With some help from bonobos, Heather Norum challenges the argument that male primates are violent by nature.
Men are violent. The media, society, school, and even my parents have all taught me this, so it must be right. They wouldn’t lie to me, and they couldn’t be wrong. Right? I mean, just look at all the apparent proof of it. Most convicted serial killers are men. Most convicted rapists are men. Domestic abuse? More men than women are convicted of that too.
I know a woman who works at a domestic abuse crisis center and without even realizing it she will talk about the victims as women and the abusers as men. She’ll be careful to use the term ‘abuser’ instead of ‘husband’ or ‘boyfriend,’ but somehow that abuser always ends up being a ‘he.’ She has been so socialized into thinking that men are violent, that without realizing it she has associated ‘abuser’ with ‘male.’ It doesn’t matter that the statistics used to show that more women are raped than men are flawed. She cannot see past her own belief that men are violent.
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Perhaps the most damning apparent evidence that men are violent is that it’s genetic. It’s the nail in the coffin: in primates, males are violent. It’s biological; it’s evolution. They can’t help it and we should fear them for it. Well I’m here to call bull-pucky on all of that, but especially the biological explanation. Not all species of primates have violent males, and I can prove it by introducing you to the bonobo.
Bonobos are a species of primate that live south of the Congo River. They are very closely related to the common chimpanzee, which live north of the river. The creation of the Congo River around 2 million years ago is probably what caused the separation of the bonobos from chimpanzees. The genus Pan (which chimps and bonobos are part of) split from the common ancestor it shares with the other great apes (and humans), and then split again into the common chimp, and the bonobo. While it is well known that the common chimp is our closest living relative; that title also applies to bonobos. I’ve provided a very simplistic illustration to help explain this relationship. I fully realize it is not a comprehensive depiction of the evolution of chimps, bonobos, or humans, but I hope it serves to help make it clearer.
My point in explaining how closely related we are to bonobos is to emphasize that in any discussion of how the great apes and humans are similar, we must include bonobos. If we assume that we can draw conclusions about human behaviour by observing the behaviour of the great apes, then that would apply to bonobos as much as it does to the common chimpanzee. In other words, if you’re going to argue men are violent because chimps males are violent, you have to take a look at bonobo males too.
Often when bonobos are discussed, they are used as an example of primates who are matriarchal, engage in homosexuality, and have females who engage in sex even when not fertile. The idea being that if bonobos do it, we can too! I would like to focus on bonobo males’ lack of aggression when compared to the common chimpanzee. To do that, I will discuss the nature of male aggression and violence in the common chimpanzee as a basis for comparison. So, on to the monkeys!
The common chimpanzee is known for living in very tight-knit groups who are very aggressive to outsiders. Groups of male chimpanzees will patrol their territory, attacking any outsiders who get too close. In fact, patrol parties from large communities have been recorded attacking, and conquering neighbouring small communities. They do this to gain greater access to food and females. Violence and aggression isn’t only directed toward outsiders. Even within a community male chimpanzees can be violent. Males kill unrelated infants in order cause females to become fertile again, allowing them to mate more often. Similarly, dominance struggles occur on a regular basis, in order to gain access to females. There’s no doubt about it; male chimpanzees are violent.
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So then, how do bonobos compare? Well for starters, males tend to be much more tolerant of infants. I am unaware of any record of males committing infanticide. If it happens, it isn’t common enough for researchers to have seen it and recorded it. When it comes to dealing with outsiders, bonobo males also appear to be less violent. There is no evidence that either male or female bonobos patrol their territory. What’s more, when individuals from different groups meet, they may groom each other and engage in sexual contact as a way to prevent conflict. This also isn’t to say that violence toward outsiders doesn’t ever occur. It just hasn’t been observed.
Within a community, bonobo males are far less aggressive than the common chimp. Bonobos, like chimpanzees, have a fission-fusion society. That means that members of a community will sleep and perform other social activities in large groups, sometimes upwards of 100 individuals, but will forage for food in smaller groups during part of the day. In chimpanzees, when the smaller groups come together at the end of the day the males reassert their place in the hierarchy by aggressive dominance displays. In bonobos, however, no such dominance displays occur. When the smaller groups of bonobos come together at the end of the day, they engage in sexual contact and grooming as a way to re-establish social bonds and avoid conflict. When conflicts do occur, both within a community and with outsiders, often they are solved without violence. Compared to the common chimpanzee, bonobos males are almost docile.
