THE TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE

One of the things that is inherited genetically is the sense of territory. Robert Ardrey has written a fascinating book, The Territorial Imperative, in which he traces this territorial

sense through the animal kingdom and into the human. In his book he discusses the staking out and guarding of territories by animals, birds, deer, fish and primates. For some species the territories are temporary, shifting with each season. For other animal species they are permanent. Ardrey makes an interesting case for the fact that, in his belief, ' the territorial nature of man is genetic and ineradicable'. From his extensive animal studies he describes an innate code of behaviour in the animal world that ties sexual reproduction to territorial defence. The key to the code, he believes, is territory, and the territorial imperative is the drive in animals and in men to take, hold and defend a given area.

There may be a drive in all men to have and defend a territory, and it may well be that a good part of that drive is inborn. However, we cannot always interpolate from humans to animals and from animals to humans. The territorial imperative may exist in all animals and in some men. It may be strengthened by culture in some of these men and weakened in still others. But there is little doubt that there is some territorial need in humans. How imperative it is remains to be seen. One of the most frightening plays of modern times is Home, by Megan Terry. It postulates a world of the future where the population explosion has caused all notion of territory to be discarded. All men live in cells in a gigantic metal hive .enclosing the entire planet. They live out their lives, whole families confined to one room, without ever seeing sky or earth or another cell. In this prophetic horror story, territory has been completely abolished. Perhaps this gives the play its great impact. In our modern cities we seem to be moving towards the abolition of territory. We find families crammed and boxed into rooms that are stacked one on another to dizzying heights. We ride elevators pressed together, and subway trains, packed in too tightly to move our arms or legs. We have yet to fully understand what happens to man when he is deprived of all territorial rights. We know man has a sense of territory, a need for a shell of territory around him. This varies from the tight close shell of the city dweller through the larger bubble of yard and home in the suburbanite to the wide open spaces the countryman enjoys.