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1Apes in the Family
2One can take the ape out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the ape.
3This also applies to us, bipedal apes. Ever since our ancestors swung from
4tree to tree, life in small groups has been an obsession of ours. We can’t get
5enough of politicians thumping their chests on television, soap opera stars who
6swing from tryst to tryst, and reality shows about who’s in and who’s out. It
7would be easy to make fun of all this primate behavior if not for the fact that our
8fellow simians take the pursuit of power and sex just as seriously as we do.
9We share more with them than power and sex, though. Fellow-feeling and
10empathy are equally important, but they’re rarely mentioned as part of our
11biological heritage. We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like
12in ourselves than credit it for what we do like. As Katharine Hepburn famously
13put it in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world
14to rise above.”
15This opinion is still very much with us. Of the millions of pages written over
16the centuries about human nature, none are as bleak as those of the last three
17decades—and none as wrong. We hear that we have selfish genes, that human
18goodness is a sham, and that we act morally only to impress others. But if all that
19people care about is their own good, why does a day-old baby cry when it hears
20another baby cry? This is how empathy starts. Not very sophisticated perhaps,
21but we can be sure that a newborn doesn’t try to impress. We are born with
22impulses that draw us to others and that later in life make us care about them.
23The old age of these impulses is evident from the behavior of our primate
24relatives. Truly remarkable is the bonobo, a little-known ape that is as close to us
25genetically as the chimpanzee. When a bonobo named Kuni saw a starling hit the
26glass of her enclosure at the Twycross Zoo in Great Britain, she went to comfort
27it. Picking up the stunned bird, Kuni gently set it on its feet. When it failed to
28move, she threw it a little, but the bird just fluttered. With the starling in hand,
29Kuni then climbed to the top of the tallest tree, wrapping her legs around the
30trunk so that she had both hands free to hold the bird. She carefully unfolded its
31wings and spread them wide, holding one wing between the fingers of each
32hand, before sending the bird like a little toy airplane out toward the barrier of
33her enclosure. But the bird fell short of freedom and landed on the bank of the
34moat. Kuni climbed down and stood watch over the starling for a long time,
35protecting it against a curious juvenile. By the end of the day, the recovered bird
36had flown off safely.
37The way Kuni handled this bird was unlike anything she would have done to
38aid another ape. Instead of following some hardwired pattern of behavior, she
39tailored her assistance to the specific situation of an animal totally different from
40herself. The birds passing by her enclosure must have given her an idea of what
41help was needed. This kind of empathy is almost unheard of in animals since it
42rests on the ability to imagine the circumstances of another. Adam Smith, the
43pioneering economist, must have had actions like Kuni’s in mind (though not
44performed by an ape) when, more than two centuries ago, he offered us the most
45enduring definition of empathy as “changing places in fancy with the sufferer.”
46The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to make us
47happy, but we’re not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people commit
48genocide, we call them “animals.” But when they give to the poor, we praise
49them for being “humane.” We like to claim the latter behavior for ourselves. It
50wasn’t until an ape saved a member of our own species that there was a public
51awakening to the possibility of nonhuman humaneness. This happened on
52August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped
53a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate exhibit at
54Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo. Reacting immediately, Binti scooped up the boy and
55carried him to safety. She sat down on a log in a stream, cradling the boy in her
56lap, giving him a few gentle back pats before taking him to the waiting zoo staff.
57This simple act of sympathy, captured on video and shown around the world,
58touched many hearts, and Binti was hailed as a heroine. It was the first time in
59U.S. history that an ape figured in the speeches of leading politicians, who held
60her up as a model of compassion.
61THE HUMAN JANUS HEAD
62That Binti’s behavior caused such surprise among humans says a lot about the
63way animals are depicted in the media. She really did nothing unusual, or at least
64nothing an ape wouldn’t do for any juvenile of her own species. While recent
65nature documentaries focus on ferocious beasts (or the macho men who wrestle
66them to the ground), I think it’s vital to convey the true breadth and depth of our
67connection with nature. This book explores the fascinating and frightening
68parallels between primate behavior and our own, with equal regard for the good,
69the bad, and the ugly.
70We are blessed with two close primate relatives to study, and they are as
71different as night and day. One is a gruff-looking, ambitious character with
72anger-management issues. The other is an egalitarian proponent of a free-spirited
73lifestyle. Everyone has heard of the chimpanzee, known to science since the
74seventeenth century. Its hierarchical and murderous behavior has inspired the
75common view of humans as “killer apes.” It’s our biological destiny, some
76scientists say, to grab power by vanquishing others and to wage war into
77perpetuity. I have witnessed enough bloodshed among chimpanzees to agree that
78they have a violent streak. But we shouldn’t ignore our other close relative, the
79bonobo, discovered only last century. Bonobos are a happy-go-lucky bunch with
80healthy sexual appetites. Peaceful by nature, they belie the notion that ours is a
81purely bloodthirsty lineage.
82It is empathy that allows bonobos to understand each other’s needs and
83desires and to help achieve them. When the two-year-old daughter of a bonobo
84named Linda whimpered at her mother with pouted lips, it meant that she wanted
85to nurse. But this infant had been in the San Diego Zoo’s nursery and was
86returned to the group long after Linda’s milk had dried up. The mother
87understood, though, and went to the fountain to suck her mouth full of water.
88She then sat in front of her daughter and puckered her lips so that the infant
89could drink from them. Linda repeated her trip to the fountain three times until
90her daughter was satisfied.
91We adore such behavior—which is itself a case of empathy. But the same
92capacity to understand others also makes it possible to hurt them deliberately.
93Both sympathy and cruelty rely on the ability to imagine how one’s own
94behavior affects others. Small-brained animals, such as sharks, certainly can hurt
95others, but they do so without the slightest idea of what others may feel. The
96brains of apes, on the other hand, are one-third the size of ours, making them
97sufficiently complex for cruelty. Like boys throwing rocks at ducks in a pond,
98apes sometimes inflict pain for fun. In one game, juvenile lab chimpanzees
99enticed chickens behind a fence with bread crumbs. Each time the gullible
100chickens approached, the chimps hit them with a stick or poked them with a
101sharp piece of wire. This Tantalus game, which the chickens were stupid enough
102to play along with (although we can be sure it was no game to them), was
103invented by the chimps to fight boredom. They refined it to the point that one
104ape would be the baiter, another the hit man.
105Apes are so like us that they’re known as “anthropoids,” from the Latin for
106“humanlike.” To have two close relations with strikingly different societies is
107extraordinarily instructive. The power-hungry and brutal chimp contrasts with
108the peace-loving and erotic bonobo—a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Our
109own nature is an uneasy marriage of the two. Our dark side is painfully obvious:
110An estimated 160 million people in the twentieth century alone lost their lives to
111war, genocide, and political oppression—all due to the human capacity for
112brutality. Even more chilling than such incomprehensible numbers are more
113personal expressions of human cruelty, such as the appalling incident in a small
114Texas town in 1998 in which three white men offered a forty-nine-year-old black
115man a ride. Instead of taking him home, they drove him to a deserted spot and
116beat him, then tied him to their truck and dragged him several miles along an
117asphalt road, tearing off his head and right arm.
118We are capable of such savagery despite, or perhaps precisely because of,
119our ability to imagine what others feel. On the other hand, when that same ability
120is combined with a positive attitude, it prompts us to send food to starving
121people, make valiant efforts to rescue complete strangers (such as during
122earthquakes and fires), cry when someone tells a sad story, or join a search party
123when a neighbor’s child is missing. With both cruel and compassionate sides, we
124stand in the world like a Janus head, our two faces looking in opposite
125directions. This can confuse us to the point that we sometimes oversimplify who
126we are. We either claim to be the “crown of creation” or depict ourselves as the
127only true villains.
128Why not accept that we are both? These two aspects of our species
129correspond to those of our closest living relatives. The chimpanzee demonstrates
130the violent side of human nature so well that few scientists write about any other
131side at all. But we are also intensely social creatures who rely on one another and
132actually need interaction with other people to lead sane and happy lives. Next to
133death, solitary confinement is our most extreme punishment. Our bodies and
134minds are not designed for lonely lives. We become hopelessly depressed in the
135absence of human company, and our health deteriorates. In one recent medical
136study, healthy volunteers exposed to cold and flu viruses got sick more easily if
137they had fewer friends and family around them.
138This need for connection is naturally understood by women. In mammals,
139parental care cannot be separated from lactation. During the 180 million years of
140mammalian evolution, females who responded to their offspring’s needs
141outreproduced those who were cold and distant. Having descended from a long
142line of mothers who nursed, fed, cleaned, carried, comforted, and defended their
143young, we should not be surprised by gender differences in human empathy.
144They appear well before socialization: The first sign of empathy—crying when
145another baby cries—is already more typical in girl babies than boy babies. And
146later in life empathy remains more developed in females than in males. This is
147not to say that men lack empathy or don’t need to connect with others, but they
148seek it more from women than from other men. A long-term relationship with a
149woman, such as marriage, is the most effective way for a man to add years to his
150life. The flip side of this picture is autism—an empathy disorder that keeps us
151from connecting with others—which is four times more common in males than
152females.
153The empathic bonobos regularly put themselves into someone else’s shoes.
154At the Georgia State University Language Research Center in Atlanta, a bonobo
155called Kanzi has been trained to communicate with people. He has become a
156bonobo celebrity, known for his fabulous understanding of spoken English.
157Realizing that some of his fellow apes do not have the same training, Kanzi
158occasionally adopts the role of teacher. He once sat next to Tamuli, a younger
159sister who has had minimal exposure to human speech, while a researcher tried
160to get Tamuli to respond to simple verbal requests; the untrained bonobo didn’t
161respond. As the researcher addressed Tamuli, it was Kanzi who began to act out
162the meanings. When Tamuli was asked to groom Kanzi, he took her hand and
163placed it under his chin, squeezing it between his chin and chest. In this position,
164Kanzi stared into Tamuli’s eyes with what people interpreted as a questioning
165gaze. When Kanzi repeated the action, the young female rested her fingers on his
166chest as if wondering what to do.
167Kanzi understands perfectly well whether commands are intended for him or
168for others. He was not carrying out a command intended for Tamuli—he actually
169tried to make her understand. Kanzi’s sensitivity to his sister’s lack of
170knowledge, and his kindness in teaching her, suggest a level of empathy found,
171as far as we know, only in humans and apes.
172WHAT’S IN A NAME?
173In 1978, I first saw bonobos up close at a Dutch zoo. The label on the cage
174identified them as “pygmy chimpanzees,” implying they were just a smaller
175version of their better-known cousins. But nothing could be further from the
176truth.
177A bonobo is physically as different from a chimpanzee as a Concorde is
178from a Boeing 747. Even chimps would have to admit that the bonobo has more
179style. A bonobo’s body is graceful and elegant, with piano-player hands and a
180relatively small head. The bonobo has a flatter, more open face with a higher
181forehead than the chimpanzee. A bonobo’s face is black, its lips are pink, its ears
182small, and its nostrils wide. Females have breasts; they are not as prominent as in
183our species, but definitely A-cup compared to the flat-chested other apes.
184Topping it all off is the bonobo’s trademark hairstyle: long black hair neatly
185parted in the middle.
186The biggest difference between the two apes is body proportion. Chimps
187have large heads, thick necks, and broad shoulders—they look as if they work
188out in the gym every day. Bonobos have a more intellectual appearance, with
189slim upper bodies, narrow shoulders, and thin necks. A lot of their weight is in
190their legs, which are longer than a chimp’s. The result is that when knucklewalking
191on all fours, the chimp’s back slopes down from powerful shoulders,
192whereas the bonobo’s remains fairly horizontal because of its elevated hips.
193When standing or walking upright, a bonobo seems to straighten its back better
194than a chimp, giving the bonobo an eerily humanlike posture. For this reason,
195bonobos have been compared to “Lucy,” our Australopithecus ancestor.
196The bonobo is one of the last large mammals to be discovered by science.
197The discovery took place in 1929, not in a lush African habitat, but in a colonial
198Belgian museum following the inspection of a small skull thought to have
199belonged to a juvenile chimp. In immature animals, however, the sutures
200between skull bones ought to be separated. In this skull, they were fused.
