The Law of the Pack

The first time I remember hearing about the Law of the Pack was in Cub Scouts.  We used to promise to obey it, but I don't remember anybody ever explaining to us exactly what it was.  It was just one of those things we learned to repeat by rote, never questioning or caring, what it meant.  Be that as it may, I'm not talking about the Cub Scout Law of the Pack here.  What I'm talking about is the social habits of real wolves in the real world.

One night I was watching a show about a wolf pack on PBS.  There was this one female wolf who came in dead last in the pecking order.  The other wolves used to pick on her and she was always the last to eat, living on the scraps that were left after the other wolves had eaten their fill.  I was asking myself, "Why doesn't she just leave the pack and strike out on her own?"  when the narrator answered my question.  The reason she stays with the pack is that, even with her low status, she has a better chance of survival than she would as a lone wolf.  I don't suppose the wolf knew this in a cognitive sense, it must have been intuitive, but know it she did.

I think it must have been like that for primitive people as well.  In one sense, it was the strong imposing their will on the weak but, in another sense, it was the weak following the strong around because they ate better from the leftover scraps of the strong than they would have tying to pull down a hairy elephant all by themselves.  One of the distinguishing characteristics of human societies is the specialization of labor.  The more aggressive become hunters and warriors, the less aggressive become root gatherers and spear makers.  Others become healers or shamans, gaining the respect of their people by providing a service that not everybody knows how to do.  Somebody needs to organize all this, so a headman or chief is selected, usually by consensus.  The chief has to be tough, for sure, but I doubt that he would last long if the only way he could maintain control was by force.  If the people lost confidence in their leader, all they would have to do is walk away from him.  Like the poor little girl wolf, they would then have to take their chances on their own, the difference being that humans can weigh the odds and make a conscious decision to either follow the leader or not.

I seem to remember learning about classified information in the army.  The reason it's called "classified" is that there are several categories of information, like "secret" and "top secret".  The only other one I remember is "need to know", which is one of the lower classifications.  Anything that doesn't fit in any of the classifications is called "unclassified" which means it's okay to tell anybody about it.  "De-classified" means that it used to be classified, but now it's not.  The reason for classifying information is to keep it from falling into enemy hands, but sometimes it's a convenient way to cover your tracks if you do something stupid or embarrassing.