is a major characteristic of what I’ve come to call “nonpredatory power.”
Juggling Clichés
Twenty years ago, I heard the first of many talented cowboys waxing poetic on what became a very popular theme. “Humans are predators, and horses are prey animals,” he said during a well-attended lecture-demonstration. “And yet they allow us on their backs. Imagine that, letting a lion on your back! Isn’t that incredible?”
Audiences rarely question this now-oft-repeated notion. However, this colorful yet simplistic interpretation of the horse-human relationship encourages experienced and amateur riders alike to ignore the daily reality of what both species are capable of. In the first place, humans are not carnivores. While some people habitually act predatory in just about any context, Homo sapiens are omnivores with a strange, sometimes-confusing mix of physical and behavioral characteristics. For instance, horses and other herbivores have eyes on the sides of their heads, emphasizing peripheral vision. Humans, like lions, look directly ahead, reinforcing a goal-oriented perspective scientists believe was designed for stalking. Even so, we have no fangs, and our nails can’t rip through paper, let alone flesh. With the teeth and digestive system of a vegetarian, we have to cook our steaks and cut them into bite-size portions — if we choose to go that route. But we can also thrive on plant-based diets.
The problem is we’ve grown up in a culture of conquerors where predatory behavior is rewarded in far too many businesses and reinforced in far too many schools (especially in the highly competitive, sometimes-cutthroat world of higher education). Those who refuse to claw their way to the top often have trouble imagining an alternative because popular metaphors related to power are almost exclusively carnivorous.
The persistent image of humans as predators actually disempowers more sensitive members of the population. Remember, misrepresentations of Darwin’s theories were promoted throughout the twentieth century to justify aggressive, opportunistic corporate and political interests. During that time, it was also useful to portray nonpredatory animals as gutless, anxiety-ridden prey. Gentle, caring people often follow suit, neglecting the skills needed to use power effectively, sometimes even accepting the role of victim because they can’t stomach becoming a tyrant.
In nature, however, carnivores and herbivores both display intelligent, richly nuanced behaviors that contradict stereotypes. Horses, zebras, water buffalo, and elk will often graze relatively unconcerned as a predator who has recently eaten a big meal walks through their pasture. Yet when an agile carnivore is on the prowl, large herds will scatter long before the predator can get close. Nonpredatory animals conserve energy for true emergencies by assessing the intentions and emotional states of other species at a distance.
This is why horses allow humans on their backs. As we go through the various rituals necessary to ride them, they can tell we’re not planning to eat them. But here’s where it gets tricky for humans who deal in clichés. These agile, socially intelligent animals also understand the difference between mutually respectful, supportive behavior and aggressive, needlessly controlling behavior.
Dominant and/or more sensitive herd members have even higher standards for anyone who adopts the physically intimate leadership role that riding requires. It’s also important to remember that horses like to play games with power, speed, boundaries, and assertiveness. Young stallions in particular are not at all shy about challenging a two-legged handler in the same ways they’re accustomed to sparring with one another. Older, more experienced horses tend to be calmer and more accommodating around people, but they also know how to drive off predators.
In this context, it’s especially important to remember that herbivores sometimes choose fight over flight, and not only when cornered. If you’re naïve, presumptuous, or ornery enough to act like a predator in their presence, most will become evasive or even run, while others will attack. And heaven help you if you’re dealing with a herd of empowered adult horses.
Kropotkin emphasized that the collective defense strategies of large nonpredatory animals are highly intimidating to even the most ambitious carnivores. “In the Russian Steppes, [wolves] never attack the horses otherwise than in packs; and yet they have to sustain bitter fights, during which the horses sometimes assume offensive warfare,” he wrote in Mutual Aid. “If the wolves do not retreat promptly, they run the risk of being surrounded by the horses and killed by their hooves.”
Large cats are more dangerous than wolves, of course, but lone hunters also know their limits. Recently, a horse owner named Talea Morgan-Metivier posted an astonishing nighttime video of a mare chasing a mountain lion out of a small corral — with her two-day-old foal trotting merrily beside her.
Trance of Conditioning
These and countless other examples challenge our culture’s most cherished beliefs about the drama of survival, opening up new possibilities, new nature-based metaphors, for a more evolved approach to power. Several uniquely human attributes currently hold us back, however. That big Homo sapiens brain we’re so proud of can act like a steel trap, bolstering a species-wide tendency to cling to old beliefs that contrast with an ever-expanding view of reality. Scientists, politicians, religious leaders, and even horse trainers are guilty of this. For centuries, some members of these seemingly unrelated groups conspired to treat animals (and until very recently, women and minorities) as mindless, soulless machines.
Hoping to avoid the cardinal sin of anthropomorphizing other species, far too many researchers promoted a dismal, sometimes-damaging form of mechanomorphism — in extreme cases conducting sadistic experiments on “unfeeling” animals and “unevolved” races (and the Nazi experiments are not the only example, though they were among the cruelest and most disturbing). This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why it took well over a century after Darwin for the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness to agree with him that all creatures possess some level of emotion and intelligence.
In 2001, during lectures for my first book, The Tao of Equus, the persistence of this mechanistic belief system was still apparent. People would occasionally walk out in disgust when I suggested that horses and other animals had feelings and were intelligent enough to move beyond pure instinct. Since then, hundreds of books and documentaries on the emotional lives of animals have swayed a wider public, but there’s always a learning edge. Twelve years later, on tours for The Power of the Herd, I faced another round of resistance when I presented the idea that, as omnivores, we are capable of choosing freely between predatory and nonpredatory forms of power. Audiences on the whole were encouraged by this view, but some equestrians were dismissive, even hostile. I was surprised to find that a small but vocal number of people felt an almost religious fervor in categorizing all humans as predators, perhaps because the oft-touted opposite, “prey,” was too horrifying to bear.
Built upon the deceptively efficient, sometimes-lethal combination of predatory power and mechanomorphism, modern civilization continues to indoctrinate humans into this steely interpretation of life in a thousand subtle ways. From the laboratory and the classroom to the boardroom and even the barn, stoic authority figures urge people to leave their feelings at the door. When ambitious leaders make decisions that marginalize others, the ubiquitous line “it’s business, not personal” purports to absolve the aggressors.
What will it take to wake from the trance of our conquest-oriented heritage and reclaim the ability to choose among a much longer list of natural, mutually supportive, socially intelligent behaviors?
The First Step
In this effort, it’s helpful to appreciate the differences between carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore behavior, while recognizing “predator” and “prey” as situational designations. We sometimes forget that lions, wolves, tigers, and coyotes are also preyed upon — by other carnivores and by human trophy hunters. At the opposite end