201Concluding that it must have belonged to an adult chimp with an unusually small
202head, Ernst Schwarz, a German anatomist, declared that he had stumbled upon a
203new subspecies. Soon the anatomical differences were considered important
204enough to elevate the bonobo to the status of an entirely new species: Pan
205paniscus.
206A biologist who had been a student with Schwarz in Berlin told me how
207Schwarz’s peers used to make fun of him. Schwarz not only claimed there were
208two chimp species, but also that there were three elephant species. Everyone
209knew that there was only one of the first and two of the second. Their standard
210line about der Schwarz was that he knew “everything and more.” As it turns out,
211Schwarz was right. The African forest elephant was recently confirmed as a
212separate species, and Schwarz is known as the official discoverer of the bonobo
213—the sort of honor scientists are willing to die for.
214The bonobo’s genus name, Pan, derives appropriately enough from the
215Greek forest god with a human torso and the legs, ears, and horns of a goat.
216Playfully lecherous, Pan loves to frolic with nymphs while playing the
217shepherd’s (or pan) flute. The chimpanzee belongs to the same genus. The
218bonobo’s species name, paniscus, means “diminutive,” whereas the chimp’s
219species name, troglodytes, means “cave dweller.” With the bonobo being called a
220small goat deity and the chimp a grotto goat deity, these are curious epithets
221indeed.
222The name “bonobo” probably derives from a misspelling on a shipping crate
223from “Bolobo,” a town on the Congo River (although I have also heard that
224“bonobo” means “ancestor” in an extinct Bantu language). In any case, the name
225has a happy ring to it that befits the animal’s nature. Primatologists jokingly
226employ it as a verb, as in “We’re gonna bonobo tonight,” the meaning of which
227will soon become clear. The French refer to bonobos as “Left Bank
228chimpanzees”—a name that summons up images of an alternative lifestyle—
229since they live on the south bank of the westward streaming Congo River. This
230mighty river, which in places is ten miles wide, permanently separates bonobos
231from the chimpanzee and gorilla populations to the north. Despite the bonobo’s
232previous name, “pygmy chimpanzee,” they are not much smaller than
233chimpanzees. The average adult male bonobo weighs ninety-five pounds and the
234average female eighty pounds.
235What struck me most while watching my first bonobos was how sensitive
236they seemed. I also discovered some habits that shocked me. I witnessed a minor
237squabble over a cardboard box, in which a male and female ran around and
238pummeled each other until all of a sudden the fight was over and they were
239making love! I had been studying chimps, which never switch so easily from
240fighting to sex. I thought this bonobo behavior was an anomaly or that I had
241missed something that could explain the sudden change of heart. But it turned
242out that what I had seen was perfectly normal for these Kama Sutra primates.
243I learned this much later, after I had begun working with bonobos at the San
244Diego Zoo. Information on wild bonobos had been trickling in over the years
245from Africa, which added to our knowledge about this mysterious cousin.
246Bonobos are native to a relatively small area, about the size of England, in the
247Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) where they live in dense,
248humid swamp forest. When they enter a clearing where field workers leave
249sugarcane, the males arrive first. They hurry to collect handfuls of stalks so that
250they have their share before any females show up. When the females arrive, their
251entrance is accompanied by lots of sex among everybody and the inevitable
252appropriation of the best food by the older matriarchs. The same is true for the
253zoo colonies that I’ve studied, which are invariably ruled by an older female.
254This is surprising given that male and female bonobos differ as much in size as
255humans do, with the average female bonobo weighing 85 percent as much as the
256average male. On top of this, male bonobos have sharp canine teeth, which the
257females lack.
258So how do the females maintain control? The answer is solidarity. Take
259Vernon, a male bonobo at the San Diego Zoo, who used to rule a small group
260that included one female, Loretta, who was his mate and friend. This was the
261only instance I have ever seen of a bonobo group run by a male. At the time, I
262thought this was normal: after all, male dominance is typical of most mammals.
263But Loretta was relatively young, and she was the only female. As soon as a
264second female was added to the group, the power balance shifted.
265The first thing Loretta and the other female did upon meeting was have sex.
266The pattern is known by experts as genito-genital-(or GG-) rubbing, but I have
267also heard it called, more colorfully, the “hokahoka.” One female wrapped her
268arms and legs around the other and clung to her the way an infant bonobo
269attaches itself to its mother’s belly. Facing each other, the two then pressed their
270vulvas and clitorises together, rubbing them sideways in a rapid rhythm. They
271had big grins on their faces and squealed loudly, leaving little doubt about
272whether apes know sexual pleasure.
273Sex between Loretta and her new female friend became more and more
274common, spelling the end of Vernon’s rule. Months later the typical scene at
275feeding time was the females having sex and then together claiming all the food.
276The only way for Vernon to get any food was by begging with outstretched hand.
277This is also typical among wild bonobos, where females control the food supply.
278Compared with the male-centered chimpanzee, the female-centered, erotic,
279and peaceable bonobo offers a fresh way of thinking about human ancestry. Its
280behavior is hardly consistent with the popular image of our forefathers as
281bearded cavemen dragging women around by their hair. Not that things were
282necessarily the other way around, but it is good to be clear on what we know and
283don’t know. Behavior doesn’t fossilize. This is why speculations about human
284prehistory are often based on what we know about other primates. Their
285behavior indicates the range of behavior our ancestors may have shown. And the
286more we learn about bonobos, the more this range expands.
287MAMA’S BOYS
288Not too long ago, I spent a typical day at the San Diego Zoo with two old
289friends, Gale Foland and Mike Hammond, both veteran ape keepers. This is not
290a job for everyone. It’s impossible to deal with the needs and reactions of apes
291without tapping the same emotional reservoir we use to deal with fellow human
292beings. Keepers who fail to take apes seriously will never get along with them,
293and those who take them too seriously will succumb to the web of intrigues,
294provocations, and emotional blackmail that suffuses every ape group.
295In an area away from the public, we leaned over a balustrade looking down
296on a spacious, grassy enclosure. The air carried the unique pungent smell of
297gorillas. Earlier this morning, Gale had introduced a five-year-old female named
298Azizi, whom he had raised himself, to the enclosure. Azizi found herself in a
299group with a new male, Paul Donn, a gargantuan character who is leaning
300against the wall. Occasionally, he charges around the enclosure, beating his
301chest, to impress upon the gathering of females that he is in control, or at least
302would like to be. Female gorillas, especially the older ones, tend to disagree:
303they sometimes band together to chase him around “to keep him in line,” as Gale
304says. But for the moment Paul Donn is calm, and we see Azizi shuffle closer and
305closer toward him. The male acts as if he fails to notice, tactfully inspecting his
306toes and never looking straight at the nervous gorilla girl. Each time Azizi gets a
307little bit nearer, she glances up at Gale, her adoptive parent. She locks her eyes
308into his. Gale nods and says such things as “Go on, don’t be scared.” This is easy
309for him to say: Paul Donn is probably five times Azizi’s weight, all of it muscles.
310But Azizi is irresistibly attracted.
311These gorillas are known for their intelligence. Gorillas are not supposed to
312use tools: in the wild they never do. But three gorillas at the zoo have found a
313new way to get at the tasty leaves of the fig trees. They are prevented from
314climbing the trees by hot wire, but get around this by picking up one of the many
315branches lying around, standing up on two legs and flinging it into a tree. The
316branch usually comes back down with some of the foliage. One female was seen
317breaking a long stick in two and using the more suitable piece—an important
318step, as it showed that gorillas are capable of modifying their tools.
319Today, an incident takes place involving the same hot wire. It’s the sort of
320scene that catches my eye. One older resident female has learned to reach under
321the wire without getting shocked to feed on weeds that grow beyond the wire.
322Right next to her sits a new female, who, Gale tells me, has just recently been
323shocked for the first time. It was a nasty experience for her, resulting in
324screaming and frantic handshaking. The new female has befriended the other and
325now sits watching her do exactly what had caused her so much pain. As soon as
326she sees her friend reach under the wire, she jumps behind her and starts pulling
327at her. She wraps an arm around her middle and tries to move her away from the
328electric fence. But her older friend doesn’t budge; instead, she continues to
329reach. After some time, the new female sits back, watching intently, while
330wrapping both of her arms tightly around herself. She seems to be bracing
331herself for the shock she believes the other will get. “Changing places in fancy”
332indeed.
333Like chimpanzees and bonobos, gorillas are known as great apes. There are
334only four great ape species, the fourth one being the orangutan. Apes are
335primates that are large and lacking tails. Both traits set the family of humans and
336apes—known as the Hominoids—apart from the monkeys. Apes should
337therefore never be confused with monkeys (there is no better way to insult an
338ape expert than to say that you love his monkeys!), and “primate” is the more
339inclusive label, as it also applies to us. Among the apes, our closest kin are
340chimps and bonobos, neither one of which is closer to us than the other. Yet this
341doesn’t prevent primatologists from hotly debating which one is the best
342ancestral human model. We all derive from a single forebear, and one species
343may have retained more of its traits than the other, making it more relevant to
344human evolution. But it’s impossible right now to determine which one. Not
345surprisingly, chimp experts generally vote for the chimpanzee and bonobo
346experts for the bonobo.
347Since gorillas split off from our evolutionary branch slightly before chimps
348and bonobos, it’s been argued that whichever ape is more like the gorilla
349deserves to be called the original type. But who says that gorillas themselves
350resemble our last common ancestor? They have had plenty of time to change, too
351—over seven million years, in fact. What we are looking for instead is the ape
352that has changed the least over time. Takayoshi Kano, the premier expert on wild
353bonobos, has argued that since bonobos never left the humid jungle—whereas
354chimpanzees did so partially and our own ancestors completely—bonobos
355probably have encountered fewer pressures to change and may therefore look
356most like the forest ape from which we all descend. American anatomist Harold
357Coolidge famously speculated that the bonobo “may approach more closely to
358the common ancestor of chimpanzees and man than does any living
359chimpanzee.”
360Adaptation to life in the trees is obvious from the way bonobos use their
361bodies, which by human standards is rather unusual. Their feet serve as hands.
362They grasp things with their feet, gesture with them during communication, and
363clap them together to attract attention. Apes are sometimes called “quadrupedal”
364(four-footed), but bonobos might be better called “quadrumanual” (four-handed).
365They are more gymnastic than any other ape, jumping, brachiating, and flipping
366around in the trees with unbelievable agility. They walk along a suspended rope
367on two legs as if on terra firma. These acrobatic talents are practical for apes
368who have never been forced, not even partially, out of the forest, and who have
369hence never had to compromise their tree-dwelling ways. That bonobos are more
370arboreal than chimps is clear from a comparison of reactions to seeing scientists
371for the first time in the wild: Chimps drop straight out of the tree they are in and
372flee by running over the ground. Bonobos, on the other hand, flee through the
373tree canopy and only descend to the forest floor once they’re far away.
374Tree of origin of humans and the four great apes based on DNA comparisons. Data points indicate how many millions of
375years ago species diverged. Chimpanzees and bonobos form a single genus: Pan. The human lineage diverged from the
376Pan ancestor about 5.5 million years ago. Some scientists feel that humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are close enough
377to form a single genus: Homo. Since bonobos and chimpanzees split from each other after they split from us, about 2.5
378million years ago, both are equally close to us. The gorilla diverged earlier, hence it is more distant from us, as is the only
379Asian great ape, the orangutan.
380I expect the debate about which ape most resembles the last common
381ancestor to go back and forth for a while, but for the moment, let us just say that
382chimps and bonobos are equally relevant for human evolution. The gorilla is set
383apart from both them and us by its enormous sexual dimorphism—the size
384difference between males and females—and the social system that goes with
385that: a single male monopolizing a harem of females. For simplicity’s sake, I will
386mention gorillas only occasionally while we explore the similarities and
387differences among bonobos, chimps, and ourselves.
388We do not wait around to see what happens between Azizi and Paul Donn.
389Undoubtedly, the two will make contact, but it could take hours, even days. The
390keepers realize that it will change Azizi’s attitude forever: she will never be the
391same dependent little gorilla that Gale fed with a bottle and carried on his back
392until she grew too heavy. Her new destiny will be to live in this group, be around
393a big male of her own kind, and perhaps raise offspring.
