Just underneath a civilized veneer, savage conqueror lives in my DNA

By David McElroy · December 9, 2018

If I had lived in a less civilized era, I would have become a killer and conqueror.

In a more savage society, men took what they wanted in ways that seem vicious and cruel by our standards. If a man wanted more material goods, he would lead his tribe to raid the territory of rivals and take whatever he could get away with. If a man wanted a woman, he would take her by force. If he wanted a woman who belonged to another man, he would kill the man and take her.

It was a world in which the strong competed with the strong for resources and mating rights. Those who weren’t strong accepted whatever was left after the winners took what they wanted.

This is antithetical to all of our modern values. We know not to kill. We know not to steal. We know not to take women against their will.

I’m a modern, civilized man — with modern values and a modern ethical code. I have made a conscious decision to try to love others and do what I consider to be right. Even so, I wrestle with the savagery in my DNA. There is a part of me — a part which frequently tries to bubble to the surface — which wants nothing more than to be that savage warrior king of the past. More than anything, this part of me wants to win — to kill and plunder and take exactly what I want.

Our modern values protect all of us. I know that. I’m not suggesting we should discard them. I’m saying that the savage still lives inside of us — and it’s more of a struggle for some of us than others.

There are times when I feel that more than other times, and tonight happens to be one of them. I have an urge to disregard everything I believe in and simply start scheming to take what I want, by force if necessary. In the modern world, you can’t openly steal from the neighboring tribe. You can’t go the the home of a woman you love and kill anybody who gets in the way of you taking her.

But there are times when the desire in me to win is so strong that I have the need to ignore society’s rules and ethics and morals — and to just find a way to take what I want.

When I was a child, I closely identified with King David in Hebrew scriptures. It wasn’t just that we had the same name, although I did like that. Immersing myself in his stories — imagining it was me — was the only way I knew as a 10-year-old to combine the religious values of goodness I was learning with the desire to conquer which was so much a part of my heart.

King David conquered much of the world that was known to the Jewish people. He didn’t ask those people whether they wanted to be conquered. He didn’t ask if they wanted to live under his rule. He simply took what he wanted.

Even when King David did something which was wrong, the story shows something glorious coming from it. When David fell in love with Bathsheba, he arranged to have her husband killed in battle — so he could have her. Although he paid a price for killing Urriah, Bathsheba became his faithful wife and bore Solomon, who succeeded David as king. (Bathsheba is one of only five women mentioned in the lineage of Jesus in the New Testament.) The savage part of me isn’t really bothered that he murdered Urriah.

Our civilized values don’t allow men to be the conquering creatures who battled with one another for all of human history until recently. One of the flaws in modern culture is that it increasingly asks men to pretend not to be what they’ve always been — not only to stop killing and stealing and taking women against their will, but to stop being the competitive and combative people we’ve always been.

I feel as though there are two parts of me. One part is the loving and civilized man who wants nothing more than to make art and help to change the world. Another part is a cunning and vicious killer who needs to take what he wants without regard to what anyone else might prefer. That part of me is a savage but he’s a winner.

I’m feeling this struggle intensely tonight.

At this moment, I just want to take resources and glory and a woman. I don’t want to ask anyone’s permission. I want to kill anybody who gets in my way. I simply want to win — and I want only other winners in my life.

The civilized part of me is horrified to admit this. The civilized part doesn’t want you to know that desire is even there. The civilized part wants to be loving and show good will toward all — or at least to pretend that’s all I feel.

But the savage in my soul — in my Germanic or Anglo-Saxon or Celtic ancestry — wants to win. He wants to take what he wants. If that part of me were ever released against the world, only God could help anyone who tried to stop me.

Was I born too late? Or is there still a way for a civilized man to channel the savage in his soul? I still don’t know the answer. I just know there’s a part of me which needs to conquer — which needs to win all the things that I want.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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