The lion is a dominant beast. It is. Now, correct me if you’ve not wanted to be dominant at something or over someone just because it is satisfying. You wanted it, right? I am not surprised at all. The natural tendency of anyone is to be the best at what they do. That is correct, but have you ever wondered why animals are dominant over a certain species but are submissive to another? The answer that will follow will stump you at the very core.
This behaviour is called ‘Hierarchical Domination’. This animal social structure is the reason why wolves or hyenas are not at the top of the food chain. It is important to know that other things such as the strength, the tools, the sharpness, and the astucity also impact the levels where animals belong in the food chain. Although, the social structure is also a substantial part of it. The reason being that it resembles us, humans.
Humans have numerous social structures that somehow have different boundaries to it. Now, there are three principle instruments that govern our social structures.
Money
Power
Fame
Let me clarify one thing; these three instruments are not mutually exclusive. And that’s the reason why you will always observe dominance of certain individuals over others. Simply because there is more than one metric to catalyse your dominance. And if you observe, submissiveness is categorical for people who have neither of the three instruments above. It’s as if they were born to be submissive.
Coming back to dominance in animals, have you ever wondered why a lion will be more dominant, ruthless and unforgiving while killing a deer when let’s say a pack of hyenas is around or a leopard is lurking somewhere on a tree nearby. The reason is that, no matter if you’re a king, you always want to justify your position for being who you are. This is not only applicable to lions but also to jaguars, cheetahs, humans and our closest relatives, the chimpanzees.
The origin of domination dates back to about 3.8 billion years ago when first organisms emerged. Domination is actually a characteristic that all living things possess. Yet, there is very little actually thought about it and even written about it.
Genetically, dominance has a quirky side attached to it. It is the phenomenon where an allele(a variant) of a gene on the chromosome overrides the effect of another variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. A common misconception is that dominance is inherited to an allele. However, to state the facts, dominance is a relationship between alleles of a gene and their phenotypes(observable physical properties).What that means is that a dominant allele is dominant to a particular allele of the same gene, but it may be recessive to a third allele and codominant to a fourth which is essentially what happens in ‘Hierarchical Domination’ in case of animals. You can observe how the various forms of domination are analogies to each other.
I cannot add volumes about domination if I don’t mention sports. Domination in sports is like Rafael Nadal on clay. Wait! Did I just mention that? I think the analogy should be something that is not related to sports!
Jokes apart. It’s the absolute feeling of pride, tenacity and heroism when you dominate a sport. Right from Muhammad Ali for boxing to Ronnie O’Sullivan for snooker, we have seen lots of athletes who have dominated individual sports. Categorically, the dominance of each person in a sport is the same. But, when you look at the forms it offers, the juxtaposition is evident. When I talk about Germany humiliating Brazil 7-1 at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, it is in a different state to when I talk about Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Conor McGregor. In a team sport like football where players working in tandem can achieve a synchronous harmony with the way they play and shoot goals, the domination is strictly technical. However, in mixed martial arts, whatever you do inside the ring, you do to harm your opponent. Physical or mental. That sort of domination is only evident in contact sport. You won’t see it anywhere else.
Khabib Vs Conor, 2018
Although, speaking about combat, let’s say you get in a fist fight with someone in college. A crowd has gathered around you. They’re closely watching you. Not that it matters, but would or would you not want to dominate the opponent who has pissed you off? Of course, right. It is a natural instinct and a lot of people actually end up injuring the opponent severely in spite of the fact that the reason they started fighting was petty.
Domination, for all we know may be real or not real at all. Let’s not get into the philosophy of reality but the fact is that it is a state of mind.
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