394We walk by the bonobos, where Loretta greets me with shrill hoots. Even
395though my research time at this zoo was almost twenty years ago, she still knows
396me: recognition is permanent. I cannot imagine ever forgetting a face that I saw
397every day over a period of time, so why should it be different for Loretta? And
398her hoots are distinctive. Bonobo calls are unmistakable: The easiest way to tell
399chimps and bonobos apart is just by listening to them. The low huu-huu sound of
400the chimpanzee is absent in the bonobo. Bonobo voices are so high pitched
401(more like heehee) that when the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich received its first
402bonobos, the director almost sent them back. He hadn’t yet looked under the
403cloth covering the crates from Bolobo and couldn’t believe that the sounds he
404heard came from apes.
405Loretta presents her ballooning genitals, staring at me upside-down though
406her legs, invitingly waving an arm. I wave back while asking Mike about one of
407the males who’s not out. Mike takes me to the night quarters. The male sits
408indoors with a young female to keep him company. The female is clearly
409annoyed each time Mike turns to talk to me. What is this stranger doing here,
410and why is Mike not giving her his full attention? She tries to grab me through
411the bars. The male keeps his distance, but presents his back, then his belly to
412Mike for touching, while showing—as any male bonobo would under such
413circumstances—an impressive erection. For both male and female bonobos,
414there is no dividing line between sexuality and affection.
415This male needs to be kept out of the bonobo group due to his low rank.
416Even though he’s fully grown, he’s unable to defend himself against an entire
417group of females. Female hostility against males is a growing problem among
418bonobos in zoos. In the past, the zoo community made a fundamental mistake by
419moving male bonobos around. If they had to send apes to another zoo for
420breeding, they always chose males. While this works well for most animals, it is
421a disaster for male bonobos. In nature, bonobo females do all the migrating,
422leaving their home group at puberty. Males stay put, enjoying the company and
423protection of their mothers. Males with influential mothers rise in the hierarchy
424and are tolerated around food. Zoos have learned the hard way that they need to
425follow this example. Unfortunately, the male in question had been brought in
426from the outside. Being real mama’s boys, males fare best in the group in which
427they were born.
428So aggression is by no means absent among bonobos. When females attack,
429things get ugly. From a screaming ball of arms and legs, it is invariably the male
430who emerges with injuries. Even though bonobos are usually great conciliators,
431they have these skills for a good reason: they are not above fighting. The bonobo
432provides a compelling example of social harmony precisely because underlying
433tensions remain visible. This paradox applies to us as well. In the same way that
434the ultimate test of a ship is how it holds up in a storm, we only fully trust a
435relation if it has survived occasional conflict.
436After witnessing a few more sexual encounters among the bonobos, Mike
437cannot resist bringing up the recent claim of a local scientist that the zoo’s
438bonobos rarely have sex, perhaps only a couple of times per year. Could it be
439that bonobos do not deserve their sexy reputation? Standing back outside among
440the public, we joke that since today we have counted six sexual encounters in
441just two hours, this must mean that we have gathered about two years’ worth of
442observations. For a moment, I forget that Mike and Gale have their uniforms on,
443meaning that everyone around us is listening in. A bit too loudly, I boast about
444my earlier study, “When I was here, I had seven hundred sexual encounters in a
445single winter.” A man standing next to us grabs his young daughter by the arm
446and rushes away.
447Sometimes bonobo sex is subtle. One young female tries to walk past an
448even younger male who is blocking her path on a branch. The male fails to move
449out of the way—perhaps he is afraid of falling—whereupon the female places
450her teeth on his hand, which holds on to the branch, making matters worse. But
451instead of using force, she then turns around and rubs her clitoris against his arm.
452They are both immature, but this is the bonobo way of resolving conflict, a tactic
453that begins early in life. Following this contact, the female calmly climbs over
454the male and continues along the branch.
455Upon returning home from San Diego, I am struck by the contrast with
456chimpanzees. I work with about forty chimps outdoors at the Field Station of the
457Yerkes National Primate Research Center, near Atlanta. I have known these apes
458for a long time, and I see them as distinct personalities. They know me equally
459well and pay me the one compliment every researcher craves, which is that they
460treat me like furniture. I walk up to the fence to say hello to Tara, the three-yearold
461little daughter of Rita, who sits high up in a climbing structure. Rita briefly
462glances down at us, then continues grooming her own mother, Tara’s
463grandmother. If a stranger had merely walked by, Rita, who is extremely
464protective, would have immediately jumped down to pick up her daughter. I feel
465honored by her lack of interest.
466I notice a deep, fresh gash on the upper lip of Socko, the second ranking
467male. Only one other male can have done this: Bjorn, the alpha male. Bjorn is
468smaller than Socko, but he’s extremely smart, high-strung, and mean. He keeps
469the other apes under control by fighting dirty. This is the conclusion we have
470come to over the years, from seeing Bjorn’s combat technique and the scars he
471leaves on his victims in unusual places, such as the belly or scrotum. Socko—a
472large, lumbering “ham”—cannot compete, so he must live under this little
473dictator. But luckily for Socko, his younger brother, who is in the midst of his
474final growth spurt, is eager to hang out with him. This is bound to create trouble
475for Bjorn very soon.
476Here at Yerkes, we’re in the thick of male power politics, the never-ending
477saga of chimpanzee society. Ultimately these battles are about females, which
478means that the fundamental difference between our two closest relatives is that
479one resolves sexual issues with power, while the other resolves power issues
480with sex.
481A VENEER OF CIVILIZATION
482As I opened the newspaper on a plane ride from Chicago to Charleston, South
483Carolina, the first thing that caught my eye was the headline “Lili to Hit
484Charleston.” This was disconcerting as Lili was a major hurricane, and the
485devastation of Hugo the year before was still fresh in everybody’s memories. Lili
486swung away from Charleston, however, and the storm I ended up in was merely
487academic.
488The conference I attended was about world peace and peaceful human
489relations. I went there to present my work on primate conflict resolution. It is
490always fun to speculate why people are drawn to certain fields, but peace
491research attracts its share of hotheads. At the meeting, two prominent peace
492advocates got into a shouting match, something having to do with the first
493referring to studies of Eskimos and the second accusing him of colonialist if not
494racist attitudes, since these people ought to be called Inuit. According to the
495book Never in Anger, Inuit go to extreme lengths to avoid exchanges that even
496remotely resemble hostility. Anybody who raises his or her voice risks being
497ostracized, which is a life-threatening punishment in their environment.
498Some of us at the meeting surely would have been put out on the ice. Being
499Westerners, nonconfrontation was not in our script. I could already see another
500newspaper headline, something to the effect of “Peace Conference Ends in
501Fistfight.” It is the only academic event at which I have seen fully grown men
502walk out of the room slamming doors like little children. Amid all this
503grandstanding, some dared wonder, with deep scholarly frowns on their faces, if
504human and ape behavior were truly comparable.
505On the other hand, I have attended many meetings of the Aggression Club, a
506group of academics in the Netherlands, which were always civil and calm.
507Though only a graduate student at the time, I was allowed to join psychiatrists,
508criminologists, psychologists, and ethologists who regularly came together to
509discuss aggression and violence. In those days, evolutionary views invariably
510revolved around aggressiveness, as if our species had no other behavioral
511tendencies to speak of. It was like a discussion about pit bulls in which the main
512topic is always how dangerous these dogs are. What makes humans different
513from pit bulls, however, is that we have not been selectively bred to fight. Our
514jaw pressure is miserable, and our brains certainly would not need to be the size
515they are if the only trait that mattered was the killing of others. But in the
516postwar era, human aggressiveness was front and center of every debate.
517With its gas chambers, mass executions, and willful destruction, World War
518II was human behavior at its worst. Moreover, when the Western world took
519stock after the dust had settled, it was impossible to ignore the savagery that had
520been committed in the heart of Europe by otherwise civilized people.
521Comparisons with animals were ubiquitous. Animals lack inhibitions, the
522argument went. They lack culture, so it must have been something animal-like,
523something in our genetic makeup that had burst through the veneer of
524civilization and pushed human decency aside.
525This “veneer theory,” as I call it, became a dominant theme in the postwar
526discussion. Deep down, we humans are violent and amoral. A stream of popular
527books explored this issue by proposing that we have an uncontainable aggressive
528drive that seeks an outlet in warfare, violence, and even sports. Another theory
529was that our aggressiveness is novel, that we are the only primates that kill their
530own kind. Our species never had the time to evolve the appropriate inhibitions.
531As a result, we don’t have our fighting instinct under control as much as
532“professional predators” like wolves or lions. We’re stuck with a violent temper
533that we’re ill-equipped to master.
534It is not hard to see the beginnings here of a rationalization of human
535violence in general and the Holocaust in particular, and it certainly did not help
536that the leading voice of the time spoke German. Konrad Lorenz, a worldrenowned
537Austrian expert on fish and geese, was the great defender of the idea
538that aggression is in our genes. Killing became humanity’s “mark of Cain.”
539Across the Atlantic, a similar view was promoted by Robert Ardrey, an
540American journalist inspired by speculations that Australopithecus must have
541been a carnivore who swallowed his prey alive, dismembering them limb from
542limb, slaking his thirst with warm blood. Drawn from studies of a few skull
543bones, this was an imaginative conclusion, but Ardrey based his killer ape myth
544on it. In African Genesis, he painted our ancestor as a mentally deranged
545predator upsetting the precarious balance of nature. In Ardrey’s demagogic
546prose, “We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed
547killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and
548missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?”
549It’s hard to believe, but the next wave of pop biology managed to go beyond
550this. At the same time that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher preached that
551greed was good for society, good for the economy, and certainly good for those
552with anything to be greedy about, biologists published books in support of these
553views. Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene taught us that since evolution helps
554those who help themselves, selfishness should be looked at as a driving force for
555change rather than a flaw that drags us down. We may be nasty apes, but it
556makes sense that we are, and the world is a better place for it.
557A tiny problem—pointed out to no avail by nitpickers—was the misleading
558language of this genre of books. Genes that produce successful traits spread in
559the population and hence promote themselves. But to call this “selfish” is
560nothing but a metaphor. A snowball rolling down the hill gathering more snow
561also promotes itself, but we generally don’t call snowballs selfish. Taken to its
562extreme, the everything-is-selfishness position leads to a nightmarish world.
563Having an excellent nose for shock value, these authors haul us to a Hobbesian
564arena in which it’s every man for himself, where people show generosity only to
565trick others. Love is unheard of, sympathy is absent, and goodness a mere
566illusion. The best-known quote of those days, from biologist Michael Ghiselin,
567says it all: “Scratch an altruist, and watch a hypocrite bleed.”
568We should be happy that this dark, forbidding place is pure fantasy, that it
569differs radically from the actual world in which we laugh, cry, make love, and
570fawn over babies. Authors of this fiction realize this and sometimes confide that
571the human condition is not as bad as they make it sound. The Selfish Gene is a
572good example. Having argued that our genes know what is best for us, that they
573program every little wheel of the human survival machine, Dawkins waits until
574the very last sentence of his book to reassure us that, in fact, we are welcome to
575chuck all those genes out the window: “We, alone on earth, can rebel against the
576tyranny of the selfish replicators.”
577And so the end of the twentieth century emphasized our need to rise above
578nature. This view was advertised as Darwinian, even though Darwin had nothing
579to do with it. Darwin believed, as I do, that our humaneness is grounded in the
580social instincts that we share with other animals. This is obviously a more
581optimistic view than the one proclaiming that we “alone on earth” can overcome
582our basic instincts. In the latter view, human decency is no more than a thin crust
583—something we invented rather than inherited. And each time we do anything
584less than honorable, veneer theorists will remind us of the dreadful core
585underneath: “See, there’s human nature!”
586OUR DEMONIC FACE
587The opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey captured in one
588dazzling image the idea that violence is good. After a fight breaks out among
589hominids, in which one bludgeons another with a zebra femur, the weapon is
590flung triumphantly into the air where millennia later it turns into an orbiting
591spacecraft.