So, you may ask, what is the point to all this? We tend to lump all primates together when discussing how their behaviour can be used to explain human behaviour. We claim to be asking the question, ‘Are men violent?’ and then turn to the great apes, as a collective whole, for an answer. Except that’s disingenuous. What we actually do is assume men are violent, and then pick certain great apes to use as proof. We end up ignoring the evidence that shows that not all great ape males are violent, and more importantly, human men aren’t inherently violent either.
Two million years and a river separate bonobos from chimpanzees, and it resulted in completely different levels of male aggression. Imagine what the six million years and the world that separates humans from either of them could mean for supposedly biologically determined male aggression in humans. I think it means that using chimps as a biological basis for human behaviour is too simple. Humans are complex beings full of all sorts of emotions. Some days I think we may be more like chimps, with our wars and our violent crime. And some days I feel like we might be more like bonobos, solving conflicts by peaceful means.
More important than all of that, though, is what this means for the myth of male violence. We tell ourselves that men are violent and that we have all sorts of statistics and biological proof of that. Even though I know it is all false, I still hesitate for a moment when I see a strange man walking toward me on an empty street. For a moment it doesn’t matter that I know that men aren’t inherently violent; I’m worried that I might be wrong. It breeds fear, and fear so easily turns to hate. And if one half of the population fears and hates the other half, we won’t make any progress at all.
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Author’s Note: In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I am not an evolutionary biologist or a biological anthropologist. If you are interested in further reading I’d suggest the Wikipedia articles on bonobos and the common chimp (they’re well cited) and the book Primates in Perspective.
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photo: irene2005 / flickr
About HeatherN
Excellent point about not leaving out the bonobos when comparing humans to other primates. I suspect that one reason that bonobos are left out of many discussions is because of an American cultural propensity to be much more comfortable talking about violence than about sex. I would guess that 90% of the time if someone is talking about bonobos, the topic is homosexuality, masturbation, or recreational sex. The only things I heard about bonobos before this article have to do with their sex lives. I was thinking at the start of the article, “why is she talking about bonobos? Does everything on this site have to do with sex?”
I know nothing about chimpanzee sex, but I know that Jane Goodall discovered that they go to war and even eat other primates once in a while. Chimps are violent and act in movies, and bonobos have lots of sex. That’s the division you have to break through.
I know the article is about male violence, but I was wondering where male primate violence relates to violence in a species as a whole. I presume that female chimps are more violent than bonobo females. I find it hard to believe that a species’ violent streak is only found in the males of the species. That’s certainly not the case in Homo sapiens. Males in a primate society may be violent, but one could also say that the entire society is violent, with males more violent than females. As I recall, female chimps take part in ‘wars,’ and certainly take part in eating the baboons that chimps occasionally kill. When humans go to war against other humans, it’s the collectives themselves that go to war, not just the individuals, and not just the males. It’s hard to believe that female chimps never use violence of any kind against other adults or their own young.
If men are *convicted* of something more often than women are, that is not airtight evidence that men are actually more guilty at that rate. If the conviction rate was enough evidence by itself, then by that logic people of color in America are simply more violent than white people. That would be to ignore several other aggravating and mediating factors.
“I know nothing about chimpanzee sex, but I know that Jane Goodall discovered that they go to war and even eat other primates once in a while. Chimps are violent and act in movies, and bonobos have lots of sex. That’s the division you have to break through.” – part of that is also to do with the fact that there are just fewer bonobos out there. Also, bonobos weren’t discovered until fairly recently (the 1920s), so the custom of bringing chimps back from Africa had already taken hold. Though, obviously, not for movies. I definitely their sexual behavior is why I didn’t even hear about them until I got to university.
As for violence in female chimps: There’s this story I heard while at university about a group of female chimps that started patrolling (like the male chimps do). Only they were extremely aggressive, attacking pretty much anyone who came near them. (I can’t remember who it was that recorded this, or I’d tell you where to go to look it up. Sorry). Females have also been recorded killing infants, though it’s unclear whether that’s to do with female dominance struggles or because the female chimp sort of went insane (as much a chimp can). So yeah, female chimps are violent too.
