Examining Our Inevitable Participation in Nature's Fundamental Pattern
In nature, killing is constant and unremarkable—the hawk takes the mouse, the spider wraps the fly, bacteria consume their hosts, even plants strangle competitors for light. This is not violence in the moral sense we typically apply to human actions; it is simply the mechanism by which life perpetuates itself through death. Yet when we turn to examine human participation in this natural phenomenon, we retreat into sensational frameworks—the horror of murder, the drama of war, the tragedy of accident—that prevent us from thinking clearly about killing as a fundamental aspect of existence.
This essay examines killing not through these familiar dramatic lenses, but as a ubiquitous natural phenomenon in which humans, as organisms, inevitably participate. From the direct killing necessary for survival to the passive social killing of reputation destruction, from the neurochemical rewards that make violence satisfying to the cultural expressions that help us process these impulses, we are all embedded in webs of killing far more complex than our moral frameworks typically acknowledge. Even our modern digital behaviours—the cancellation campaigns that destroy livelihoods and social existence—represent contemporary manifestations of the same pack hunting and territorial exclusion behaviours observable across species.
Humans are nature, and nature kills continuously. Not just predators—herbivores crush insects with every step, rabbits kill their own young under stress, kangaroos drown dogs and deliver lethal kicks to rivals, male giraffes attempt to break rivals' legs, horses and zebras kill with powerful kicks when threatened. Even at the cellular level, life depends on death: our immune systems are killing machines, destroying millions of invaders daily. Plants release chemicals to poison competitors, fungi dissolve their prey from within. In this context, human killing is not an aberration but a continuation of patterns billions of years old.
If we observe wolf packs or lion prides, we see not just killing for food but killing for dominance, territory, revenge. Cubs of rival males are systematically destroyed. Wounded pack members are sometimes torn apart by their own. When a lion pride encounters cubs from a rival male, they don't simply kill them quickly. They often engage in what we might anthropomorphically call torture—prolonged attacks that ensure suffering before death. Orcas toss seal pups for hours before consuming them. Chimpanzees have been observed tearing apart rivals over extended periods. These behaviours suggest that across species, killing can involve emotional satisfaction beyond mere survival needs.
In humans, the neurochemical architecture that rewards violence is well documented. The dopamine release during dominance displays, the endorphin rush of combat, the oxytocin bonding within violent groups—these systems evolved over millions of years to reward behaviours that ensured survival and reproductive success. We haven't transcended these systems; we've simply added cultural layers on top of them.
Consider the satisfaction many feel when seeing someone they dislike "get what's coming to them." That small thrill of satisfaction when a rival fails, the pleasure in gossip that damages someone's reputation, the excitement of participating in collective outrage—these are all expressions of the same reward systems that motivate direct violence. The brain doesn't clearly distinguish between physical and social dominance; both trigger similar reward pathways.
This explains why violence—both direct and passive—can become addictive. Each successful attack, whether physical or reputational, triggers reward chemicals that reinforce the behaviour. Serial killers often describe an escalating need for violence, but the same pattern appears in those who become habitual participants in online shaming campaigns. The underlying neurochemistry is remarkably similar.
Understanding these biological realities doesn't excuse cruelty, but it helps explain why humans across all cultures engage in various forms of killing despite moral teachings against it. We're working with ancient systems that reward dominance and the elimination of rivals, systems that predate our moral frameworks by millions of years.
Society maintains a stark duality around killing. For some, elaborate frameworks of sanitised language and careful distance preserve the illusion of separation from killing—"putting down" pets, "collateral damage," "letting go" of employees. For others, killing is daily work—the slaughterhouse worker, the military drone operator, the farmer. While one portion of society constructs elaborate buffers against the reality of killing, another portion does the killing for them, often carrying both the practical and psychological burden of this division.
Human killing operates across a vast spectrum, from the immediate and visceral to the distant and bureaucratic. At one end, the soldier in combat, the farmer slaughtering livestock—these people experience killing directly, feeling the weight of life leaving a body. At the other end, the politician who refuses safety improvements at accident blackspots, the executive whose cost-cutting eliminates safety protocols, the administrator who denies medical coverage—these people kill through system and policy, never witnessing the deaths they cause.
