Wild, Not Wild

The nature of humans, dogs and other animals.

Wild, wildness, wilderness. We utter these words as if their meanings are self-evident, and that’s how the trouble begins. Like “truth,” “love” and “God,” the word “wild” is so fraught with implications, with greatly varying ways of seeing the world, that it can signify all sorts of things… and nothing at all. So we must clarify matters before using this word in any serious discussion about human nature or nature as a whole. That means we must consider what is not wild as well as what is wild, and how these concepts relate to the practical realities of the world in which we live.

It is safe to say that the entire world was wild before human beings came along — that wildness and nature were one in the same long ago. It is also safe to say that the emergence of civilizations in the Near East, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere mark a distinct break with the wild world. The domestication of plants, animals and the landscape were well underway by then. Right before the emergence of civilizations, though, the matter becomes somewhat murky.

For tens of thousands of years, when we were hunter/gatherers and more integrated into the natural world than we are today, our impact upon the planet wasn’t quite so obvious. But this much is clear: domestication is what separates the wild from the not wild, and that is something we humans…