Different packs at different times have generated very different notions of what is expedient.
There are some things that seem generally agreed on: no fighting, except with outsiders, no killing, except of outsiders, no rape, except of outsiders, and so on. But what reason do we have to assume that these are agreed upon because they exist in some abstract form beyond our own needs as a species? Since they all seem clearly oriented toward maintaining cohesion within the pack (and since they are rarely applied outside the pack), doesn't it seem reasonable to conclude that these ideas exist simply because we have learned, over the years, that cohesive packs survive and fragmented ones do not, and thus that we have to adopt rules to promote cohesion within the pack?
Why should we create an explanation demanding the acceptance of a fanciful and undemonstrable idea when a perfectly adequate explanation making no such demands is ready at hand?
The only answer I can give is that traditionally, people have reached for the answer that they wish were true, instead of the one that looks most likely to be true. |
