Territorial Sovereignty Societies

 

Humans are very capable beings. 

We can organize our existence in many different ways.

One option involves dividing our species into different groups that act like teams in a massive sport.  We can then divide the land into different territories with borders.  We can then create a set of rules that grant absolute rights to—or sovereignty over—everything  inside each of these bordered territories to one of these teams. 

Additional rules can include the standard foundation of international law called the ‘right of conquest.’   Under this principle, any land that a team conquers from another team belongs to the conqueror, together with anything on or under that land in a pie shaped wedge that goes to the center of the Earth.  They can also include the rights of bequest:  the rights of the current team members transfer to their heirs and assigns for the rest of time. 

The books of the New Perspective Series use the term ‘territorial sovereignty’ to refer to the above principle.  All societies built on the principle of territorial sovereignty are called ‘territorial sovereignty societies.’  Territorial sovereignty is one of the possible foundations that can support societies of both animals and humans. 

Humans did not invent the above principle.  It was a foundational principle of many animal societies for millions of years before humans evolved.  Obviously, these other animals did not have formal written rules for the definitions of the teams and rights they had as we humans have, but they clearly had societies that were built on the above principle.  Many breeds of wolves, for example, have societies that clearly reflect the principle of territorial sovereignty.  The breed called ‘Painted Wolves,’ for example, have fixed territories with well marked borders. (Humans wont be able to identify the borders because our sense of smell isn’t keen enough, but other wolves know exactly where they are.)  The team patrols the borders.  If they detect any members of their species that are not members of their packs in their territory, they track them down and kill them. 

Wolves are noted for their teamwork, both in hunting and defense of their territory.  If a pack of wolves has territorial disputes with another pack, the conflict closely resembles human wars.  The different packs attack each other and kill without remorse or compassion.  Often, they fight until every last member of one of the packs is dead.  There is a very good video of this in the BBC documentary ‘Dynasties, The Painted Wolves’.

 

 

These identities of the animals that are in each pack change over time as older animals die and are replaced by younger pack members.  But the pack has an identify that continues indefinitely (until the pack loses a war and gets wiped out; then the territory belongs to the conquering pack).  This works very much like the human entities called ‘countries:’ the identities of the individuals within each country changes as time passes, but the identify of the country remains the same.  (Again, this lasts until the country is conquered, at which time the conquering country gains control of that land under the principle of right of conquest.) 

Why do wolves do this?  

We can actually understand this but, before we consider it, lets look at one thing we can exclude:   Wolves do not have meetings where they get together and conduct scientific discussions of the different kinds of societies that wolves and other animals can have, then decide ‘this one is for us.’  We know wolves don’t do this because they don’t have the intellectual capability needed for this kind of analysis. 

The term ‘instinct’ basically means anything that motivates animal behavior that can’t be explained by logical analysis or intentional decisions.  This means that all animal behavior falls into the category of instinct.  Humans also have instincts, of course, but not all of our behavior is instinctive.  There are times when our instincts tell us to do one thing and our logical minds tell us to do something else.  But this conflict doesn’t come up for wolves.  Something in their genetic or cultural heratige pushes them to divide their species into packs, divide the land into territories, and allocate each territory to whichever pack can control it with force. 

 

          There is a reason for this kind of instinct.  Fact Based History goes over it in detail, but here is a quick description:  Some land is rich and can support animals under conditions that allow them to remain there and live off of a fairly small territory for their entire lives, without ever having to leave.  Anthropologists call these parcels of land ‘monopolizable.’  If a land can be monopolized by an apex animal, it must be monopolized.  Here is the reason: 
          Imagine first a piece of rich hunting land (from the perspective of a wolf) that is not being monopolized.  Any wolf can come and hunt there.  Since it is rich, a lot of wolves will show up and start hunting.  Say that, at first, the wolves are tolerant and let other wolves come to the territory.  Eventually, there will be more wolves there than the land can support.  At this point, they will start to fight.  Wolves that aren’t willing to fight (those that are easily intimidated) will be removed by more aggressive animals.  Some of the aggressive animals will form into packs that work together.  These packs will be able to easily remove individuals or smaller packs.  The packs that are better at working together will win and remove the less-organized packs.  Eventually, each territory will be controlled by a very well organized pack whose members act as a team both to exploit the resources of that territory and protect their borders.  In the right conditions, nature (the laws of evolution) will require territorial sovereignty in areas that meet certain requirements, for certain animals.
          Animals born into these areas will be raised and trained to be aggressive and possessive.  Any that have genes that prevent these behaviors will be the first to die in battles.  Their genes will go away.  Any that resist the training and are unable to work together well in fights will also perish preferentially.  Over time, only those that have the ‘instincts’ that are needed to help the pack protect its land will be left.  No matter where they come from, the instincts will be passed from generation to generation. 