The bonobo females form alliances and use sex to secure their place in the hierarchy. Also…they’re a heck of a lot less violent. I just didn’t really mention it to keep the article brief. They’re really my favorite primate of all time.
As for the term “convicted” – yeah I stressed using that term for each example to attempt to indicate exactly what you said about conviction vs actual guilt. My point was more that that is the information used to ‘prove’ that male violence was more common in humans than female violence. That is what I have been taught by my culture.
You said: “When humans go to war against other humans, it’s the collectives themselves that go to war, not just the individuals, and not just the males.”
Yeah I just want to be clear that the reason I refrained from talking much about female chimps, bonobos, or humans was to keep the article focused. Plus, if I were to talk about female bonobos I’d end up talking about how they’re matriarchal…and I wasn’t trying to focus on that aspect of their behavior. Plus…since it’s the Good Men Project, I figured I’d focus on the males.
But yeah, the collective does go to war. Just like, when we’re not at war it’s not because the females caused peace. It’s because as a collective, we’re at peace.
Hmm. So far all I am getting from this article is that humans are most like the chimps, and have lived in a similar fashion since so long ago that it is irrelevant if the set up was ever different. And and two women a week are killed by former/current partners. Sure, crime against men, like domestic violence and rape, are under-recorded. So is crime against women. Shame and guilt features just as much. Going to war as a collective – well, it is only relevant since women have received a right to vote, surely?…
You said “humans are most like the chimps,” – And I don’t think that’s what the article was saying. Or at least that’s not what I tried to say. I was trying to say that simply saying we’re more like chimps, or we’re more like bonobos is too simple. We’re like both of them. It’s just sometimes we may seem more chimp-like and sometimes we may seem more bonobo-like (anyone up for a Roman orgy? hahaha).
You said: “so long ago that it is irrelevant if the set up was ever different.” – This brings up an interesting point that I only touched on briefly of my article for the sake of keeping it short. So much time separates us from either chimps or bonobos, that we can’t really draw direct conclusions just by watching what bonobos and chimps do. Human behavior is a complicated mix of biology and culture – and I do think that studying other primates (like bonobos and chimps) can help us tease out what aspects of our behavior may be biological in origin. But you’re right, it’s not as simple as saying “bonobos are non-violent, therefore humans are non-violent.”
“Going to war as a collective – well, it is only relevant since women have received a right to vote, surely?”
This is another interesting point. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that (in fairly recent western history) women have always been apart of war, even if they weren’t the ones making the decision whether it would happen or not.
Plus, war is not something that’s voted on by the public – either the President sends people in (as what tends to happen now), or in the past Congress voted on it. So women having the right to vote (and men having the right to vote) only indirectly affected whether the US went to war. (I’m not exactly sure how other western countries declare war. Apologies).
Finally, war used to be viewed differently in the west. It was always seen as brutal and violent, but it was also romanticized to some degree. There weren’t large-scale protests against WWI, for example, even though the reasoning behind it wasn’t exactly the most noble.
When it comes to domestic violence woman are just as abusive as men. Woman abuse children more than me, yet we rightfully don’t generalise all woman as abuse and as violent, why does society do the same to men?
You said – “We rightfully don’t generalise all woman as abuse and as violent, why does society do the same to men?”
I think part of it is to do with fear of physical size, on average. (Though not directly related, it’s interesting that the difference in size between female and male bonobos is smaller than the difference in size between female and male chimps.) I think the assumption is that if a woman tries to harm a man, he could use his size to fight her off. If a man tries to hurt a woman, she won’t be able to physically fight him off. And that’s true, to some extent. I don’t mean to say that’s always true…but on average men are physically stronger and larger than women.
I think it’s also partly to do with the way (in western society) men aren’t supposed to have emotions. It’s difficult to see how someone could be peaceful and non-violent when they don’t show emotions. It makes it difficult to gauge their personality. I’m not saying that this is the fault of men…that’s the fault of society as a whole, really. You’ll notice that the bonobos replace a lot of the aggressive behavior of chimps with grooming (and sex). But the point is it’s about touching and intimacy (and for humans I’d say that intimacy doesn’t have to be sexual). If men are supposed to be stoic, and avoid physical contact with each other – then it can become difficult to see them as whole human beings.
