From Ego-Wilding to Eco-Wilding

Wildness is Life.

Although in the USA today, many residents are ego-wilding (see prior post), this is not humanity’s heritage. Eco-wilding is our heritage.

Eco-wilding deeply contrasts with ego-wilding.

People often misunderstand “wildness,” as if it refers to ego-wildness—unfettered impulsive or planned antisociality. But we are not born to be ego-wild.

Ego-wildness comes from undercare (unnestedness), inherited epigenetic dysregulation from our ancestors’ trauma, and related psychic breaks.

The first thing to realize is that on Earth, wildness is the rule. Domestication is the exception. All humans are born to be wild in the ecological sense—to fit into our ecological landscape of animals, plants and other entities, where everything is wild. We learn the skills needed through immersion and imitation of those around us.

Most humans have lost their full eco-wildness and have become domesticated. Their wildness has been killed or suppressed. This is what civilized European culture has long expected parents to do. Spare the rod, spoil the child (a misunderstanding of Proverbs 13: 24). But historically, civilized European culture is confused about wildness. After the ancient people of Europe were eradicated or assimilated in the last millennia, civilized European culture feared ego-wildness which, again, comes from undercare and the unresolved trauma that parents pass on through epigenetic inheritance.

Western Christian wisdom traditions fear what they think is the inner animal nature—the ego-wildness brought about by an undercaring culture. The ego gets big and wild (as in many USians today) from unnestedness.

Indigenous wisdom, in contrast, fears losing the inner animal nature—the instincts and nascent capacity to grow receptive, intuitive intelligence about living well on Earth: Wildness that honors wildness in others.

The knowhow for raising a healthy, peaceful child was lost over generations traumatized by plague, war, burnings of wise old women (‘witches’). Myths and Biblical misinterpretations about spoiling babies justified the ignorance and mistreatment.

The goal of coercive parenting and the neglect of babies is taming the will to obey the outside authority, whether parents, teacher, or authoritarian leader. Domestication.

Hierarchical civilization emerged a few thousand years ago in some parts of the world, breaking our species’ wildness over 95%, timewise, of our existence (300,000 years). However, ecocentric societies, with minimal or no domestication were the majority of societies until recently. Miles Olson (2012) writes:

“The final dream of civilization is that everything will be controlled, organized, categorized; all wildness and spontaneity will be eradicated. Fish will live in fish farms. Trees will grow in tree farms. Animals for our food will live in feedlots. Humans will live in cities completely isolated from any other creatures (except cute pets), isolated from anything that might remind them of true wild nature. “Inferior races” will wither in poverty until they vanish. The Earth will be remodeled in the name of production. Any spontaneous, uncontrolled expression of life will be crushed. (Olson, 2012, p. 5).

Domestication is like brain washing. You don’t remember your wildness and you misunderstand it and hate it in others. Wildness needs to be controlled so as not to upset things. (“I will have order,” says Dolores Umbridge of Harry Potter fame). You are part of the megamachine destroying wildness—i.e., Life.

We did not evolve to be domesticated, to suppress the wills and freedom of others, to dominate and control. These are signals of babyhood undercare, unnestedness in childhood and adolescence, and the dysregulation and ego-wilding that result. We become ill from inequality, from unnestedness. Olson says we have collectively gone insane from domestication.

To be eco-wild, we must re-wild: unlearn our conditioning of domestication that slants our worldview, our aims, our behavior. It means “coming to know an unmediated reality, based on real life interaction, empathy and experience” (Olson, 2012, p. 11).

We discuss re-wilding next.

REFERENCES

Bourgeault, C. (2003). The wisdom way of knowing: Reclaiming an ancient tradition to awaken the heart. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

deMause, L. (1995). The history of childhood.: The untold story of child abuse New York, NY: Psychohistory Press.

Narvaez, D. (2014). Neurobiology and the development of human morality: Evolution, culture and wisdom. Norton.

Olson, M. (2012). Unlearn, rewild: Earth skills, ideas and inspiration for the future primitive. New Society Publishers.

Wilson, E.O. (2017). Half earth: Our planet’s fight for life. New York: Liveright.