Ever since we discovered the existence of dinosaurs, there’s been a subset of the population, and not just children, whose fascination with them and admiration for them should have warned us, decades ago, of the particular future we find ourselves in now. Brawn is a word not often used in the new vocabulary of our time, yet it is more and more at the root of our behavior. We have many words for thinkers: brainy, genius, intellectual, smarty pants, bright, precocious to name a few, and in our current social climate they sound like insults. Brawn, on the other hand? The dictionary serves up a dish of culinary possibilities: meat from a pig’s or calf’s head that is cooked and pressed in a pot with jelly; the fleshy part of the leg; the flesh of a boar. Brawn belongs in the kitchen, it seems, a thing to quell the appetites of lumberjacks, Vikings and Caligula’s army.
We, meaning all of us humans, used to live a pretty rough life. We’d wake up, dress in our furs and go out and run after some meat on the hoof. Or we’d get our digging sticks and walk out into the bush looking for tubers. In summer and fall we’d chase after berries and fruits, and more flesh on the hoof. We did a lot of running, a lot of quick reacting, a lot of gathering, and we didn’t live long. Brawn, in the sense of physical power, was essential to our survival. Certain kinds of intelligence were as well, but when it came right down to who would eat and whose shelter would stand up to harsh winds and heavy snows, physicality was key. Physical strength won the day. Then memory, a tool of intelligence, began to play a role in survival. Remembering where the good hunting was from year to year; keeping track of where food was cached; recalling the vulnerabilities of our enemies. Our brains got bigger because we needed them more. We were no longer just bodies on the run; we began to think.
Even the larger dinosaurs had brains no bigger than a Brussels sprout. There’s a dinosaur skeleton in the Museum of Northern Arizona here in town, and whenever I go there I stop for a while just to watch the kids stare up at it in amazement. Why is it that kids are so fond of dinosaurs and know every one by name? My great-nephew Julian just turned four and his love affair with the “terrible lizards” has lasted half his life and still seems to be going strong. He informed me the other day that some dinosaurs have 500 teeth and there’s an extinct lizard named after a former president, the Obamadon. (It’s true.) Another bit of arcane knowledge is that 120 years ago the Brontosaurus, familiar to us as Dino, Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s pet dinosaur, was renamed Apatosaurus (among scientists, but not among Flintstones fans) and only regained its original name in 2015.
Upheaval, division, name-calling. Dinosaurs are not without their troubles. Small brains don’t necessarily beget small minds, but bigger brains are useful for thinking ahead and thinking outside the box, as well as knowing when to think inside the box. Creativity is a feature of brains that have room for more than daily survival. Even Julian would admit that among the dinosaurs there were no Einsteins or Picassos, no Madame Curies or Toni Morrisons. Had there been, the changing climate on Earth would have posed a conundrum, as it does now, but not necessarily an insoluble one, and the crisis of a chillier planet would have been recorded and preserved in the writings and songs of the terrible lizards.
It’s mostly children who wish the dinosaurs back again. No past is without its regrets. But I’m going to suggest they areback again. Not Jurassic Park style, but in a more subtle and dangerous way. It all goes back to brawn. Remember brawn? We are living in the Age of Brawn. It is with our bodies not our brains that we humans are going about the business of settling scores. And though we are ever aware of the top predator of our neighborhood, our country, our continent, we can no longer scamper out of the way of conflict; there is no longer a place to hide. Our halls of refuge are closing their doors while at the same time eschewing meaningful forms of conversation. Mediation is largely gone. The voices of wise counsel are muffled. Dissent is beginning to take its place beside the clamor of the wealthy for more and more and more, but it’s rusty; its voice is just warming up, singing scales, preparing. And in many places it is met with bullets. Here in this country we are not strangers to peaceful protest met with bullets.
Dinosaurs. Brawn with the backing of money. A good brain sits in almost every human head but whether to use it for benefit or harm is our human legacy, responsibility and inevitable choice. The pendulum is swinging. Even as the Earth warms, an Ice Age is growing around us, freezing the hearts of those who consider themselves powerful. A lesson from the dinosaurs, all you purveyors of brawn: The cold will kill you. Only the small and warm-blooded will survive this change in the weather.
