Power and Dominance

I often return to Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) when I reflect on power and dominance.

As I posted just a few months back, the opening sequence -- which has been probed by scholars across fields and disciplines, not just film studies -- depicts a drastic evolutionary shift, caused at least in part by alien forces.

This shift involves early man's discovery of discarded animal bones as useful weapons for hunting. Rather quickly, though, these weapons are used to dominate, to threaten, and to destroy other humans. This section of the film bears the layered title "The Dawn of Man," but that language does not appear in Arthur C. Clarke's original novel. It's occurred to me that we, the descendants of these fictional "monkeymen," spend a lot of time trying to control things and people -- our environments and fortunes, family and friends, enemies and strangers. And in doing so, many of us use benign tools for purposes other than those for which they were created. We cheat and corrupt to gain advantage, to gain power. This desire for power presents itself in many ways -- from speeding and running red lights to fabricating credentials on job applications. We "pull strings" to get a relative hired or a rival fired. We plant seeds of doubt about another's capabilities or intelligence. We present ourselves as inherently good or moral, implying that those who are not like us are not. In Kubrick's film, the hominids win control over a watering hole -- a vital resource that had previously been used by all in a rudimentary pecking order. The louder and more numerous hominids drank first, then all others according to fearsomeness. But then, weaponized hominids were able to maintain control of the valuable resources, even when they were not present or in need of them. That is, until the others became weaponized, and escalation began. That is when "Dawn" became "Dusk.