What the Knife and Art Can Teach Us About the Phone and Tyranny

Analog creativity makes us human

Le Cheval de Troie. Henri-Paul Motte. 1874.

A primal truth—The knife is to man what the antler is to the elk and the fang to the wolf.

Animals are more physically robust than us because their bodies are their weapons: their antlers, canines, and claws are on them and constantly ready to be used. But if humans are caught unarmed with our soft hands and short teeth—alas for the featherless biped!

The better we became at crafting tools from wood and stone, the more these fundamentally human artifacts replaced what we now think of as non-human features. As tools made us more lethal, our muscles, bones, and teeth became more slender. We became lighter than both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus, who in turn were much lighter than the great apes.

Our unprecedented tool making ability was not only for hunting quadrupeds, but fighting off bipeds. We thus became “first-strike” creatures. The knife, spear, and rifle are weapons, it is true, but my sense is our first-strike tools are not limite…