Chimpanzees are actually unusually brutal for the great apes; the best analogue I see for human males is the silverback gorilla, who is calm, collected and a good leader, but will f*ck you up if you threaten him, his troop, or his kids.
True about chimps being brutal…I just hear humans compared to them often. Or rather, I hear people claim that all primates are violent and then point out the chimp as the most extreme example of an otherwise ‘universal’ trait. And seeing as that doesn’t work…I figured I’d point to their direct opposites.
As for human males being closer to gorilla males…maybe….although what you described is one ideal of a human man. It reflects the ideal of a human man as head of the household and protector of his family. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing. I’m just saying that the parallel between a gorilla male and a human man reflects a culturally created idea of what it means to be a man.
Also, our social structure certainly isn’t like the gorilla’s. (Not in western societies anyway). Our political structure reminds me more of a chimp (and bonobo) – a larger group that divides into smaller groups….and we make political alliances to help achieve our goals. We can be brutal in our fight for the top, or we can work together to figure out who our leaders will be.
Which isn’t to say that’s where our political structure came from. I just mean we can draw parallels between a lot of human behavior and other primates. It all depends on how you look at it.
Bonobos will get along just fine until the chimps want their territory, or want to eat them.
What we need is a referee. Big and mean enough that even the chimps have to back off. Then the bonobos will be okay.
What is it with this thing?
Most paleoanthropologists, looking for clues to early hominids–closer to being like us than are chimps or gorillas–look at the baboon troop for ideas of how various forms of hominid or early man may have lived. Not the forest apes.
See Robert Ardrey on the subject, “African Genesis”. Later work may have rearranged the lineage of H. Sap, and the Australopithecus. Basic concepts still seem valid.
I picked the chimp and the bonobo because they are our closest extant relatives. As such the chimp is often pointed to as the basis for comparison (by run-of-the-mill people), and the bonobo is largely ignored. I wanted to highlight that.
Also, I apologize if I did not make it clear in the article….but I wasn’t trying to say that humans are more like bonobos or chimps. I was just pointing out that if you’re going to compare humans to the other great apes, you need to include bonobos into the discussion.
Also, Ardrey’s “African Genesis” is from the 1960s, meaning there’s been a lot of work done in the field since then. I haven’t read it, and though I’m sure it still has valid points….it’s not exactly up-to-date. I have a copy of Primates in Perspective coming in the mail. I’ll see if it has anything to say about the baboon and get back to you. – would you like to give me a basic run-down of what Ardrey says about baboons?
As a side note, I find it very interesting that we have individually identified different species as being more similar to humans behaviourally. For Richard (and Ardrey) it’s the baboon. Evan pointed out some similarities between the gorilla and humans. I pointed out the bonobo. Many people look at the chimp and draw the conclusion that we’re like them.
I think we all have a tendency to look at the great apes and anthropomorphize them a bit. We see traits that we recognize in human behavior and then we draw the conclusion that is where the human behavior came from.
I would say wolves are more similar behaviourally to us then any of the great apes.
A lot of biologists would agree, or at least recognize the wolf as a model for the type of adaptation required to exploit the ecological niche that human’s exploited.
One of the most important things that recommends wolves as a behavioural model for humans is the fact that they exhibit pair bonding. Like we do.
Also the bonobo reputation for peacefulness may be greatly exaggerated.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3353342/Bonobos-not-all-peace-and-free-love.html
From what I’ve read, the idea that bonobos aren’t as peaceful as they seem comes from observations of them in captivity. But it’s also been suggested that the reason bonobos become more aggressive in captivity is because of the way food is regulated.
But yeah as for them hunting other monkeys and so on, so thanks for pointing out that article. I didn’t mean to suggest bonobos are completely peaceful. It’s just difficult to examine all the details in an article without it becoming boring. I mostly just wanted to highlight that they had peaceful interactions with each other. – Also, I think it’s very interesting that they noted that females were involved in the hunting. Just adds more color to the discussions. Thanks for bringing it up.
“But yeah as for them hunting other monkeys and so on, so thanks for pointing out that article. I didn’t mean to suggest bonobos are completely peaceful.”
Prior to research like Jane Goodall’s, scientists and laypeople stereotyped the common chimpanzee as being “completely peaceful” and living in some communal utopia, uncorrupted by violence. Now that those romanticized portraits about common chimpanzees are dashed, it seems that we have transferred those notions to bonobos.