592Equating aggression with progress underlies the so-called “Out of Africa”
593hypothesis, which posits that we’ve gotten to where we are today through
594genocide. When bands of Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa, they advanced
595into Eurasia by murdering all other bipedal apes they ran into, including the
596species most similar to them, the Neanderthals. Our bloodthirstiness is the
597centerpiece of books with titles like Man the Hunter, Demonic Males, The
598Imperial Animal, and The Dark Side of Man, which mostly feature the
599chimpanzee as our ancestral model—the male chimpanzee. Like the bombshells
600in early James Bond movies, females are what males fight over, but apart from
601being mates and mothers, they barely enter the story. Males do all the deciding
602and fighting—and, by implication, most of the evolving.
603But even though the chimpanzee has come to represent the demonic face of
604our Janus head, it has not always been this way. Around the time that Lorenz and
605Ardrey were highlighting our “mark of Cain,” wild chimps seemed to be doing
606little else than moving lazily from tree to tree collecting fruit. Adversaries of the
607killer ape view—and they were plentiful—used this information to their
608advantage. They freely quoted Jane Goodall, who in 1960 had started her work
609at Gombe Stream in Tanzania. At the time, Goodall still presented chimps as the
610noble savages of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau: self-sufficient
611loners with no need to connect or to compete with one another. Chimps in the
612jungle traveled alone or in small “parties” that changed composition all the time.
613The only permanent bonds were those between mother and dependent offspring.
614No wonder people thought of apes as living in Eden.
615The first correction of these impressions came in the 1970s from Japanese
616scientists who studied chimpanzees a little south of Gombe, in the Mahale
617Mountains. They had serious doubts about the “individualistic” bias of American
618and European researchers. How could an animal so close to us have no society to
619speak of? They found that even though chimps hang out with different
620companions every day, they’re all members of a single community that is
621separate from other communities.
622The second correction was to the reputation of wild chimpanzees as
623peaceful, which some anthropologists used as an argument against an innately
624aggressive human nature. Two reality checks appeared. First, we heard that
625chimps hunt monkeys, smash in their skulls, and eat them alive. This made them
626carnivores. Then, in 1979, the posh pages of National Geographic reported that
627these apes also kill each other, sometimes consuming their victims. This made
628them both murderers and cannibals. The report showed sketches of male chimps
629stalking unsuspecting enemies across the border of their territory, surrounding
630them, and brutally beating them to death. At first, this news trickled in from only
631a few sources, but soon the trickle turned into a steady stream that was
632impossible to ignore.
633The picture became indistinguishable from that of the killer ape. We now
634knew that chimps hunt to kill and live in communities that are at war with one
635another. In a later book, Goodall relates how she broke this news to a group of
636academics, some of whom held out hope of eliminating human aggression
637through education and improved television programming. Her message that we
638are not the only aggressive primates was unwelcome: Shocked colleagues
639begged her to downplay the evidence or even not to publish it. Others felt the
640camp at Gombe, where investigators dispensed bananas—an unnatural, highly
641nutritious food—had fostered pathological levels of aggression. Competition at
642the campsite was indeed well documented, but the most serious fighting had
643taken place far away from there. Goodall resisted her critics: “Certainly, I felt
644strongly it was better to face up to the facts, however unsettling, than to live in a
645state of denial,” she said.
646The banana critique failed to stick: warfare is now also known from African
647sites without any provision of extra food. The simple truth is that brutal violence
648is part of the chimp’s natural makeup. They don’t need to show it—some
649chimpanzee communities indeed seem rather peaceful—but they can and often
650do. This strengthens the killer ape theory in one way, but it also undermines it.
651Lorenz and Ardrey claimed that humans stood alone in their use of lethal force,
652whereas observations of not only chimps but also hyenas, lions, langurs, and a
653long list of other animals have since made it clear that killing one’s own kind,
654while infrequent, is in fact widespread. Ed Wilson, the sociobiologist, concluded
655that by the time a particular animal is observed for more than a thousand hours,
656scientists will see mortal combat. Here, he spoke as an expert on ants, a group of
657insects that raids and kills on a massive scale. In Wilson’s words, “Alongside
658ants, which conduct assassinations, skirmishes, and pitched battles as routine
659business, men are all but tranquilized pacifists.”
660With the discovery of the chimp’s dark side—“paradise lost”—Rousseau
661went out the door and Hobbes came in. The violence of apes surely meant that
662we are programmed to be ruthless. Combined with evolutionary biologists’ claim
663that we are genetically selfish, everything clicked into place. There was now a
664coherent, irrefutable view of humanity. Look at the chimpanzee, the argument
665went, and you will see what kind of monsters we truly are.
666Chimps thus fortified the idea of a nasty human nature despite the fact that,
667without too much trouble, they could equally well have countered it. After all,
668chimp violence is far from an everyday occurrence: it took scientists decades to
669reveal it. Unhappy with the one-sided impact of her discoveries, Goodall herself
670made valiant efforts to illuminate the gentler side of chimpanzees, their
671compassion even, but to no avail. Science had made up its mind: once a
672murderer, always a murderer.
673Chimps may be violent, but at the same time their communities have
674powerful checks and balances. This became clear to me one day at the Arnhem
675Zoo in the Netherlands when we stood in nail-biting anticipation at the edge of a
676moat surrounding a forested island. We were worried about a tiny newborn
677chimpanzee known as Roosje, Dutch for “little rose.” Roosje had been adopted
678by Kuif. Having no milk of her own, Kuif had been trained to give Roosje the
679bottle. The plan had worked beyond our wildest dreams. A minor feat for an ape
680was a giant success for us, or so we felt. But now we were reintroducing the
681mother with her new daughter to the world’s largest zoo colony of chimpanzees,
682one that included four dangerous adult males. To intimidate their rivals, males
683tend to charge about with all their hair on end so that they look large and
684threatening. Unfortunately, this was the state that Nikkie, the colony’s fearless
685leader, was in.
686Male chimps have a ferocious temper and are so strong that they can
687overpower humans easily; when angry they are beyond our control. So Roosje’s
688fate was in the apes’ hands. In the morning, we had paraded Kuif past all of the
689night cages to gauge the group’s reaction. They all knew Kuif, but Roosje was
690new. When Kuif walked by the male cage, something caught my attention.
691Nikkie was grabbing underneath her through the bars, causing her to jump away
692with a sharp yelp. His target seemed to be the spot where Roosje was clinging to
693Kuif’s belly. Since only Nikkie acted this way, I decided to do the group
694introduction in stages, putting Nikkie at a disadvantage by releasing him last.
695The main thing to avoid was letting Kuif find herself alone with him. I counted
696on her protectors in the group.
697In the wild, chimps occasionally kill infants of their own species. Some
698biologists’ theories about these acts of infanticide assume that males compete
699over the fertilization of females. This would explain their constant jockeying for
700position as well as the killing of infants that are not their own. Nikkie may have
701seen Roosje as an outside infant, one that could not possibly have been fathered
702by him. This was hardly reassuring as it meant that we might witness one of
703those gruesome scenes reported from the field. Roosje might be torn to shreds.
704Since I had been holding her for weeks, helping Kuif to feed her, and feeding her
705myself, I was far from the dispassionate observer I normally like to be.
706Once on the island, most colony members greeted Kuif with an embrace,
707stealing glances at the baby. Everyone seemed to be keeping a nervous eye on
708the door behind which Nikkie sat waiting. Some youngsters hung around the
709door, kicking it, waiting to see what would happen. All this time, the two oldest
710males stayed close to Kuif and were extremely friendly to her.
711After about an hour, we let Nikkie onto the island. The two males left Kuif
712and positioned themselves between her and the approaching Nikkie, their arms
713draped around each other’s shoulders. This was a sight to behold, given that they
714had been archenemies for years. Here they were, standing united against the
715young leader, perhaps fearing the same thing we feared. Nikkie, who had all his
716hair up, approached in a most intimidating manner but broke down when he saw
717that the other two were in no mood to budge. Kuif’s defense team must have
718looked incredibly determined, staring down the boss like that, because Nikkie
719fled. I couldn’t see their faces, but apes read as much in each other’s eyes as we
720do. Nikkie later approached Kuif under the watchful eyes of the other two males.
721He was nothing but gentle. His intentions will forever remain a mystery, but we
722sighed an enormous sigh of relief and I hugged the caretaker with whom I had
723run Kuif’s training.
724Chimps live under a cloud of potential violence, and infanticide is a leading
725cause of death both at zoos and in the wild. But in the end, when debating how
726aggressive we are as a species, chimpanzee behavior is only one piece of the
727puzzle. The behavior of our immediate ancestors would be more relevant.
728Unfortunately, there exist enormous holes in our knowledge of them, especially
729if we try to look back further than ten thousand years. There is no firm evidence
730that we have always been as violent as in the past few millennia. From an
731evolutionary standpoint, a few thousand years is nothing.
732For millions of years before, our ancestors may have led an easygoing
733existence in small groups of hunter-gatherers who had little to fight over, given
734how thinly populated the world was then. This would by no means have kept
735them from conquering the globe. It’s often thought that survival of the fittest
736means wiping out the unfit. But one can also win the evolutionary race by
737having a superior immune system or by being better at finding food. Direct
738combat is rarely the way one species replaces another. Thus, instead of
739annihilating the Neanderthals, we may simply have been more resistant to the
740cold or have been better hunters.
741It’s entirely possible that successful hominids “absorbed” less successful
742ones through crossbreeding, and therefore whether or not Neanderthal genes
743survive in you and me is an open question. If people joke that someone looks
744like a Neanderthal, they should think twice. In a Moscow laboratory I once saw a
745remarkable reconstruction of a Neanderthal face based on a skull. The scientists
746confided that they had never dared publicize the bust due to its uncanny
747resemblance to one of their country’s leading politicians, who might not have
748appreciated the comparison.
749THE APE IN THE CLOSET
750Would scratching a bonobo expose a hypocrite?
751We can be pretty sure that the notorious synopsis of veneer theory concerned
752people only. No one would suggest that animals are pulling the wool over each
753other’s eyes. This is why apes are crucial to the debate about the human
754condition. If they turn out to be better than brutes—even if only occasionally—
755the notion of niceness as a human invention begins to wobble. And if true pillars
756of morality, such as sympathy and intentional altruism, can be found in other
757animals, we will be forced to reject veneer theory altogether. Darwin was aware
758of these implications when he observed that “many animals certainly sympathize
759with each other’s distress or danger.”
760Of course they do. It’s not unusual for apes to care for an injured companion,
761slowing down if another lags behind, cleaning another’s wounds, or carrying
762fruit down from a tree to an elder who has lost her climbing abilities. One field
763report tells of an adult male chimp who adopted an orphan, carrying the sickly
764infant during travel, shielding it from danger, saving its life even though the two
765were presumed unrelated. In the 1920s, the American ape expert Robert Yerkes
766was so struck by the concern shown by one young chimp, Prince Chim, for his
767terminally ill companion, Panzee, that he admitted, “If I were to tell of his
768altruistic and obviously sympathetic behavior towards Panzee I should be
769suspected of idealizing an ape.” Yerkes’s admiration for Prince Chim’s
770sensitivity is telling, given that he probably knew more ape personalities than
771anyone else in the history of primatology. He paid tribute to this kind little
772anthropoid in a book titled Almost Human, in which he expressed doubt that
773Prince Chim was a regular chimp. A postmortem inspection has since revealed
774that he was indeed no chimp, but a bonobo. Yerkes did not know this—the
775bonobo wasn’t recognized as a species until years later.
776The first study to compare the behavior of bonobos and chimpanzees was
777carried out in the 1930s at the Hellabrunn Zoo. Eduard Tratz and Heinz Heck
778published their findings in 1954. Three bonobos had been terrified by the city’s
779bombardment one night during the war and had died of heart failure. The fact
780that all of the zoo’s bonobos died of fright but that none of the zoo’s chimps
781suffered the same fate attests to the bonobo’s sensitivity. Tratz and Heck made a
782long list of the differences between bonobos and chimps, which included
783references to the bonobo’s relative peacefulness, sexual behavior, and sensuality.