The aristocracy's hunting traditions weren't merely recreation but preparation—blood sports that taught young rulers to make life-and-death decisions with authority, to become familiar with decisions that result in death. This is not as arcane as it might seem; most societies still have a 'leading class,' though much less hereditary these days. Today's ruling classes have simply replaced the visceral experience of the hunt with the abstraction of spreadsheets and policy documents, maintaining their relationship with causing death while insulating themselves from the act itself.
This abstraction extends to how we distribute honour around killing. Soldiers on the front receive medals for their involvement in the hand-to-hand process of war, yet the Majors and Generals back in the command centre, safe and removed from danger, receive the same medals. It is the commanders that history remembers and celebrates, not the soldiers who did the actual killing. We valorise those who order death from distance whilst forgetting those who carried it out directly—a pattern that reveals our discomfort with the physical reality of killing even as we acknowledge its necessity. The leading class maintains its relationship with causing death, but insulates itself from the act itself.
This split creates its own form of violence. Those who do the killing for society—processing our meat, fighting our wars—are made invisible when convenient, then vilified when expedient. The soldier is a hero when we need enemies killed, a potential threat when they return home. The slaughterhouse worker ensures our food supply but must not speak of their work at dinner parties, blamed for animal cruelty whilst we queue for our bacon. Meanwhile, those insulated from direct killing can maintain moral positions about violence that depend entirely on others doing what they cannot or will not do themselves.
From the earliest cave paintings depicting hunts to today's billion-dollar film franchises centred on violence, humans have always used art to process our relationship with killing. This isn't merely morbid fascination—it's a fundamental way our species grapples with being conscious organisms aware of our own mortality and our participation in causing death.
Shakespeare's tragedies, Greek myths, modern crime novels, horror films, first-person shooter games—across every medium and era, stories of killing dominate human creative expression. We pay to experience these narratives, finding entertainment in watching characters kill and be killed, suffering and causing suffering. The most successful entertainment franchises often feature the highest body counts.
This cultural obsession serves multiple psychological functions. Art provides a safe container for experiencing the neurochemical rewards of violence without physical consequences. Watching the hero vanquish enemies triggers similar satisfaction to participating in actual dominance, but within a controlled framework. We can explore our capacity for violence, our fear of death, our revenge fantasies, all from the safety of our seats.
Video games make this participation even more direct. Players actively engage in virtual killing, often for hours at a time, experiencing the planning, execution, and rewards of violence. The popularity of these games—particularly among young males whose testosterone levels prime them for competitive violence—suggests they fulfil a deep psychological need to engage with killing in some form.
True crime represents another facet of this processing. The massive audience for serial killer documentaries, murder podcasts, and criminal profiling shows reveals a hunger to understand the extremes of human killing. We're particularly fascinated by those who kill without the usual social justifications—the serial killers who expose the reality that humans can kill simply because they enjoy it.
But cultural processing of killing isn't merely cathartic—it also provides scripts for actual violence. School shooters often explicitly reference films or games. The stories we tell about killing shape how actual killing occurs.
Within a few degrees of separation—you know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone—we all connect to those who have killed directly. The driver whose reaction time fell short. The soldier following orders. The executive whose cost-cutting led to fatal accidents. These experiences ripple through our social networks, yet we provide almost no framework for acknowledging them as part of our species' natural participation in killing.
We live in an era of unprecedented awareness about our participation in killing. Previous generations could claim ignorance about where their meat came from, how their clothes were made, what violence their tax money funded. We cannot. The internet has made visible the entire chain of killing that supports modern life—from factory farms to drone strikes, from cobalt mines to refugee camps.
Yet this awareness comes paired with the impossibility of extraction from these systems. Even the most conscientious consumer cannot avoid participation in killing. The device you're reading this on contains minerals mined by children. Your pension fund invests in weapons manufacturers. Your morning coffee exists because of habitat destruction. Every purchase, every meal, every digital interaction connects us to vast networks of direct and passive killing.