” I mostly just wanted to highlight that they had peaceful interactions with each other.”
Okay, so what then? Common chimpanzees have peaceful interactions with each other. And they also have violent interactions with each other. Lots of mammals have peaceful interactions with members of their own species at some point. Lions, hyenas, wolves, elephants have peaceful interactions. And they also have violent interactions.
Interesting point about wolves. I hadn’t heard that before. Although, I do have to ask, when you say ‘pair bonding’ are you referring to monogamy? Because that’s not a universal human trait.
>Because that’s not a universal human trait.
Pair-bonding is social monogamy which is distinct from genetic monogamy. Humans are socially monogamous.
Like other socially monogamous animals, males go through hormonal changes when their mate is pregnant(once it’s in our hormonal profile that makes it about as universal a trait as you can get). Although there still is extra-pair sex, humans _do_ pair bond. (In fact our genetic monogamy is fairly high at 90%.)
Ah, okay. I misunderstood what you were saying. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t suggesting that all human societies were arranged with pair-based monogamous relationships. That’s all.
Actually, H. Sap is most like H. Sap.
Watched some gorillas at a zoo. The Old Man was sitting on the side of a hill while the keeper pitched grapefruits toward him. The Old Man ate them. Number two was wandering around, at a distance. When a graprefruit went wide, The Old Man would turn his head and look at Number Two, or at least vaguely in his direction. Number Two wouldn’t get near the grapefruit. At some point, he’d been schooled pretty well.
The paleoanthropologists usuall don’t say we’re like this or that great ape. After all, when one of them figures out a way to use a stick, we want to give him the Nobel Prize for science. What they say is that they think our ancestors lived on the savannah and the apes currently living on the savannah are the baboons and so the baboon lifestyle might hold clues to early hominid lifestyle. Which would be useful.
There have been changes since Ardrey wrote in which led to what and so his views that, since A. Africanus did such and such, we inherited the such and such might be wrong. On the other hand, we might change our view of the sequence back. In any event, somebody did the things that got us here. And they did them for a million years. At least.
Given no interference, chimps will probably run out the bonobos, or eat them, in what is considered short order in such business. But at least the bonbos will be remembered as peaceful.
“Actually, H. Sap is most like H. Sap.” – Yes! This! Exactly this! This is part of what I’m trying to say with my article. We can’t point to one primate and say humans are more like that….because humans aren’t chimps, or bonobos, or gorillas…..they’re humans.
I know that biological anthropologists don’t suggest our behavior is more like one ape or another…but this wasn’t directed at them. This was directed at the general population…which does often say “oh men are violent, just look at chimps.” Now, as to whether baboons could indicate how early hominids lived due to them being in the savannah…well yes, maybe…I could see the validity in that. But I can see a problem too, and that is that early hominids weren’t necessarily filling the same niche as baboons. Also, early hominids developed their intellect, and so their actions wouldn’t necessarily reflect the behavior of a less-intelligent species (baboons).
As to your final thing…there’s a river between them. Neither species likes to swim. Unless that river disappears, they aren’t ever going to meet. And, as typhonblue pointed out, it’s not as if bonobos don’t hunt. They aren’t all flowers and cupcakes….they’re just not as violent and aggressive toward each other.
Heather
It appears bonobos are as violent as they need to be. They’re smaller than chimps. Do you think bonobos have always been only on one side of the river? Maybe this is their last refuge. What if somebody builds a bridge? As I said, we need a badass referee to keep the two apart so the bonobos can be an example to the perpetually adolescent flower children.
Which, of course, is a metaphor for human history.
“Do you think bonobos have always been only on one side of the river?” – Yes, actually. It is thought they evolved on that side of the river.
“This was directed at the general population…which does often say ‘oh men are violent, just look at chimps.’ ”
Okay, then. By invoking the bonobo, what are you suggesting? That because there is an apparently less violent ape species, then that definitively proves that violence in humans has absolutely no genetic basis? At all? Ever?
Lots of scientists like Stephen Pinker or Richard Dawkins, who believe that genetics has a contribution for violent behavior in humans, hominids and apes, do not think that violence is necessarily inevitable, inexorable or excusable. Violence is just one of the many capacities and predispositions that we have, along with the capacities for empathy, bonding, and cooperation, etc.
