Kung children were among the most responsibility-free in the cross-cultural range....the principal concern of the group is always play".

Many domesticated humans have never really played at all. They have been consistently involved in highly organized, competitive and regimented activities (which may be called play but actually are not playful at all) which have been set up to train them to work and to fit into the reality of the zoo (this is particularly so in more evolved and affluent civilized societies - in poorer civilized societies the children are simply used as slave laborers). Since it is obvious to everyone that young animals of all types play more than older animals, if young domesticated human animals are not encouraged or allowed to play they will be even less likely to do so as they grow older.

Observing the awkwardness of the average human animal (especially of European descent and in general the more domesticated the more awkward), it is obvious that it has never really enjoyed the free expression of body movement which is acquired through a childhood of play. Playing for many domesticated humans is likely to be one of their most unfamiliar experiences and one which will take a lot of untaming to be able to do comfortably and well. Therefore, a fitness program that encourages play will be helpful to get them going in that direction.

As well, when the discouragement of play in favor of work is combined with the reality of spending most of one's life within boxes called buildings (which untamed humans did not do), in addition to the forms of play which civilized society creates (largely in order to further subjugate the slaves and to make more money for the slave owners) which are largely sedentary and passive (watching TV, playing video games etc.), as well as the unhealthy foods used to feed the large herds of slaves, it is hardly surprising that, in the most affluent parts of the world at least, there exists an epidemic of childhood and adult obesity with its accompanying collection of disastrous diseases.

If you want to rebel in civilized society, just work less and start playing more and do so outdoors and in the least technologically sophisticated manner possible. In the process you may connect with the frustrated child within you that never really did play and you may ultimately become a playful adult who learns to enjoy its body and becomes more fit as well. Remember, the zoo keepers want you to keep working and not playing.

The next issue is that of the infantilization of domesticated animals. Studies on foxes that were bred to bring out the characteristic of tameness have shown that within a period of relatively few generations (taking about 15 generations over about 20 years) the adult foxes began to acquire a more juvenile appearance and style of behavior (they became much like dogs). This tendency to retain immature traits through selective breeding is called neoteny and is also seen in other domesticated animals.

Since civilized humans are a domesticated species it is reasonable to consider that we also have undergone this infantilization process, presumably to 'tame' us in order to make us more manageable and useful for our owners/domesticators. As a result we have presumably acquired a more juvenile appearance and style of behavior than our wild ancestors. In this regard, it seems reasonable that we as adults would be somewhat more predisposed to being playful than our adult wild ancestors (as well, presumably, as are other infantilized domesticated creatures).

The issue here, however, is that we have been artificially selected to encourage tameness (i.e. displaying obedience to the master and those who didn't behave in this manner have been killed or negatively rewarded in some other form, for example getting lower paying jobs etc.) and not to encourage playfulness. Playfulness just happens to be an annoying (in this case) byproduct of this infantilization whose true intention is to enhance obedience.

What has happened is that civilization has created herds of obedient infantilized human animals that really just want to play even more than their wild ancestors (and therefore civilization's need to keep them entertained). Unfortunately the slaves find that what the masters want them for is not to play but to work. Fortunately for the masters, the infantilized humans have the capacity to be made to work if they go through a steady process of training and indoctrination (through the family, the media, the church, the school, the legal system, the social pressure of other domesticated humans etc.) that ultimately prepares them to be able to do the work that the master has ready for them.

Paradoxically, despite being infantilized, these domesticated human animals actually have less opportunity to truly play than their wild ancestors and end up becoming less playful adults than their hunter-gatherer counterparts.

Therefore, while it is true that the process of untaming will transform the domesticated human animal into a more mature creature both in terms of appearance and conduct compared to the domesticated human animal, this untamed version will actually be more playful than you or me. The good news, as well, is that in most species, when left free of the domesticators' control the reversion of domesticated organisms to their wild form usually takes only a few generations to occur (and one would assume this to be the case for humans as well).

With all of this in mind, if your genuine desire is to untame yourself then you will do many things to make this happen and it seems reasonable to allow and even encourage yourself to play during this process of becoming a wild animal.

My final point is to do with Frank Forencich's statement that domesticated animals are more comfortable than wild ones. It is true that animals in zoos do not have to hunt for their food, are provided shelter from the elements and protection from predators, and are sometimes lavished with luxuries never experienced by wild animals. Nonetheless, it is my observation that the vast majority of domesticated animals of all types have been and are less comfortable than their wild counterparts.

At an obvious level, one has the phenomenon of chickens in cramped cages, oxen (castrated bulls) pulling ploughs, horses carrying loads, humans working long hours (compared to the three or four hours per day of their wild ancestors), dogs on chains etc., in addition of course, to the beatings and torture that many, many domesticated animals (human and non-human) have suffered at the hands of their human owners. However, even pampered domesticated animals are ultimately following the agenda of the master rather than their own natural wild agenda and this creates tremendous discomfort.

It is in fact for this very reason that I am writing this today. It was my desire to understand the reasons for human illness, both physical and psychological (although obviously there is no separation of mind and body), that eventually led me to realize that the key cause for most disease and suffering is domestication and its implications. While wild animals' lives may be very challenging, I do not agree that they are less comfortable. The suffering endured by domesticated animals of all types is enormous and far exceeds the paltry comforts that enslavement brings.

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