Sorry, We Can’t Help Ourselves, It’s in Our DNA
Really
Actual cover of Forbes Magazine February-March 2025 edition
“Fighting Is In Our DNA as Human Beings” – Dana White
So says Dana White, the President and CEO of the UFC – the Ultimate Fighting Championship or, as Forbes puts it, Lord of the Octagon.
But it begs the question, is Mr. White correct?
Is fighting in all of our DNA? Like having blue eyes, short curly hair, or one big toe 20% larger than the other?
Do men and women step into the Octagon to pummel each other into unconsciousness solely because there is some chemical reaction happening in our bodies that prompts us to raise our fists and feet and strike another human being?
The same “chemical motivation” we rely on to survive in the wild, reproduce, or pick up a guitar and start writing folk songs?
Or is it an overly simplistic and self-serving statement that justifies humans brutalizing other humans to generate corporate profits?
Because it’s hard to deny that humans do like to be entertained.
Whether it’s gladiatorial combat in the old Roman Coliseum tradition or watching 4 ½ hours of the Oscars on a Sunday night once a year, humans are loath to do nothing. We need distractions.
The Aztecs played a ballgame called “ōllamaliztli" that, under certain conditions, ended with the losing team’s leader being beheaded.
Nice. No World Series or World Cup here, just a quiet journey to the top of the pyramid and a quick goodbye.
We invented Ruby in the pastoral fields of England, which eventually became football in America (NFL), which could lay claim to producing more concussions over the past 100 years than all falling coconuts did in the past two millennia.
But is it in our DNA?
The coding that makes us who we are and, in many ways, what we are on a daily basis. Do we not have a say in the matter as in, no, not today? I think I’ll go plant a tree instead.
And if it is, even just a little bit, why do we focus on it?
Are humans normally that antagonistic to one another that in many cases, the only solution to a problem is getting in another’s face or pounding them into submission?
A hereditary, involuntary reaction or a learned experience?
By this logic, wouldn’t compassion be in our DNA as well?
Nurturing another. Music and the Arts?
And what about love? surely, love is in our DNA and has been forever, which is one reason there are over 8 billion of us, not counting every other species on Earth.
But instead of having the Love Games and celebrating Mankind’s best behaviors, we have Porn.
So maybe Mr. White has a valid point. We can’t help ourselves.
After all, who would sit in front of an 88” TV screen for two hours watching a barn being erected?
Or a demonstration of a new stitch that’ll make your next sweater easier to knit.
Probably all of 27 people, right?
But if they started fighting with those knitting needles or through a series of carefully crafted tests and viewer-voting decided who would be the first to be thrown off the top of the barn, then maybe people would watch in large numbers.
And that would be sad, wouldn’t it? Proving Mr. White’s theory correct and inevitable.
After all, we turned the act of driving a car into a Demolition Derby on Friday nights and eventually into NASCAR, where bumping other cars at 180 MPH has become a fun add-on to driving in circles.
We also turned an emotional reaction into Power Slap, where contestants, both male and female, are allowed to haul off and slap their opponent into the I/C Unit, all for prize money and bragging rights at the local pub. Also founded by Mr. Dana White.
Is it in our DNA?
Or in our marketing?
People have hunted other animals since the dawn of time to survive. But stuffing their heads and mounting them on a wall – is that need or vanity?
You decide.
Fighting may or may not be in our DNA, but survival is. We’ll defend ourselves and loved ones against an attack, sure.
But when’s the last time you walked unannounced into a total stranger’s house and started a fight?
Unless, of course, it was in an eight-sided ring with 6000 people watching.
Done through ChatGPT Image Generator