“Violence is just one of the many capacities and predispositions that we have, along with the capacities for empathy, bonding, and cooperation, etc.”
That is actually my point. I may not have articulated it well enough, but that is what I am trying to say. Pointing to a chimp and saying ‘it’s violent’ and then saying that proves human men are violent is too simple. I think the problem is that people are looking in the article for me to be trying to prove something. I’m not. I’m trying foster the idea that because bonobos have been recorded as being more peaceful, it suggests that the common preconception that all primate males are violent is false. I’m saying that humans are complex.
Again, the bonobo’s ‘peace-loving’ reputation may just be a myth:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/30/070730fa_fact_parker?currentPage=all
Bonobo are probably no more or less violent then chimpanzees, both of which are far, far, FAR more violent then humans.
If you absolutely need to have a ‘peace and love’ ape, then it’s us. Yes, we have war, but in other species most of their mortality is due to territorial aggression within the same species. You can’t say that for humans.
Again, I think for some reason my article is being a little misunderstood. Possibly because I kept it simple to keep it short. But the link you provided isn’t going against what I’m saying. I’m not saying bonobos are a ‘peace and love’ ape. I deliberately avoided that term, as well as the term ‘make love, not war.’ You’ll note that when I mention infanticide hasn’t been recorded, I mention that it could still happen…it just hasn’t been recorded. Same with other aspects of their behavior.
I’m saying, what has been observed is that they are _more_ peaceful than chimps. And that chimps are really quite brutal. And I’m pointing out that if two species from the same genus can be so different, then humans and the other great apes are also quite different. I was trying to use bonobos and chimps to point out that drawing a direct conclusion from the behavior of an ape to the behavior of humans doesn’t work.
Point of clarification: Based on some of the comments, I think I may not have been clear. I am not trying to prove anything. It might sound odd, but it’s true. I’m not trying to prove that humans are like bonobos. I’m not trying to prove that bonobos are a “make love, not war,” primate species. I was trying to challenge the preconception that all primate males are violent. I was trying to challenge the idea that humans are like chimps. I was trying to point out that, while some understanding of human behavior can be gleaned from observing other primates, you can’t draw direct conclusions.
We are complex creatures whose behavior is determined by biology, culture, and personal agency. Now if I didn’t make that clear in the article, that’s on me. But I hope this serves to clear a few things up.
All primate males are violent in certain circumstances. Some are more so than others. Inside the western civilization cocoon, it may seem those circumstances are gone with the bad old days. Long as you outsource it to cops and soldiers and avert your eyes.
So bonobos are more or less violent than other primates….
Okay I’m trying to avoid responding on a personal level…but it’s a bit difficult. Again, Richard, you are presuming to know what my perspective is based on a few conversations. So let me rephrase a few things that you said to better fit the way I see things.
All primate males and females are violent in certain circumstances. Some (such as chimps) more than others (such as bonobos). From my western civilization “cocoon” (that includes spending time in the Middle East and eastern Europe, as well as time studying cultures that most certainly do not qualify as part of this ‘western civilization cocoon,’)…it seems as though those circumstances in which violence is necessary are not gone, just not as prevalent in modern western every-day life. Often cops (such as my father who was always quite open about what his job entailed, even with his two daughters), and soldiers are the ones who confront it head-on.
That still doesn’t mean that men are biologically programmed to be violent, anymore than my article means that men are biologically programmed to be peaceful.
Heather. How do you know men are not biologically programmed to be violent?
It’s actually not a useful concept, because being biologically programmed to be violent would seem to mean that’s what the guy does 24-7.
What we have is people programmed to be violent when that seems as if it’s their best option under the circumstances. The circumstances vary. You’re a Viking on a slave-raid. You’re a Slav facing the Vikings. You’ve been attacked. The next country has lebensraum and doesn’t want to give it up. You have lebensraum and don’t want to be massacred so the country next door can have your land. Nothing’s happening.
When people say others are “unnecessarily violent”, they ought to mean that somebody missed an easier way to accomplish his goal. What they usually mean is that the guy’s goal was icky and we certainly wouldn’t want it and he shouldn’t have wanted it and so using violence to get it was “unnecessary”.