784Aggression is certainly not absent in the bonobo, but the treatment to which
785chimps occasionally subject one another, including biting and full-force hitting,
786is rare in bonobos. The hair of a male chimp stands on end at the slightest
787provocation. He will pick up a branch and challenge anyone perceived as
788weaker. Chimps are very much into status. By bonobo standards, the chimpanzee
789is a wild and untamed beast, or as Tratz and Heck put it, “The bonobo is an
790extraordinarily sensitive, gentle creature, far removed from the demoniacal
791Urkraft [primitive force] of the adult chimpanzee.”
792If this was known in 1954, one might ask, Why was the bonobo absent from
793the debates on human aggression, and why is it still not more widely known?
794Well, that study was published in German, and the time when English-speaking
795scientists read anything other than English is long past. Also, this study included
796only a few young apes in captivity, a tiny scientific sampling, so it may not have
797sounded too convincing. Bonobo field research, which got underway relatively
798late, still lags decades behind studies on the other great apes. Another reason is
799cultural: the bonobo’s eroticism was a topic few authors wanted to touch. This
800remains the case today. In the 1990s, a British camera crew traveled to the
801remote jungles of Africa to film bonobos only to stop their cameras each time an
802“embarrassing” scene appeared in the viewfinder. When a Japanese scientist
803assisting the crew asked why they weren’t documenting any sex, he was told
804“our viewers wouldn’t be interested.”
805But far more important than all of this is the fact that bonobos fail to fit
806established notions about human nature. Believe me, if studies had found that
807they massacre one another, everyone would know about bonobos. Their
808peacefulness is the real problem. I sometimes try to imagine what would have
809happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later or not at
810all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around
811violence, warfare, and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy,
812caring, and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would
813occupy!
814It’s only with the appearance of another of our cousins that the stranglehold
815of the killer ape theory began to loosen. Bonobos act as if they have never heard
816of the idea. Among bonobos, there’s no deadly warfare, little hunting, no male
817dominance, and enormous amounts of sex. If the chimpanzee is our demonic
818face, the bonobo must be our angelic one. Bonobos make love, not war. They’re
819the hippies of the primate world. Science had more trouble with them than a
8201960s family had with its long-haired, pot-smoking black sheep who wanted to
821move back home. They turned off the lights, hid under the table, and hoped that
822the uninvited guest would go away.
823The bonobo is clearly an ape for our time. Attitudes have changed
824dramatically since Margaret Thatcher postulated her strident individualism.
825“There is no such thing as society,” she proclaimed. “There are individual men
826and women, and there are families.” Thatcher’s comment may have been
827inspired by the evolutionary views of her day, or perhaps it was the other way
828around. Either way, twenty years later, when huge corporate scandals have
829delivered the final pinprick to an inflated stock balloon, pure individualism does
830not sound so hot anymore. In the post-Enron era the public has begun to realize
831again—as if it had not always known—that unmitigated capitalism rarely brings
832out the best in people. Reagan and Thatcher’s “gospel of greed” went sour. Even
833Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a prophet of capitalism, hinted that
834it might be good to put the brakes on, explaining to a U.S. Senate committee in
8352002, “It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations
836past. It is that the avenues to express greed have grown so enormously.”
837Anyone following evolutionary biology must have noticed a parallel change
838of heart. Suddenly books appeared with titles like Unto Others, Evolutionary
839Origins of Morality, The Tending Instinct, The Cooperative Gene, and my own
840Good Natured. There was less talk of aggression and competition and more of
841connectedness, of how societies hang together, of the origins of caring and
842commitment. What was stressed was the enlightened self-interest of the
843individual within a larger whole. Whenever interests overlap, competition will
844be constrained by the greater good.
845Along with other economic gurus of the era, Klaus Schwab declared that it
846was time for business “governed not only by rules but by values” while
847evolutionary biologists began to insist that “the rational pursuit of self-interest is
848sometimes an inferior strategy.” Perhaps both developments derived from
849broader swings in public attitude. Having rebuilt economies destroyed by war
850and having reached a level of prosperity unimaginable not too long ago, the
851industrialized world may finally be ready to focus on the social domain. We need
852to decide whether we are like Robinson Crusoes sitting on separate little islands,
853as Thatcher seemed to imagine, or members of complexly interwoven societies
854in which we care about each other and from which we derive our reason for
855being.
856Being more in agreement with the second possibility than the first, Darwin
857felt that people are born to become moral and that animal behavior supports this
858idea. He relates how a dog he knew would never walk by a basket where a sick
859friend lay, a cat, without giving her a few licks with his tongue. This, Darwin
860said, was a sure sign of the dog’s kind feelings. Darwin also tells the story of a
861zoo keeper with a wound at the nape of his neck. It was inflicted by a fierce
862baboon while the keeper was cleaning his cage. The baboon lived with a little
863South American monkey. Scared to death of his companion, the monkey was a
864warm friend to the keeper and in fact saved his life by distracting the baboon
865with bites and screams during his assault. The small monkey thus risked his own
866life, showing that friendship translates into altruism. Darwin felt it was the same
867for people.
868This was before we knew of the bonobo and before the latest findings of
869neuroscience. By placing people in brain scanners and asking them to resolve
870moral dilemmas, experts have discovered that such dilemmas activate ancient
871emotional centers deeply embedded in the brain. Instead of being a surface
872phenomenon in our expanded neocortex, moral decision-making apparently taps
873into millions of years of social evolution.
874Perhaps this sounds obvious, but it’s monumentally at odds with the view of
875morality as a cultural or religious veneer. I’ve often wondered how a position so
876plainly wrong could have been advocated for so many years. Why were altruists
877seen as hypocrites, why were emotions left out of the debate, and why did a
878book boldly titled The Moral Animal deny that morality comes naturally to us?
879The answer is that evolutionary authors were making the “Beethoven error.” By
880this, I mean the assumption that process and product need to resemble each
881other.
882Listening to Ludwig van Beethoven’s perfectly structured music, one would
883never guess what his poorly heated apartment looked like. Visitors complained
884that the composer lived in the dirtiest, smelliest, most disorderly place
885imaginable, strewn with wasting food, unemptied chamber pots, and filthy
886clothing, his two pianos buried under dust and papers. The maestro himself
887looked so slovenly that he was once arrested as a vagrant. No one asks how
888Beethoven could have created his intricate sonatas and noble piano concertos in
889such a pigsty. We all know that wonderful things can originate under atrocious
890circumstances, that process and product are separate things, which is why the
891enjoyment of a good restaurant is rarely enhanced by a visit to its kitchen.
892Yet confusion between the two has led some to believe that since natural
893selection is a cruel, pitiless process of elimination it must produce cruel and
894pitiless creatures. A nasty process must produce nasty behavior, or so the
895thinking went. But nature’s pressure cooker has created both fish that lunge at
896anything that moves (including their own offspring) and pilot whales, which are
897so attached to each other that they beach themselves together if one of them gets
898disoriented. Natural selection favors organisms that survive and reproduce, pure
899and simple. How they accomplish this is left open. Any organism that can do
900better by becoming either more or less aggressive than the rest, more or less
901cooperative, or more or less caring will spread its genes. The process does not
902specify the road to success any more than the inside of a Viennese apartment
903tells us what kind of music will be floating out its window.
904ANALYZING APES
905Every late afternoon at the Arnhem Zoo, the keepers and I would call Kuif out of
906the colony for the daily bottle-feeding of Roosje. Before she would come in
907carrying her adopted child, however, there always was a strange ritual.
908We’re used to apes greeting each other, which they do after long absences,
909by either kissing and embracing (chimps) or some sexual frottage (bonobos).
910Kuif was the first ape I have ever seen do good-bye (we call it “saying goodbye,”
911but obviously an ape can only “do good-bye”). Before she would enter the
912building, Kuif would approach Mama, the respected alpha female of the group
913and her best friend, to give her a kiss. After this, she would seek out Yeroen, the
914oldest male, to do the same. Even if Yeroen was asleep at the far end of the
915island, or deep into a grooming session with one of his buddies, Kuif would
916make a grand detour to catch him. It reminded me of how we’re not to leave a
917party without saying farewell to the hosts.
918For greeting, all that’s needed is delight at the sight of a familiar individual.
919Many social animals display this response. Saying good-bye is more complex, as
920it requires a glance into the future: the realization that you will not see someone
921for a while. I noticed another such glance one day when a female chimp
922collected all the straw from her night cage, deliberately scooping up every last
923bit until her arms were overflowing, and carried it all outside to the island. No
924chimp ever walks around with straw, so this caught our attention. It was
925November, and the days were getting cold. Apparently, this female had decided
926she was going to stay warm outside. At the moment she gathered the straw she
927could not feel the cold—she was in a heated building—so she must have
928extrapolated from the previous day to the next. She spent the whole day in her
929straw nest, which she couldn’t leave since everyone else was waiting to steal
930from it.
931This is the sort of intelligence that draws many of us to the study of apes.
932Not just their aggressive or sexual behavior, much of which they share with other
933animals, but the surprising amount of insight and finesse they put into everything
934they do. Since much of this intelligence is hard to pinpoint, studies on captive
935apes are absolutely essential. In the same way that no one would try to measure a
936child’s intelligence by watching him or her run around in the school yard, the
937study of ape cognition demands a hands-on approach. One needs to be able to
938present the apes with problems to see how they solve them. Another advantage
939of captive apes under enlightened conditions (meaning spacious outdoor areas
940and a naturalistic group size) is that one can watch their behavior much more
941closely than is possible in the field, where at critical moments they tend to
942disappear in the undergrowth.
943My favorite office (I have several) has a large window overlooking the
944chimps at the Yerkes Field Station, allowing me to see everything that goes on.
945They can’t hide from me (nor I from them, as is clear each time I try to eat my
946lunch unnoticed). Simple observation is the reason that power politics,
947reconciliations after fights, and tool-use were first discovered in captive apes and
948were confirmed only later in the wild. Typically, we conduct observations with
949binoculars and a keyboard attached to a computer into which we type every
950social event we witness. We have a long list of codes for play, sex, aggression,
951grooming, nursing, and myriad subtle distinctions within each category, and we
952enter data on a continuous basis in the format of “who does what to whom.” If
953events become too complicated, such as when a massive fight breaks out, we
954film it or, like a sportscaster, we narrate the events into a tape recorder. This way,
955we gather literally hundreds of thousands of observations, then program a
956computer to sort through the data. Despite the pleasure we take in our work,
957primate research has its tedious side.
958When we want to present the apes with a problem, we call them out of their
959group into a small building. Since we cannot force them to participate, we
960depend on their willingness. Not only do all the apes know their names, they also
961know each other’s names, so that one can ask individual A to fetch B. The trick
962is, of course, to make the experiment a pleasant experience. Computers with
963joysticks really attract them. My assistant only needs to show the cart with
964equipment and the volunteers will be lining up. As with children, the immediate
965feedback of a computer gives apes a thrill.
966In one experiment, Lisa Parr presented Yerkes chimpanzees with hundreds
967of pictures that I had taken at the Arnhem Zoo. With an ocean between these
968chimps, we could be sure they had never seen those faces before. One face
969would appear on the computer screen and then two more faces, one of which
970matched the first. The chimpanzee would be given a sip of juice for moving the
971cursor to the matching face. Face recognition had been tested before, but apes
972were not particularly good at it. Previous experiments, however, had used human
973faces on the assumption that these are easy to tell apart. Not for chimpanzees.
974They were far better with the faces of other chimps. Lisa showed that they see
975similarities not only between different pictures of the same face, but also
976between pictures of mother and offspring. In the same way that if I went through
977your family album, I could probably tell your relatives from your in-laws,
978chimps recognize the marks of kinship. They seem just as sensitive to their faces
979as we are to ours.
980Another study asked if chimps can deliberately point things out to others.
981The earlier story of Kanzi and Tamuli suggests they can, but the claim remains
982controversial. Some scientists focus on pointing with the hand or index finger,
983which is the way we point. However, I see no reason to take such a limited view.
