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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A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

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