The idea that man is a wolf to man is quite rooted in the western world and used to define and understand the hatred and destructive tendencies of human beings on other human beings.

The sentence holds some true, it would be naif to deny this. But we must not forget that the phrase was coined by 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who was born and lived in a very particular sociocultural context, England, which is in another particular geographical and sociocultural context, Europe. It is quite common for Europeans to take a single phrase or popular saying and extend it to the rest of the world, as if the whole world had exactly the same beliefs and the same conceptualisations of animals to describe human behaviour. Thinking of wolves in such negative terms actually tells more of human behaviour than of wolves themselves. It is not surprising that thomas Hobbes coined this phrase as he lived at an age of convulsion and his perception of reality (and therefore of human kind and the world) was heavily conditioned by what he physically saw. But to make these sweeping statements about human beings on the grounds of what a particular culture claims to be true is adventurous and innacurate.

It is known that wolves were very much respected among native american tribes. Not that they were not afraid of wolves, but their ancestral coexistence with him had developed bonds of respect and a profound knowledge of wolves. Many native american tribes praise wolves for their family devotion and their capacity to act united in packs.

Recent developments in neuroscience and cognitive psychology shed a new light on the nature of men. They don't deny that man has a capacity for destruction, they have dicovered that actually teh drive for cooperation and empathy is stronger. We could say that humans have both tendencies for destruction and hatred, and for empathy and cooperation. That one or the other manifests more clearly in certain societies depends on the soiocultural context. That is to say, a society governed by a socio-cultural or economic framework that prioritises selfishness will probably have a larger number of individuals where mistrust and fear lead to a higher level of violence, minimising the tnedencies to cooperation and kindness. On the contrary, a society or culture that places more stress on cooperation and solidarity will probably have more individuals reflecting those characteristics, minimising tendencies to hate and violence.