Are we self-domesticating ourselves like Belyaev's foxes?

Are we self-domesticating ourselves like Belyaev's foxes?

To what extent is the human species self-domesticating? The famous Russian silver fox experiment showed that in just eight generations of selection for docility, the animals developed smaller skulls, shorter snouts and curled tails. The domestication syndrome, later replicated in pigs, dogs and sheep, changes the entire physiognomy. And the uncomfortable question is whether modern civilization is doing the same to us.

The mechanisms are not subtle. An education system that rewards submission over critical thinking acts as a reverse Darwinian filter: those who bend best, thrive. On top of that comes a power structure that, through corporations and fiat-debt money, selects the most docile individuals for the top rungs. The result, some analyses argue, is a silent mutation: humans with lower aggression, smaller brain volume and greater tolerance of authority.

The species' intrinsic violence, however, has not disappeared. It has been channeled. Mass spectator sport, and football in particular, serves as a substitute for war. Rivalries once settled with spears are now resolved on a grass pitch. It is the same drive, but bridled. As one line of thought points out, without football there would be many more wars.

The final paradox: civilization has given us food security and eliminated much physical violence, but at the cost of a malleability that brings us closer to the domestic pig than to the original wild boar. Meanwhile, we keep killing each other over political rallying cries, proving that the aggressive instinct only changes targets, it never disappears.