Human Predators

Human Predators

A Discussion by Joshua Drew Plovanic

March 6, 2016

Predation is a natural occurrence within the animal kingdom. It stretches across species and occurs in every environment, climate, and ecosystem on earth. The act of one species preying upon another for sustenance naturally occurs because of the evolutionary process that led to the preying species to acquire the physiological, biological, and even neurological traits necessary to prey upon another animal. The physical traits of strength, agility, and speed, and often high intelligence and complex brain structure evolved in these species in order for them to be able to consume its food source. Some have theorized that animal predators have similar neurotransmitter response to the stimulus of hunting and pursuing kill as humans do. Many human beings do indeed enjoy pursuing and killing prey, and we get a dopamine rush from doing so. Some have also theorized that, since brain structure similarities exist between humans and animal predators, animal predators have a pleasure response to killing, and to them it is an innate instinct and drive to do so, as innate as the drive to reproduce or drink water.

Human beings have risen to and have remained at the top of the biological food chain for the better part of the last 20-30,000 years or so. We have had incidences of other animals preying on us, but they were few and far between. Instead we encountered the unique position of having no predators and often abundant food supplies in many parts of the world. What happened at this point, I theorize, is that human beings after having no natural predators to speak of became a predator of itself. Not in the sense of eating itself, although that has happened, but in the sense of warfare and conflict, and social predation to take advantage of others for their resources and livelihoods, and the predation that occurs in the political realm for power. Human predators are ever-present in the modern word. We see human predators of a violent kind in terrorism, bullying, mass shootings, and serial killing. We also see them in the deviant/sexual form, praying upon women and children for sex. The one commonality between most forms of human predators is that they almost always prey upon the weak, sick, and defenseless target. A Terrorist targets civilian locations because of the relative ease of access and limited defensive capabilities. A bully picks on the kid who is often small in stature and low in social status, and anyone who shows the kind of social and physical weakness that attracts the attention of a bully, much like how a predator always targets the easiest food source. Bullies are not always bigger and well-built than their targets, and their victims aren’t always smaller or weaker. Small kids can bully bigger kids as well. Often times in bullying, jealousy plays a huge factor in who gets targeted. The bully acts out his primal impulse to try and undercut the security of his target and, in some circumstances, the bully’s intention is to cause deep psychological and even physical harm to his/her target. The bully, in doing so, demonstrates his inability to control more primitive impulses like jealousy or predatory drives. His predatory drive is to do harm to the targeted individual, or get the targeted individual to do harm to himself. In their predatory behavior, bullies target those who are less likely to defend themselves and have emotional complexes that compromise their ability to stay resilient and show little weakness. The target can be either smart or dumb, big or small, because all the target has to have is an insecurity or low self-esteem that presents itself as a weakness for the predator.  

Bullying has the ability to trigger predatory instincts in the target of the bullying. In some situations, the target does terrible things in retaliation and in doing so becomes a predator him/herself. However, as we all know, bullied children are more likely to harm themselves instead of someone else, so blaming mass killings on disgruntled and estranged bullying victims is not the appropriate solution. I am going to make the human predator argument that some of these individuals have the same pleasure response from neurotransmitters in their brain that induces a thrill or enjoyment of the act of killing as animal predators do. These individuals may have had this drive from birth, like a natural predator, or they may have had it activated by an event in their lives, like bullying or traumatic abuse, and then this innate predatory drive was fed by violence in movies or other media and it was enhanced and honed by their environment such as friends who encouraged such behavior, and the internet giving him access to material that further feeds the drive to kill, even encouraging him to do so. Since there is no healthy and appropriate avenue to satisfy this drive, the individual often satisfies it through unhealthy means like violence towards other human beings. An example of this would be acquiring a weapon, targeting an area of little security, and going on a killing spree. Many of these human predators are aware of the fact that they are not getting out alive, but they feel the thrill of the attack is worth the loss of their lives, because their anger at the world and their desire for revenge against a society that they perceived robbed them of something drives them to do it anyways. They feel the only way to satisfy these feelings are to commit an act of terrorism in retaliation for the perceived or actual injustice. The trait that makes these individuals human predators is what they target. They never target a place that has security sufficient enough to put up a decent fight, and they seem to compete with themselves on how many they kill or how horrible the act is. The innate predatory drive I’m talking about is the primary factor in these individuals taking the action they did.  

The debate can be waged that an innate predatory drive is also a contributing factor in terrorism. Terrorism is usually an attack for political/religious motivations, but you can see the commonalities between mass shootings and some terrorist attacks in that the perpetrators in both instances often kill themselves during or after the attack. In some situations many of these perpetrators, whether a terrorist or mass shooter, probably get a sense of Euphoria that they may get from the fear, the chase or predation, or both that is caused by the innate predatory drive of a human being that we inherit from our animal lineage.