ext_79302 ([identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/) wrote in [personal profile] lhexa 2009-11-07 07:42 pm (UTC)

Re: Animals

Yes, I think so -- for fishers, I'd say it's something like resourcefulness. But I am limited to guessing when it comes to other animals. Cats: grace, subtlety? Coyotes: adaptability? Rabbits, horses: community, speed? Rats, mice: pervasiveness, infiltration? Corvids: Inventiveness, inquisitiveness? ;)

"But first, they must catch you. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed."

Perhaps that, too, is an anthropomorphization, but it's an unfamiliar one. For solutions, in general, one would have to be careful to see the animals' solutions, and not our filtered versions of them.

As far as power, specifically, is concerned: apex predators would probably not represent a solution to power, but rather an acceptance, glorification or manifestation thereof. They would not have the indirect strength you mention, but rather the direct strength.

Some also argue that apex predators have to be careful with their power: a lion who carelessly claws at everything will end up hurting himself (and others), for instance. So, the argument goes, that non-predators given weapons can actually be more dangerous because they might use them to the point of destruction.

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