I have a Polynesian friend who, like most Samoans and Tongans, is on the big side, which he credits to the double Darwinian pressures of cannibalism in the islands where animal protein and fats were once scarce. Historically, being large was an advantage to islanders – it often meant the difference between being a diner or dinner.
In the islands, the higher your rank, the skimpier your clothes. My friend recounts a tale of Samoan independence that is too good to be untrue: The British sent an obnoxious, drunken, racist Scot to represent the crown when the Union Jack came down. Jet-lagged and well-wined from the flight, the Scot was making uncharitable references to the attire of the ceremonial party, when one of the giants, clad only in a tapa cloth, looked down at him and lisped in a perfect upper class British accent, ‘Did you thay your name wath MacDonald? Daddy sayth he had a MacDonald once.’
Of course cannibalism should come as no considerable shock to a Scot who eats haggis, not to mention Mars bars fried in batter. And you don’t have to go to Polynesia to find evidence of a menu of people.
Primatologists are now revising the idea of man the mighty hunter. Typically, we see our ancestors as cunning predators who came down from the trees and with brains, spears and cooking fires munched their way through the world’s fauna to civilization. But scientists are now suggesting our forebears were just as likely to be lunch as they were to be lunchers. They spent a lot of time skulking in clefts and up trees to hide from predatory felines. Indeed some of the concentrations of primate fossils we thought marked human settlements may in fact be the bits spat out by the big cats.
This explains the psychology of homo corporatus far better than the usual stereotypes. You pick over the bones of those below you in the food chain and live in perpetual fear of those with bigger teeth and claws. If that does not describe the typical behavior of middle management, what does?
Paleoanthropologists suggest that apart from breeding a healthy flight instinct in our ancestors, being in the middle of the food chain helped push human intelligence, speech and cooperation in the face of danger. Even a big hungry cat begins to think a meal less delectable if it means facing a tribe of stick and stone wielding primates with seemingly magical methods of coordination and planning.
So, with the exception of middle management, most of humanity’s progress towards the right end of the chopsticks or knives and forks depended on cooperation.
We are not, of course, alone. Scientists have discovered a super colony of Argentinean ants stretching from Portugal’s Atlantic coast all the way round Spain to the south of France. At home the ants behave like Argentineans: they spend a lot of time fighting one another. But after they reversed the Con-quistadors’ voyage, they learned to cooperate. Take an ant from Portugal and drop it off in Provence and it’s treated as a full citizen. Not only is the immigrant ant not dismembered and eaten by the local nest’s equivalent of the INS, it zealously starts work immediately.
This confirms suspicions that Europe is some sort of socialist conspiracy. Even the ants are at it! More confirmation came in April when the British public welcomed a tax increase! They actually applauded stiff increases in national insurance contributions to pay for improvements in the National Health Service.
After reading material from US health insurers and doctors about the dangers of socialized medicine, I fear the worst. Clearly the British have been unwitting victims of a pernicious experiment in genetic engineering. Fiendish state-employed doctors have been injecting viruses laden with ant behavior genes which have disrupted normal healthy competitive instincts.
One can only suspect the same thing has happened in Canada. How else can we explain the difference in behavior on either side of the 49th parallel? Pretty much the same people on both sides but Canadians have a socialist party in government, are infuriatingly polite to each other, and end every sentence in ‘eh?’ while saying oot and aboot instead of out and about. Our researchers suggest these linguistic tics may be an attempt to ensure that Americans are immediately identified as coming from outside the nest and denied socialized medical treatment.
The Speculator has a crisis team working on counter viruses that will spread healthy competitive chromosomes into our allies’ gene pools. In the meantime, be sure to refuse injections from state-employed doctors – and it may be safer to skip the haggis as well.
The Speculator