If we say primates are programmed to use violence when it seems appropriate–to them–we cover all the bases. In other words, it’s one of our tools. Pick it up, put it down. Being human, with less powerful instincts than other animals, we can resist or channel or modify the urge to violence. But when the other guy goes to trump, we still have the choice.
” How do you know men are not biologically programmed to be violent?” – You caught me out on my use of the English language. My last sentence in the previous comment should have been written more like this: This still doesn’t mean that men are biologically programmed to be more violent than women (or other primates), anymore than my article means that men are biologically programmed to be more peaceful than women (or other primates).
“If we say primates are programmed to use violence when it seems appropriate–to them–we cover all the bases.” – ah yes, but I think different primates have different circumstances for when violence is appropriate. As humans, we are able to use logic and reason, along with our emotions, cultural values, moral values, and biological “programming” (for lack of a better term). We can use all these things to determine when violence is a necessary response.
Which is where my article comes back in – which was to say that we cannot blame violence on men. We cannot turn to examples of violence in chimps and try to draw a direct comparison to violence in humans. As a society we assume that men are violent, until they prove that they aren’t. There are many reasons for this…partly from fear, partly from all of the statistics we hear about….and partly because we realized the chimp is so violent and have used it as a direct parallel to humans. (Not done by modern biological anthropologists….but in the popular conscious, at least in my experience). And so I introduced the bonobo as a way to say….re-think your preconceptions about whether men are more violent than women.
In our society, men are programmed to have violence as an option, presuming they think the circumstances call for it.
Where one man differs from another is in his judgment of the circumstances.
Read of one Neolithic cemetery where half the skeletons showed signs of violence. Didn’t show who died bleeding out or who died of infection, peritonitis after a belly wound, for example, so there had to be more than half of the folks subject to serious or fatal violence.
Different judgements of different circs.
Yes! Yes! Perhaps the one thing I was trying to “prove” with this is that humans are not confined to their biology. So drawing direct parallels to either bonobos or chimps is not possible. We can’t use one primate to prove the behavior in another primate is genetic. Humans use their intellect to determine when violence is necessary. (Although there are outliers where people commit violent crimes and use violence as a weapon).
But see here’s where I’d alter what you said a bit: In our society, men and women are programmed to have violence as an option, presuming they think the circumstances call for it.
Our society tends to see violence as being something men use more than women…or worse, view violence as something that is inherently masculine. And it happens from when they are children…how many times have you heard a mother look at her two boys horsing around and say, “boys will be boys.” All the time. But it’s not that girls don’t play-fight too…it’s just not tolerated. And then once we grow up we take that a step further – we assume all men will be violent, and then society fears them.
Boys horsing around isn’t violence.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violence
I once watched a pile of boys wrestling around and mentioned to a woman nearby that this was the primate at play. She sniffed and said,”The male primate.” I pretended to look more closely. “Yeah. I don’t see anybody knifing the absent.”
She was not amused.
Good article on the decline of violence: http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violence
Men are expected to be more violent than women. Somebody has to be when the circumstances call for it. What, you want the cheerleaders out in front?
No boys (or girls) horsing around isn’t violence. That was not the best example I could have given…but it was later in the evening.
But my point in using that example (bad though it may be) is to highlight that society expects men to be more violent than women, which you agree with. But see, I see that expectation as a bad thing. When a society expects one half of it’s population to be violent, it can fear them. And that is most certainly not a good thing.
Again Richard we are at the point where we probably won’t get much further in the discussion. So I’m going to try something else, and ask you a couple questions. Do you think men commit more violent crimes than women? (Not get convicted more, but actually commit them more)? Do you think men commit rape and domestic abuse more often than women?
I agree that this debate would be more properly framed as a nature versus nurture discussion. The majority of human collectives are patriarchal in nature. The burden of survival of the group as a whole is placed more squarely on the shoulders of the males- ensuring a propensity for violent behavior which is largely vestigial in our current technology-driven societies. But these urges are still there and need expression of some form- and they are. Usually unfortunately. I would be interested in seeing what became of individual chimps and bonobos fostered from birth in the others’ encampments.
Well it’s thought that the reason bonobos are more peaceful because they evolved in an environment where food was more abundant. (Exactly how much more peaceful is debatable as we’ve discussed).