The digital age has also transformed how we participate in passive killing. Cancellation represents one contemporary form of social killing. Like wolves isolating prey from the herd, online mobs isolate individuals from their support networks, employment, and social standing. The target's capacity to participate in society—essential for a social species like ours—is systematically destroyed. The cancelled individual loses livelihood, relationships, community standing, often their sense of self. This is killing in every meaningful sense except the biological.
What makes these forms of passive killing particularly insidious is their presentation as moral action. Those participating frame their behaviour as "accountability" or "protecting communities," yet the actual behaviours—coordinated harassment, economic destruction, social isolation—mirror the mobbing behaviours seen across species when groups attack perceived threats. The hormonal responses likely follow similar patterns too: the rush of righteous anger, the satisfaction of seeing someone brought low, the bonding within the attacking group.
Cancel culture operates at unprecedented speed and scale. A single tweet can destroy a career within hours. Algorithmic amplification ensures maximum damage. The permanent nature of digital records means social death can be absolute—there's no moving to a new town and starting over when Google preserves your shame forever.
We've also become more aware of how institutional decisions cause death. When a hospital closes due to budget cuts, we can track the increased mortality. When environmental regulations are relaxed, we can measure the deaths from pollution. When social services are eliminated, we can count the suicides. The abstraction that once obscured institutional killing has been stripped away by data.
The burden isn't just knowing about this killing—it's the recognition that we must consciously choose our position within it. We cannot claim innocence, cannot fully withdraw, cannot avoid participation. We can only decide what forms of killing we'll accept, which types we'll actively support, and which we'll resist even while remaining complicit.
This creates a unique psychological challenge. We must simultaneously acknowledge our participation in killing while maintaining the psychological and social functioning necessary for life. Those who become too aware often fall into paralysis or despair. Those who remain unconscious perpetuate violence through ignorance. Finding a middle path—conscious participation without paralysis—becomes essential.
We are nature, and nature kills. This isn't a moral failing or a problem to be solved—it's the fundamental pattern through which life has operated for billions of years. The impossibility of finding a morally clean position within this reality explains why people adopt the various stances they do—not because they're morally superior, but because they need some position to function.
Each position has its own validity but comes with its own burden. Those who maintain deliberate ignorance have valid psychological protection—full awareness would be paralysing—but carry the burden of sustained illusion. Those who adopt wishful thinking have valid emotional shields but must constantly expend energy maintaining them against reality.
Those 'in the game'—the soldier, farmer, slaughterhouse worker, but also the politician refusing safety improvements, the executive cutting costs, the pension manager investing in weapons manufacturers—have the validation of honest participation but carry different burdens. The direct killers face psychological weight and social invisibility, made to disappear when convenient, vilified when expedient. The systemic killers face the burden of abstraction, making life-and-death decisions through spreadsheets and policies while maintaining distance from the consequences.
The campaigners, whether vegan activists or hunting advocates, have the validation of taking a stand, but it's built on selective awareness—highlighting some killing while necessarily ignoring others they participate in.
None of these positions offers real reward—just different ways of managing a disturbing reality. The farmer who genuinely loves their animals but sends them for slaughter isn't a hypocrite—they're navigating a necessary reality. The person who won't hear about slaughterhouse conditions isn't weak—they're protecting their ability to function. Those who participate in digital cancellation while condemning physical violence aren't necessarily dishonest—they're managing cognitive dissonance the way humans always have.
In the end, knowing that we don't have a choice in being involved in killing, where we place ourselves within this reality becomes less about moral superiority and more about psychological necessity. Everyone is struggling with the same impossible situation, just using different strategies to make it bearable.
This is neither tragedy nor triumph—it's simply what it means to exist as conscious beings aware of our nature as nature itself. The validation isn't of any particular stance, but of the difficulty itself.
© 2025 Steve Young and YoungFamilyLife Ltd. All rights reserved.
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