Dominance

Dominance. This word is reminiscent of those nature documentaries one watches lazily on a Sunday Afternoon.

Dogs for instance, show their dominance to one another by making sure their heads are higher than their opponents. I remember this from my childhood observations when our small, mix-breed bitch would use our Labrador bitch as a stand post on which she lent to display her dominance. Of course, the Labrador was not fond of this treatment and responded by body-slamming her down WWE style, thereby showing her whose "Boss".

What gets to me though, is that people scuff and dismiss this as prime and instinctive animal behaviour. i.e. this is not what us civilized people do.

Whilst going for a drive the other day, we noticed houses build all the way up the slope of a mountain. Curiously, we wondered how on earth those people got to their houses, and proceeded to drive up that way to investigate. After criss-crossing our winding path up to the houses (or rather, mansions) we eventually got to the top. Beautiful and expensive-looking as the houses were, we both had to ask, was it all worth it when it was such a belated mission to reach home?

Why were the houses right at the top more expensive and more wealthily looked after than the houses that were only slightly less escalated? One of the answers I could come to: Dominance. This I suppose, is the civilised method of 'dominance'. It boosts the esteem of people to know that their 'heads' are highest above all, to know that there's no one above them, that they are in fact the highest they can get.

Just a thought... Just pondering about the strangeness of mankind.