I once spent 12 months helping renovate a building. I would walk down there before sunrise, and not leave until after sunset, usually seeing almost no one except the guy I worked with. It made for a strange kind of sensory deprivation – for example smells seemed magnified and the sunlight was more intense. More than that, I became preternaturally conscious of the way people interacted. Perhaps the break from most human contact made me see people with fresh eyes, but I began to notice that humans and dogs have a lot more in common than we usually admit.
People are extremely aware, unconsciously, of their power relationship with others. Much of human interaction is focused on deciding who defers to whom, and on what terms this pecking order will be respected. Dogs calculate this on the basis of size and aggression, with a bit of barking and a lot of sniffing one another’s arses. With humans there’s a little more language involved, but everything else is just about exactly the same.
I call it Dogworld. Some people will walk into a room, make a big noise, and intimidate or impress whoever looks like the biggest threat to their superiority. Other people slink into a room with their tail between their legs and do the human equivalent of rubbing the back of their head on the ground to show their throat. Most people do a little social dance in which they show the big dogs that they don’t intend to challenge, and then pick a couple of medium sized dogs with which they can make an alliance. The most irritating animals creep into the room, kiss up to the biggest dog, and then use his aura of power to start snapping at the other dogs nearby. Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard has that nature – it’s no accident that much of South East Asia refers to him as “Deputy Sheriff”.
The whole thing makes me sick: big dogs, little dogs, and most of all deputy dogs. That side of human nature exists, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s not a part of humanity that is the slightest bit interesting. If you want to tell me stories which show what a big dog you are, or flash the keyring of your BMW, or give me that firm controlling handshake and the hint of expensive cologne – don’t bother. If you want to flatter me or charm me, I still couldn’t care less. I’m not threatening to you and I won’t be threatened – I just don’t live in dogworld, and that’s all there is to it.
So if I seem to turn off when you boast, or if I wince at your Louis Vitton handbag, here’s the answer: talk to me about what it’s like to be a human not a dog. I want to know what it’s like to see the sunlight through the trees in Autumn. I want to know why you love playing soccer. I want to hear who you care about, what you love, and what you’ve learnt. Even dogs have humanity, but you and I have some advantages in this – we should communicate with open hearts, not growl and strut and sniff at each other. And if enough individuals can leave dogworld behind, there’s some chance that nations can do the same thing, and cooperation and compassion can replace competition and intimidation.