984Nikkie once communicated with me using a much more subtle technique. He
985had gotten used to my throwing wild berries across the moat. One day while I
986was taking data I had totally forgotten about the berries, which hung on a row of
987tall bushes behind me. Nikkie had not. He sat down right in front of me, locked
988his red-brown eyes on mine, and—once he had my attention—abruptly jerked
989his head and eyes away from mine to fixate on a point over my left shoulder. He
990then looked back at me and repeated the move. I may be dense compared to an
991ape, but the second time I followed his gaze, spotting the berries. Nikkie had
992indicated what he wanted without a single sound or hand gesture. There is
993obviously no point to such “pointing” unless you understand that another hasn’t
994seen what you have seen, which means realizing that not everyone has the same
995information.
996A telling experiment on ape pointing was conducted by Charles Menzel at
997the same Language Research Center that is home to Kanzi. Charlie let a female
998chimpanzee named Panzee watch while he hid food in a forested area near
999Panzee’s cage. Panzee followed the food-hiding from behind the bars. Since she
1000could not go where Charlie was, she would need human help to get the food.
1001Charlie would dig a small hole in the ground and hide a bag of M&M’s or place
1002a candy bar in some bushes. Sometimes he would do this after all people had left
1003for the day. This meant that Panzee could not communicate with anybody about
1004what she knew until the next day. When caretakers arrived in the morning, they
1005didn’t know about the experiment. Panzee first had to get their attention and then
1006provide information to someone who did not know what she knew and who at
1007first had no clue what she was “talking” about.
1008During a live demonstration of Panzee’s skills, Charlie noted as an aside to
1009me that caretakers generally have a higher opinion of apes’ mental abilities than
1010the philosophers and psychologists who write on the topic, few of whom have
1011interacted with these animals on a daily basis. It was essential for the
1012experiment, he explained, that Panzee dealt with people who took her seriously.
1013All those recruited by Panzee said they were at first surprised by her behavior,
1014but soon they understood what she was trying to get them to do. Following her
1015pointing, beckoning, panting, and calling, they had no trouble finding the item
1016hidden in the forest. Without her instructions, they would not have known where
1017to look. Panzee never pointed in the wrong direction or to any location used on
1018earlier occasions. The result was communication about a past event, present in
1019the ape’s memory, to people who knew nothing about it and were unable to give
1020her any clues.
1021I offer these examples to make the point that there is excellent research on
1022apes to rely upon when making statements about their sense of the past, sense of
1023the future, face recognition, and social behavior in general. Even though in this
1024book I favor lively examples, trying to put a face on what we know about our
1025nearest relations, there exists an entire body of academic literature to back up
1026most of my claims. Not all of them, mind you, which explains why
1027disagreements persist and why there is no end in sight for my line of work. A
1028conference on the great apes might attract one or two hundred experts, but this is
1029nothing compared to the typical meeting of psychologists or sociologists, which
1030easily counts ten thousand. As a result, we are nowhere near the level of
1031understanding of apes that many of us would like to be.
1032Most of my colleagues are field-workers. Whatever the advantages of
1033research on captive apes, it can never replace the study of natural behavior. For
1034every remarkable ability demonstrated in the laboratory, we want to know what
1035it means for wild chimps and bonobos, what kind of benefits they gain from it.
1036This relates to the evolutionary question, Why did the ability arise in the first
1037place? For face recognition the benefits are pretty obvious, but what about a
1038sense of the future? Field-workers have discovered that traveling chimpanzees
1039sometimes gather grass stems and small twigs hours before arriving at a site
1040where they will be fishing for ants or termites. The tools they need are picked up
1041on the way at a place where they are abundant. It’s entirely possible that apes
1042plan their travel routes with this in mind.
1043What’s perhaps most significant about this research is not what apes reveal
1044about our instinctual side. With their slow development (they reach adulthood at
1045around sixteen) and ample learning opportunities, apes are really not that much
1046more instinctual than we are. Apes make lots of decisions in their lives, such as
1047whether to threaten a newborn or defend it or whether to save a bird or abuse it.
1048What we compare, therefore, are the ways in which humans and apes handle
1049problems through a combination of natural tendencies, intelligence, and
1050experience. It’s impossible to extract from this mixture what is inborn and what
1051is not.
1052Nevertheless, the comparison is instructive if only because it makes us step
1053back and look into a mirror that shows a different side of ourselves than we are
1054used to. You place your hand in a bonobo’s and notice that your thumb is longer,
1055you grab a bonobo’s upper arm and have never felt muscles that hard, you pull at
1056its lower lip and feel how much more lip it has than you, you look into its eyes
1057and get a look back that is exactly as inquisitive as yours. All of this is revealing.
1058My goal is to make the same comparisons with regard to social life and to show
1059that there is not a single tendency that we do not share with these hairy
1060characters we love to make fun of.
1061If people laugh at primates at the zoo, they do so, I suspect, precisely
1062because they’re unsettled by the mirror held up to them. Otherwise, why do
1063strange-looking animals such as giraffes and kangaroos not cause similar
1064hilarity? Primates arouse a certain nervousness because they show us ourselves
1065in a brutally honest light, reminding us, in Desmond Morris’s felicitous phrase,
1066that we are mere “naked apes.” It’s this honest light that we seek, or ought to
1067seek, and the beauty is that now that we know more about the bonobo, we can
1068see ourselves reflected in two complementary mirrors.
1069THE BIPOLAR APE
1070On Striking a Balance
1071Are we best characterized by hate or by love? What is most critical for survival:
1072competition or cooperation? Are we more like chimpanzees or bonobos?
1073Such questions are a waste of time for the bipolar characters that we are. It’s
1074like asking if a surface is best measured by its length or by its width. Even worse
1075are attempts to consider only one pole at the expense of the other. Nevertheless,
1076this is what the West has been doing for centuries by depicting our competitive
1077side as somehow more authentic than our social one. But if people are as selfish
1078as is assumed, how do they form societies? The traditional view is that of a
1079contract among our ancestors, who decided to live together “by covenant only,
1080which is artificial,” as Thomas Hobbes put it. We are seen as loners who
1081reluctantly joined forces: smart enough to pool resources, but lacking any true
1082attraction to our own kind.
1083The old Roman proverb “Homo homini lupus” (“man is wolf to man”)
1084captures this asocial vision that continues to inspire law, economics, and political
1085science today. The problem isn’t just that this saying misrepresents us, but it also
1086insults one of the most gregarious and loyal cooperators in the animal kingdom
1087—so loyal, in fact, that our ancestors wisely domesticated them. Wolves survive
1088by bringing down prey larger than themselves—such as caribou or moose—
1089which they do through teamwork. Upon return from the hunt, they regurgitate
1090meat for nursing mothers, the young, and sometimes the sick and old who stayed
1091behind. Like chanting soccer fans, they reinforce pack unity by howling together
1092before and after the hunt. There’s no lack of competition, but wolves can’t afford
1093to let it run its course. Loyalty and trust come first. Behavior that undermines the
1094bedrock of cooperation is dampened to prevent a meltdown of the social
1095harmony upon which survival depends. A wolf who would let narrow individual
1096interests prevail would soon find himself alone chasing mice.
1097Apes know the same solidarity. In a study in Taï National Park in Ivory
1098Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking
1099away their blood, carefully removing dirt, and preventing flies from coming near
1100the wounds. They waved the flies away, protected injured companions, and
1101traveled slowly if these couldn’t keep up. All of this makes perfect sense given
1102that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, the same way wolves and people
1103are group-animals for a reason. We would not be where we are today had our
1104ancestors been socially aloof.
1105What I see, therefore, is the opposite of the traditional image of a nature “red
1106in tooth and claw,” in which the individual comes first and society is a mere
1107afterthought. One can’t reap the benefits of group life without contributing to it.
1108Every social animal strikes its own balance between the two. Some are relatively
1109nasty, others relatively nice. But even the harshest societies, such as those of
1110baboons and macaques, limit internal strife. People often imagine that in nature
1111weakness automatically means elimination—a principle hyped as the “law of the
1112jungle”—but in reality social animals enjoy considerable tolerance and support.
1113Otherwise, what would be the point of living together?
1114I used to work with a group of rhesus macaques that showed great
1115acceptance of Azalea, a mentally retarded juvenile born in their midst. Since
1116Azalea possessed a triplet of chromosomes, her condition resembled that of
1117human Down’s syndrome. Rhesus monkeys normally punish anyone who
1118violates the rules of their strict society but Azalea was able to get away with the
1119gravest blunders, such as threatening the alpha male. It was as if everyone
1120realized that nothing they did would ever change her ineptness. Similarly, a freeranging
1121macaque group in the Japanese Alps included a congenitally
1122handicapped female named Mozu, who could barely walk, and certainly not
1123climb, as she lacked both hands and feet. A frequent star of Japanese nature
1124documentaries, Mozu was fully accepted by her group to the point that she lived
1125a long life and raised five offspring.
1126So much for survival of the fittest. There is plenty of that, too, of course, but
1127there’s no need to caricature the life of our relatives as one led while constantly
1128looking over their shoulders. Primates find great comfort in each other’s
1129company. Getting along with others is a critical skill because survival chances
1130outside the group—where there are predators and hostile neighbors—are dismal.
1131Primates who find themselves alone meet a quick death. This explains why they
1132spend an extraordinary amount of time—up to 10 percent of the day—servicing
1133social ties by grooming others. Field studies have shown that female monkeys
1134with the best social connections have the most surviving offspring.
1135AUTIST MEETS GORILLA
1136Bonding is so fundamental that an American woman with Asperger’s syndrome,
1137a form of autism, who had failed to come to terms with her condition while
1138living among people, found inner peace after she began taking care of zoo
1139gorillas. Or perhaps it was the gorillas who took care of her. Dawn Prince-
1140Hughes describes how people would unnerve her with their direct stares and
1141direct questions to which they wanted immediate answers. The gorillas, on the
1142other hand, left her space, avoided eye contact, and conveyed a comforting calm.
1143Most of all, they were patient. Gorillas are “oblique” characters in that they
1144rarely engage in face-to-face contact. Moreover, like all the apes, they lack the
1145white sclera around the iris that makes the human gaze such an unsettling signal.
1146Our eye coloring enhances communication, yet it also prevents subtleties of
1147communication available to apes with their completely dark eyes. Moreover,
1148apes rarely stare the way we do: they glance. They have incredible peripheral
1149vision and follow much around them from the corners of their eyes. It’s
1150something to get used to. How often have I thought that apes failed to pay
1151attention, only to be proven wrong? They hadn’t missed a thing.
1152The way the gorillas empathized with Prince-Hughes by “looking without
1153looking, and understanding without speaking,” as she called it, took place via
1154postures and body mimicry—the ancient animal language of connection. The
1155colony’s mighty silverback, Congo, was the most sensitive and comforting,
1156directly responding to signs of distress. This comes as no surprise given that the
1157male gorilla, despite his ferocious King Kong reputation, is a born protector. The
1158horrifying tales of gorilla attacks with which colonial hunters used to come home
1159were designed to impress us with human rather than gorilla bravery. But in fact,
1160a charging gorilla male is prepared to die for his family.
1161That it takes an autistic person—someone considered deficient in
1162interpersonal skills—to pick up on the primacy of ape bonding, and the deep
1163kinship we sense with hairy bodies similar to ours, is remarkable. That PrinceHughes
1164was pulled out of her solitude by gorillas rather than by chimpanzees or
1165bonobos makes sense in view of gorilla temperament. These apes are not nearly
1166as extroverted as chimps and bonobos. Take the following ordeal that a Swiss
1167zoo went through. One night, its chimps managed to remove the skylight of their
1168indoor housing and escape to the roof, after which some of them traveled
1169through the city, jumping from house to house. It took days to retrieve the apes,
1170and the zoo was lucky that none of them were shot by the police or electrocuted
1171by a power line.
1172This event gave a local animal rights group the idea of “liberating” the same
1173zoo’s gorillas. Without giving much thought to what might be best for the
1174animals, they climbed onto the ape house at night and removed a skylight above
1175the gorilla quarters. But even though the apes had many hours to escape, they
1176didn’t. The next morning, the caretakers found all of them sitting where they
1177usually sat, staring with amazement up into the air, fascinated by the gaping hole
1178above them. None of them had had the curiosity to climb out, and the skylight
1179was simply put back into place. This, in a nutshell, is the temperamental
1180difference between chimps and gorillas.
