This Thin Veneer

My writing has become a bit sporadic of late, the difficulty of raising two boys, going to college, a (mildly) stressful job and trying to have a social life have impacted greatly on my free writing time. Hey ho, what’s a guy to do!

So I find myself squeezing my thoughts in to bite sized chunks of irrelevant ruminations and the title above is just one of those. Now what the heck am I talking about you now wonder, what’s this thin veneer he’s referring to. Well my erudite and well educated friends it is this - we’re still all animals. That’s right, we’re are all beasts of the wild, ready to tear down our competition like feral killers.

Well kind of.

What I actually mean is that through centuries of social evolution and technological innovation we have managed to hide (nay bury) that animalistic side of our nature beneath a thin veneer of acceptable behaviour. Occasionally certain individuals smash aside that veneer and proclaim to the world that they are animals through some form of violent or self serving act and as a consequence we either lock them away or remove the threat of “veneer destruction” by some form of life ending technique. 

Now I mentioned there violent and self serving acts and in many instances these are selfish and uncalculated actions however the thing that I would like to focus on is the act of removing the competition.

Now if I was a lion I’d be big and hairy with a massive mane of lovely golden hair (ahh, to have hair and not be a bald old coot!) and most probably have an area of land that I proclaim is mine to do with as I please. Not only that but I would have acquired a veritable harem of lovely lionesses to cater to my every whim. Sounds nice doesn’t it, however to have all this I would have had to do something first and that is eliminate my rivals. I would have fought (fang and claw) to acquire this and would move aggressively and immediately to counter any threat to my ongoing comfortable existence. The threat of a competitor would be removed with some very serious and quite impressive display of violence.

Now we humans used to do this quite well, in fact we used to see all creatures as a threat to our existence and as we developed more sophisticated ways of killing we have removed that threat quite impressively. We have even managed to develop ways of removing human threats that don’t involve death or destruction. And that’s the bit that has the veneer. You see I’ve had quite a few conversations recently where I have been on the receiving end of words, not that I have not taken part in a conversation but rather that it stopped being a conversation and turned into an attack on my position, a blitzkrieg of words aimed not to inform or explain but rather to eliminate a rival. A rival to what you may ask? Well to superiority for one thing, to social position, to affection, attention, prestige, esteem and many other things that make us feel like we have a purpose or satisfy our self esteem.

Have you ever been in a conversation where it started off as discussion but ended in a rant. Where the sharing of information or viewpoints turned into a competition of who was right. That’s the veneer being broken, the use of words to attack a competitor, to remove a rival and assert dominance over a situation. As we have become more civilised we have eliminated not only the urge but also the need to remove rivals but we still have the need to compete. Now one of the lovely benefits of civilisation is that we can now live without fear of being cut down by someone because they see us a rival but we still have a need to compete and feel that we have defeated an opponent.

Enter stage right - Football, tennis, snooker, darts, the Olympics, chess, wargames, mountain bikes, blogs, work etc etc etc.

We compete on a daily basis in all manner of things and live on the right side of the veneer. On very rare occasions really unpleasant things happen where a person (or persons) competes on the wrong side and on days like that I am very glad that we have a society that can set the line for which the veneer cannot be crossed and the consequence of such crossing.

However, do we really need to compete when having a chat over a cuppa with friends? Do you really have to win the argument, have the last word, make your case or refute a point? Are we just animals with a thin veneer of civility? Can’t we just listen sometimes and accept that someone views something differently and let that listening be a learning curve that leads you to questioning your own assumptions and maybe, just maybe turning that veneer into the actual thing - humanity!