<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # The governing lens is brutally simple. Human... > The governing lens is brutally simple. **Human beings are animals**, and nearly everything that mystifies us about toxic relationships stops being mysterious the moment it is observed through primatology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology and the selection pressures that shaped social mammals long before anyone invented marriage counseling, human-resources departments, political theory, motivational seminars or Instagram therapy. Humans form alliances, police hierarchies, display status, punish defectors, seek advantageous mates, guard resources, imitate dominant members, scapegoat outsiders, protect kin, retaliate against betrayal, submit when resistance becomes too expensive, and destroy relationships rather than surrender position. Chimpanzees kill their neighbors at eight to one and occupy the land. Females kill and eat the newborns of mothers who have no kin standing nearby. Males intimidate females for years and are rewarded with children. Mothers end the offspring of a departed male the week the new one arrives. Every one of those behaviors has a human name, and the human name is nicer. {{Cooperation, attachment, reciprocity, parenting, empathy and reconciliation are also ancient survival strategies; they are the things the animal does when the animal is being paid to do them.}} {{Beneath our civilized vocabulary remains an organism continually making decisions under pressures of **risk, reward, threat, scarcity, reproductive interest, social standing, belonging and survival**, and the decisions are made faster than language and narrated afterward.}} {{Understanding the animal does not excuse the animal. It removes the sentimental fog that kept you from seeing it coming.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out (a new book under development)]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The governing lens is brutally simple. Human beings are animals, and nearly everything that mystifies us about toxic relationships stops being mysterious the moment it is observed through primatology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology and the selection pressures that shaped social mammals long before anyone invented marriage counseling, human-resources departments, political theory, motivational seminars or Instagram therapy. Humans form alliances, police hierarchies, display status, punish defectors, seek advantageous mates, guard resources, imitate dominant members, scapegoat outsiders, protect kin, retaliate against betrayal, submit when resistance becomes too expensive, and destroy relationships rather than surrender position. Chimpanzees kill their neighbors at eight to one and occupy the land. Females kill and eat the newborns of mothers who have no kin standing nearby. Males intimidate females for years and are rewarded with children. Mothers end the offspring of a departed male the week the new one arrives. Every one of those behaviors has a human name, and the human name is nicer. Cooperation, attachment, reciprocity, parenting, empathy and reconciliation are also ancient survival strategies; they are the things the animal does when the animal is being paid to do them. Beneath our civilized vocabulary remains an organism continually making decisions under pressures of risk, reward, threat, scarcity, reproductive interest, social standing, belonging and survival, and the decisions are made faster than language and narrated afterward. Understanding the animal does not excuse the animal. It removes the sentimental fog that kept you from seeing it coming.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-governing-lens-brutally-kept-seeing-coming ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->