1181Our lineage’s state of nature is one of bonding and support to the degree that
1182even someone with autism perceives it. Or perhaps precisely such a person, since
1183our obsession with the spoken word stands in the way of a full appreciation of
1184nonverbal cues, such as postures, gestures, expressions, and tone of voice.
1185Without body cues our communication loses its emotional content and becomes
1186mere technical information. We could just as easily use flashing cards with “I
1187love you” or “I am angry.” It is well known that people whose faces lose their
1188expressiveness because of some neurological disorder and who therefore cannot
1189echo the emotions of others (such as by a smile or a frown), plunge into abject
1190loneliness. Our species finds life barely worth living without the body language
1191that cements us together.
1192Origin stories that neglect this deep connection by presenting humans as
1193loners who grudgingly came together are ignorant of primate evolution. We
1194belong to a category of animals known among zoologists as “obligatorily
1195gregarious,” meaning that we have no option but to stick together. This is why
1196fear of ostracism lurks in the corners of every human mind: being expelled is the
1197worst thing that can befall us. It was so in biblical times, and it remains so today.
1198Evolution has instilled a need to belong and to feel accepted. We are social to
1199our core.
1200TAMED CONTRADICTIONS
1201A twenty-year-old Dodge Dart that I once owned taught me that the most critical
1202part of a car is not its engine. The car would stop completely only if I applied my
1203full weight to the brake pedal. On a quiet morning with little traffic, I drove it
1204slowly to a nearby garage. Even though I arrived safely, the trip was frightening
1205and I dreamed for months afterward of driving a car that would slow but not
1206stop.
1207Nature’s checks and balances are as essential as a car’s brakes. Everything is
1208regulated, all is kept in control. Mammals and birds, for example, have made the
1209evolutionary leap toward warm-bloodedness, yet run into trouble each time they
1210overheat. In hot weather or after exercise, they cool off by sweating, flapping
1211their ears, or panting heavily with their tongues hanging out. Nature had to put a
1212brake on body temperature. Similarly, every songbird has its optimum egg size,
1213optimum clutch size, optimum travel distance for foraging, optimum prey size,
1214and so on. Birds that deviate from the norm by laying too many eggs or looking
1215for insects too far from the nest lose out in the evolutionary race.
1216This also applies to conflicting social tendencies, such as competition and
1217cooperation, selfishness and sociability, strife and harmony. Everything is
1218balanced around an optimum. Being selfish is inevitable and necessary, but only
1219up to a point. This is what I meant when I called human nature a Janus head: we
1220are the product of opposing forces, such as the need to think of our own interests
1221and the need to get along. If I emphasize the latter, it’s because of the traditional
1222emphasis on the former. Both are closely interconnected and contribute to
1223survival. The very capacities that promote peace, such as reconciliation after a
1224fight, would never have evolved in the absence of conflict. In a bipolar world,
1225every capacity hints at its very opposite.
1226We have discussed specific paradoxes, such as the link between democracy
1227and hierarchy, between the nuclear family and infanticide, and between fairness
1228and competition. In each case, it takes several steps to get from the one to the
1229other, but wherever we turn, social institutions result from an interplay between
1230opposing forces. Evolution is a dialectical process.
1231Human nature, too, is inherently multidimensional, and the same applies to
1232chimpanzee and bonobo nature. Even if the chimp’s nature is more violent and
1233the bonobo’s more peaceful, chimps do resolve conflicts and bonobos do
1234compete. In fact, chimpanzee peacemaking is all the more impressive given their
1235obvious violent streak. Both apes have both tendencies, but each reaches a
1236different balance.
1237Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathic than
1238bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely
1239peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and
1240never perfectly moral. Pure states are not nature’s way. What’s true for human
1241society is also true for human nature. One can find both kindness and cruelty,
1242nobility and vulgarity—sometimes all in the same person. We’re full of
1243contradictions, but mostly tamed ones. Talk of “tamed contradictions” may
1244sound obscure, even mystical, but they’re all around us. The solar system is a
1245perfect example. It results from two opposing forces, one directed inward, the
1246other outward. The sun’s gravity balances the planets’ centrifugal motions so
1247perfectly that the entire solar system has stayed together for billions of years.
1248On top of the inherent duality of human nature comes the role of
1249intelligence. Even if we customarily overestimate our rationality, there is no
1250denying that human behavior is a combination of drive and intelligence. We
1251exert little control over ancient urges for power, sex, safety, and food, but we
1252habitually weigh the pros and cons of our actions before we engage in them.
1253Human behavior is seriously modified by experience. This may sound too
1254obvious to even mention, but it is a radically different way of putting things than
1255the way biologists used to talk. In the 1960s, almost every noticeable tendency
1256of the human species was labeled an “instinct,” and Konrad Lorenz’s
1257Instinktlehre (German for “instinct doctrine”) even included a “parliament” of
1258instincts to tie them all together. The problem with the term “instinct,” however,
1259is that it downplays the role of learning and experience. A similar trend exists in
1260some contemporary circles, this time favoring the term “module.” The human
1261brain is compared to a Swiss Army knife to which evolution has one by one
1262added modules for everything from face-recognition and tool-use to child care
1263and friendship. Unfortunately, no one knows exactly what a brain module is, and
1264the evidence for their existence is no more tangible than the evidence for
1265instincts.
1266It is undeniable that we have inborn predispositions, yet I don’t see us as
1267blind actors carrying out nature’s genetic programs. I see us rather as
1268improvisers who flexibly adjust to other improvisers on the scene with our genes
1269offering hints and suggestions. The same applies to our fellow primates. Let me
1270explain this with the example of Yeroen—at the Arnhem Zoo—who had injured
1271his hand in a fight. Yeroen was building a coalition with the up-and-coming
1272Nikkie, but in the shuffles leading to their partnership, Nikkie had bitten him.
1273Although it wasn’t a deep wound, Yeroen limped heavily. After a couple of days,
1274however, we got the impression that he limped mainly when Nikkie was around.
1275I found this hard to believe, so we set out to conduct systematic observations.
1276Each time we saw Yeroen walk with a limp, we recorded Nikkie’s whereabouts.
1277This revealed that Nikkie’s field of vision mattered a great deal. Yeroen would
1278walk past the sitting Nikkie, for example, from a point in front of him to a point
1279behind him and the whole time he was in Nikkie’s view he would hobble
1280pitifully, but once he had passed Nikkie, he would walk perfectly normally
1281again.
1282Yeroen seemed to be faking a limp so that his partner would go easy on him
1283and perhaps show him some sympathy. Hurting one’s buddy is never a smart
1284move, and Yeroen seemed to be pointing this out to Nikkie by exaggerating the
1285pain he was in. Putting on a façade is of course familiar to us, since we do it all
1286the time. A couple tries to look happy in public to hide a strained marriage, or
1287people laugh at an unfunny joke told by their boss. Keeping up appearances is
1288something we share with the apes.
1289Recently, we looked at hundreds of records of wrestling matches among
1290young chimpanzees to see when they laugh the most. Playing apes open their
1291mouth in an expression that looks like the human laugh. We were particularly
1292interested in youngsters far apart in age, as it’s not unusual for their games to get
1293too rough. As soon as this happens, the mother of the younger partner steps in,
1294sometimes hitting its playmate over the head. Obviously, the older chimp wants
1295to avoid this. We found that juveniles playing with infants laughed a great deal
1296whenever the infant’s mother was watching. It was as if they were saying “Look
1297how much fun we’re having!” They laughed far less if they found themselves
1298alone with the infant. Their behavior thus depended on whether mom could see
1299them. Under her eyes, they projected a jolly mood so as to be left alone.
1300Pretense during play or among political rivals is one reason I have trouble
1301with the theory of animals as blind actors. Instead of being genetically
1302programmed when to limp or when to laugh, apes are acutely aware of their
1303social environment. Like humans, they ponder many options in front of them and
1304decide what to do dependent on the circumstances. In the laboratory, apes are
1305usually tested on abstract problems, such as finding rewards pointed out by
1306experimenters or seeing the difference among four, five, or six items (a capacity
1307known as “numerosity”). If they fail, as they sometimes do, the conclusion is
1308often that we’re smarter than they are. In the social domain, however, in which
1309apes deal with those they’ve known all their lives, they give the impression of
1310being about as intelligent as we are.
1311One crude way to test this would be to place a human in a chimp colony.
1312This is obviously unrealistic as a chimp’s strength far outstrips a man’s, but
1313imagine that we could find someone strong enough to stand up to adult chimps.
1314We might be able to see how well he or she would fare within an ape
1315community. The challenge for the human would be to win over friends without
1316being too submissive, because without some level of assertiveness, one will just
1317end up at the bottom of the pecking order or worse. Success will require that,
1318just as in real life, the person be neither a bully nor a doormat. There would be
1319no point trying to hide fear or hostility, because human body language is an open
1320book to chimps. My prediction is that an ape colony would prove no easier to
1321master than an average collection of people at work or at school.
1322All of this is to say that ape social life is full of intelligent decision-making.
1323For this reason, comparisons among humans, chimps, and bonobos go well
1324beyond shared “instincts” or “modules,” however defined. All three species face
1325similar social dilemmas and need to overcome similar contradictions while going
1326after status, mates, and resources. They apply their full brainpower to find
1327solutions. True, our species looks farther ahead and weighs more options than
1328the apes do, but this hardly seems a fundamental difference. Even if we wield the
1329better chess computer, we’re still all playing chess.
1330FOREVER YOUNG
1331Many people believe that our species is still evolving to ever greater heights,
1332while the apes have simply stood still. But did our fellow primates really stop
1333evolving? And is our species really still on the move? Ironically, the opposite
1334may be true. Perhaps our evolution has stopped, whereas evolutionary pressures
1335still operate on the apes.
1336Evolution works through the survival of variants that outreproduce other
1337variants. A couple of centuries ago this still applied to our species. In unhealthy
1338places, such as rapidly growing urban areas, the death rate of people outstripped
1339their birthrate. This meant that some had larger families than others, and yet
1340others no families at all. Nowadays, in contrast, the number of children reaching
1341the age of twenty-five is close to 98 percent. Under such circumstances,
1342everyone has a shot at being represented in the gene pool.
1343Good nutrition and modern medicine have removed the selection pressures
1344driving human evolution. For example, women and babies used to run serious
1345risks during labor. A narrow birth canal (relative to our outsized skull) was partly
1346to blame, meaning that there was continuous evolutionary pressure to keep the
1347canal wide. Cesarean sections changed all that. In the United States, 26 percent
1348of births are by C-section, and in some private clinics in Brazil the rate is as high
1349as 90 percent. More and more women with narrow birth canals will survive,
1350passing on a trait that a few generations ago was a death warrant. The inevitable
1351result will be a growing number of C-sections until natural birth becomes the
1352exception.
1353Continued evolution requires a danse macabre around those who died before
1354they reproduced. This may still happen in the industrialized world—for example,
1355in the form of a devastating flu pandemic. Those with superior immunity will
1356survive to pass on their genes, such as happened during the Black Death of the
1357fourteenth century, which in a span of five years killed an estimated 25 million
1358people in Europe alone. Some scientists believe that a highly infectious
1359Ebolalike virus was transmitted from person to person. Immunity to such viruses
1360is presently more common in Europe than in other parts of the world, possibly
1361owing to this massive moment of natural selection.
1362Similarly, we can expect growing resistance to the human immunodeficiency
1363virus (HIV) in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 10 percent of the population is
1364infected. It is known that a small minority of people resist infection and that
1365another minority fails to develop AIDS even if infected. Biologists label such
1366people “adaptive mutations.” They will propagate until their descendants cover
1367the continent. The process will be completed only after enormous loss of life,
1368however. Wild chimpanzees in Africa must already have gone through this: they
1369carry the closely related simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) without any ill
1370effects.
1371Apart from immunity, which will likely keep adjusting, it is unclear which
1372genetic changes we can still expect in our species. Humanity may have reached
1373its biological peak, so to speak, one we will not be able to surpass unless we set
1374up deliberate breeding programs (which I hope we’ll never do). Despite funny
1375books such as The Darwin Awards, which describe people who remove
1376themselves from the gene pool by engaging in incomprehensibly stupid acts
1377(such as the shoplifter who ran off while stuffing a pair of live lobsters with
1378good-sized claws into his pants, thus causing an unplanned vasectomy), a few
1379such accidents won’t improve the human race. So long as there’s no connection
1380between intelligence and the number of children people bear, human brain size
1381will remain what it is today.