 

Many animals evolve under conditions that force them into this particular ecological niche.  They divide into teams (packs, troops, teams, tribes, or ‘countries’) and fight over territory.  

Wolves provide a pretty obvious example, but many animals have territorial sovereignty societies.  This includes several species of the genus ‘Gorilla’ and several species of the genus ‘Pan,’ our closest animal ancestors.   (We share about 99% of our DNA with the Pans.) 

Some of our evolutionary ancestors clearly had societies built on territorial sovereignty.  Those on the ‘pre-human animal’ side of the evolution progression would not have been able to use logic and reason, so the forces that pushed them to act this way would be ‘instinctual,’ by definition.  As time passed (millions of years), these animals competed with each other for resources.  Some were smarter:  they had genes that cause them to grow slightly larger and more complex brains, capable of processing more information.  They were able to meet their needs better than their peers and had better chances of living long enough to breed and pass these genes to the next generation.  Each step was probably very tiny.  But over a long period of time, these improvements compounded.  If you could watch a ‘fast forward’ version of this multi-million year period, you would see that there was progress.  The intelligence level of the average member of the Pan genus got higher and higher. 

 

Evolution

 

They used their greater intelligence to do the things their instincts told them to do better than their ancestors had done.  Their instincts told them to form into tight-knit loyal troops (the name for ‘a grouping of members of the Pan genus) and fight over territory.  As they got smarter, they were able to make better and better tools to use as weapons.  They were also able to organize themselves better so they could work as teams. 

We now have tools we can use to trace the progress of our ancestors almost generation by generation.  (DNA sequencing allows us to determine when new genes are overlaid on existing genes.  We can tell which came first.)   We have dating tools we can use to understand when these animals passed certain key milestones in their progress.  (The use of fire, for example, the use of clothing, the exit from Africa to ‘the rest of the world,’ the progress across ‘the rest of the world,’ the assertion of domination over lower species, and the use of complex language are ‘milestones.’)  We can understand where they lived and how they lived at each stage in development.

Fact Based History traces this progress.  It shows that the principle of territorial sovereignty was the foundational element of the societies of some of our ancient ancestors (specifically the highly territorial Pans that are commonly called ‘Chimpanzees).  This system was still with them when some of them, living close to oil pits that were always on fire, mastered the use of this fantastic tool.  It was still with them when they took advantage of this tool to allow them to live in areas where they couldn’t live without fire, allowing them to leave Africa and travel to remote parts of Asia and Europe.  It was still with them when they built the first fortress states and walled states and then the first massive city states.  (Artifacts of these ancient city states are all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa.)  This kind of system got a great boost when horses were domesticated; with horses, they could defend far larger areas and the city states turned into the large entities that we now call ‘countries.’  The countries evolved in a very understandable way from the early systems of 6,000 years ago to the systems we have today. 

 

Territorial Sovereignty Societies 

 

The books in the New Perspective Series use the term ‘territorial sovereignty societies’ to refer to societies built on this simple premise:  the group of animals/humans is divided into teams; the land is divided into territories, and each of the teams winds up in charge of one of the territories.  If their control over the territory is absolute they have ‘sovereignty’ over it.  All societies with this absolute control of territory are called ‘territorial sovereignty societies.’ 

There are many ways that humans can organize their societies.   We can live like territorial animals if we want:  we have this capability.  But we don’t have to do this.  We can live other ways also.