"All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species"

Human societies are born from the chaotic interplay of individual wills, ambitions, and instincts. At our core, we are animals, carrying with us a complex legacy of drives honed by evolution: aggression, competition, self-preservation. Laws emerge as society’s method for curbing these primal impulses, channeling them into forms compatible with collective existence. To speak of laws as attempts to domesticate is to recognize the tension between what is natural to us and what is necessary for living together.

Domestication suggests both taming and adaptation. Just as wolves were domesticated into dogs, retaining some instincts but reshaped to serve and live among humans, so, too, do laws work to soften the harsher edges of human nature. Ferocity, in this context, is not merely violence; it encompasses the raw, unchecked pursuit of self-interest, the desire to dominate, the refusal to yield. Left unrestricted, such drives can rend communities, fostering chaos and suffering.

Laws operate as agreed-upon boundaries, redefining which behaviors are acceptable, punishable, or rewarded. They do not eliminate ferocity but seek to redirect and moderate it, forging solidarity from divergence. This is not to imply that our basic drives vanish under the weight of legislation. Rather, legal systems are a pragmatic recognition that individual impulses must be balanced against the welfare of the group. The rule of law becomes the invisible hand that replaces brute force as the organizing principle of society.

Underlying this process is an acknowledgment that civilization itself is an ongoing project, not a finished product. Laws are revised and renegotiated as the evolving understanding of human nature and social needs changes. The “domestication” is never complete; it is a continuous effort to harmonize our essential fierceness with the demands of mutual coexistence, striving always to mitigate harm while preserving vitality and creative energy within the boundaries of order.