1382But what about culture? When cultural change was still slow, human biology
1383kept up. Some cultural and genetic traits were transmitted together, a
1384phenomenon known as “dual inheritance.” Our ancestors became lactose
1385resistant, for example, when they started raising cattle. Every young mammal is
1386able to digest milk, but the necessary enzyme typically turns off after weaning.
1387In humans, this occurs after the age of four. Those who can’t handle lactose
1388suffer diarrhea and vomiting whenever they drink fresh cow’s milk. This is the
1389original condition of our species, and it’s typical of most adults in the world.
1390Only the descendants of cattle herders, such as Northern Europeans and dairydependent
1391African pastoralists, are able to absorb vitamin D and calcium from
1392milk, a genetic change going back ten thousand years to when sheep and cattle
1393were first domesticated.
1394Today’s cultural developments, however, are too fast for biology to keep
1395pace. Text-messaging via cell phones is unlikely to make our thumbs grow
1396longer. Rather, we developed text-messaging for the thumbs our species already
1397possesses. We have become experts at changing the environment to our
1398advantage. Therefore, I don’t believe in the continued evolution of the human
1399race—certainly not as it would affect body shape and behavior. We have
1400removed the only handle biology has to modify us, which is differential
1401reproduction.
1402It is unclear if ape evolution will keep going even though apes are still
1403subject to real pressures. The problem is that they are under too much pressure,
1404giving them hardly any chance: they hover on the brink of extinction. For years,
1405I have clung to the idea that given the large remaining stretches of rain forest in
1406the world, there would always be apes to accompany us. But I have become
1407pessimistic. Because of massive habitat destruction, large fires, illegal poaching,
1408the bush meat trade (people in Africa actually eat apes), and most recently the
1409Ebola virus sweeping through ape populations, there may be only two hundred
1410thousand chimpanzees left in the wild, one hundred thousand gorillas, twenty
1411thousand bonobos, and an equal number of orangutans. If this sounds like a lot
1412of apes, compare this with the enemy—humans—which number more than six
1413billion. It is an unequal battle, and the prediction is that by the year 2040
1414virtually every suitable ape habitat will be gone.
1415We humans will be diminished if we cannot even protect the animals closest
1416to us, who share almost all of our genes, and who differ from us only by degree.
1417If we let them go, we can just as well let everything go and turn the idea that we
1418are the only intelligent life on earth into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even though I
1419have studied apes in captivity all my life, I’ve seen enough of them in nature to
1420feel that their life there—their dignity, their belonging, their role—is
1421irreplaceable. To lose this would be to lose a big chunk of ourselves.
1422Wild populations of apes are priceless when it comes to illuminating past
1423evolution. We barely know, for example, why bonobos and chimpanzees differ
1424so much from each other. What happened two million years ago when their
1425branches split? Was the original ape more like a chimp or more like a bonobo?
1426We know that bonobos presently live in a richer habitat than chimps, one that
1427allows mixed groups of males and females to forage together. This permits
1428greater social cohesion than in chimps, who in their quest for food split up into
1429small parties. The “sisterhood” among unrelated females that is typical of
1430bonobo society would not have been possible without predictable, abundant food
1431sources. Bonobos have access to enormous fruit trees that allow many
1432individuals to feed together, and they also consume herbs that are plentiful on the
1433forest floor. Since the same herbs are also a staple of the gorilla’s diet, it has
1434been speculated that the total absence of gorillas in the habitat of bonobos has
1435left the bonobos a niche that remained closed to chimps, who compete with
1436gorillas throughout their range.
1437Bonobos have another interesting feature that connects them to us, which is
1438that they are a “forever young” primate. This is known as the “neoteny”
1439argument—applied to our own species ever since a Dutch anatomist made the
1440shocking claim in 1926 that Homo sapiens looks like a primate fetus that has
1441reached sexual maturity. Stephen Jay Gould considered retention of juvenile
1442traits the hallmark of human evolution. He didn’t know about bonobos, the
1443adults of which retain the small, rounded skull of a young chimp as well as the
1444white tail tufts that chimps lose after the age of five. The voices of adult bonobos
1445are as high-pitched as those of infant chimps, they stay playful all their lives, and
1446even the females’ frontally oriented vulva is considered neotenous, a trait also
1447present in our own species.
1448Human neoteny is reflected in our naked skin and especially in our
1449ballooning cranium and flat face. Human adults look like very young apes. Is the
1450crown of creation arrested in its development? There is no doubt that our success
1451as a species is tied to the fact that we have carried the inventiveness and
1452curiosity of young mammals forward into adulthood. We have been named
1453Homo ludens: the playful ape. We play games until we die, we dance and sing,
1454and we add to our knowledge by reading nonfiction or taking senior university
1455classes.
1456There’s a great need for us to stay young at heart. Given that humanity
1457cannot pin its hopes on continued biological evolution, it needs to build upon its
1458existing primate heritage. Being only loosely programmed and having sipped
1459from evolution’s youth potion, this heritage is rich and varied and full of
1460flexibility.
1461A WHIFF OF IDEOLOGY
1462Owing to their near perfect coordination and willingness to sacrifice themselves
1463for the whole, ant colonies are often compared to socialist societies. Both are a
1464workers’ paradise. Yet next to the order of an anthill, even the best drilled human
1465workforce looks like inefficient anarchy. People go home after work, drink,
1466gossip, get lazy—none of which any self-respecting ant would ever do.
1467Notwithstanding the massive indoctrination efforts by Communist regimes,
1468people refuse to submerge themselves for the greater good. We are sensitive to
1469collective interests, but not to the point of giving up our individual ones.
1470Communism went under due to an economic incentive structure that was out of
1471touch with human nature. Unfortunately, it did so only after causing immense
1472suffering and death.
1473Nazi Germany was quite a different ideological disaster. Here, too, the
1474collective (das Volk) was placed above the individual, but instead of relying on
1475social engineering, the methods of choice were scapegoating and genetic
1476manipulation. People were divided into “superior” and “inferior” types, the first
1477of which needed to be protected against contamination by the second. In the
1478horrible medical language of the Nazis, a healthy Volk required removal of
1479cancerous elements. This idea was followed to its extreme in a manner that has
1480given biology a nasty reputation in Western societies.
1481Don’t think that the underlying selectionist ideology was restricted to this
1482particular time and place, however. In the early part of the twentieth century, the
1483eugenics movement—which sought to improve humanity by “breeding from the
1484fitter stocks”—enjoyed widespread appeal in both the United States and Great
1485Britain. Based on ideas going back to Plato’s Republic, castration of criminals
1486was considered acceptable. And Social Darwinism—the idea that in a laissezfaire
1487economy the strong will out-compete the weak, resulting in general
1488improvement of the population—still inspires political agendas today. In this
1489view, the poor should not be aided so as not to upset the natural order.
1490Political ideology and biology are awkward bedfellows, and most biologists
1491prefer to sleep in a separate room. The reason we have been unsuccessful at this
1492is the incredible appeal of the words “nature” and “natural.” They sound so
1493reassuring that every ideology wants to embrace them. This means that
1494biologists who write about behavior and society risk being sucked into the
1495political spin zone. This happened, for example, after publication of our study on
1496simian fairness. Having demonstrated that a monkey will refuse cucumber as
1497soon as its neighbor gets grapes, newspapers used our findings to call for a more
1498egalitarian society. “If monkeys hate unfair treatment, why shouldn’t we?” the
1499op-ed pieces asked. This triggered strange reactions, such as one e-mail accusing
1500us of being Communists. The writer felt that we were trying to undermine
1501capitalism, which apparently doesn’t care for fairness. What the critic had failed
1502to notice, though, was that the reactions of our monkeys paralleled the workings
1503of the free market. What could be more capitalist than comparing what you get
1504with what someone else is getting and complaining if the price isn’t right?
1505In 1879, American economist Francis Walker tried to explain why members
1506of his profession were in such “bad odor amongst real people.” He blamed it on
1507their inability to understand why human behavior fails to comply with economic
1508theory. We do not always act the way economists think we should, mainly
1509because we’re both less selfish and less rational than economists think we are.
1510Economists are being indoctrinated into a cardboard version of human nature,
1511which they hold true to such a degree that their own behavior has begun to
1512resemble it. Psychological tests have shown that economics majors are more
1513egoistic than the average college student. Exposure in class after class to the
1514capitalist self-interest model apparently kills off whatever prosocial tendencies
1515these students have to begin with. They give up trusting others, and conversely
1516others give up trusting them. Hence the bad odor.
1517Social mammals, in contrast, know trust, loyalty, and solidarity. Like the
1518chimps in Taï National Park, they don’t leave the unfortunate behind. Moreover,
1519they have ways of handling potential profiteers, such as withholding cooperation
1520from those who fail to cooperate themselves. Reciprocity allows them to build
1521the sort of support system that many economists see as a chimera. In the group
1522life of our close relatives, it’s not hard to recognize both the competitive spirit of
1523capitalism and a well-developed community spirit. The political system that
1524seems to fit us best would therefore have to balance the two. Not being ants,
1525pure socialism doesn’t suit us. Recent history has shown what happens when
1526individual ambition is stifled. But even though the fall of the Berlin Wall was
1527hailed as a triumph of the free market, there is no guarantee that pure capitalism
1528will fare any better than socialism did.
1529Not that this form of government exists anywhere. Even the United States
1530has an abundance of checks, balances, unions, and subsidies that constrain its
1531marketplace. Compared to the rest of the world, though, the United States is an
1532experiment in unbridled competition. This experiment has made it the richest
1533nation in the history of civilization. Something puzzling is going on, however, as
1534the nation’s health is increasingly lagging behind its wealth.
1535The United States used to have the world’s healthiest and tallest citizens, but
1536now ranks at the bottom among industrialized nations in terms of longevity and
1537height and at the top in terms of teenage pregnancy and infant mortality.
1538Whereas most nations have been adding nearly one inch per decade to their
1539average height, the United States has not done so since the 1970s. The result is
1540that Northern Europeans now tower on average three inches over Americans.
1541This isn’t explained by recent United States immigrants, which constitute too
1542tiny a fraction of the population to affect these statistics. In terms of life
1543expectancy, too, the United States is not keeping up with the rest of the world.
1544On this critical health index, Americans don’t even rank among the top twentyfive
1545nations anymore.
1546How to explain this? The first culprit that comes to mind is the privatization
1547of health care, resulting in millions of uninsured people. But the problem may go
1548deeper. British economist Richard Wilkinson, who has gathered global data on
1549the connection between socioeconomic status and health, blames inequality.
1550With its giant underclass, the income gap in the United States resembles that of
1551many third-world nations. The top 1 percent of Americans has more income to
1552spend than the bottom 40 percent taken together. This is a huge gap compared
1553with Europe and Japan. Wilkinson argues that large income disparities erode the
1554social fabric. They induce resentment and undermine trust, which causes stress
1555to both the rich and the poor. No one feels at ease within such a system. The
1556result is that the world’s richest nation now has one of its poorest health records.
1557Whatever one thinks of a political system, if it fails to promote its citizens’
1558physical well-being, it has a problem. And so in the same way that Communism
1559collapsed due to a mismatch between ideology and human behavior, unmitigated
1560capitalism may be unsustainable as it celebrates the material well-being of a few
1561while shortchanging the rest. It denies the basic solidarity that makes life
1562bearable. In doing so, it goes against a long evolutionary history of
1563egalitarianism, which in turn relates to our cooperative nature. Primate
1564experiments show how cooperation breaks down if benefits aren’t shared among
1565all participants, and human behavior likely follows the same principle.
1566The book of nature thus offers pages that will please both liberals and
1567conservatives, both those who believe that we are all in the same boat and those
1568who put faith in the pursuit of self-interest. When Margaret Thatcher dismissed
1569society as a mere illusion, she was clearly not describing the intensely social
1570primates that we are. And when Petr Kropotkin, a nineteenth-century Russian
1571prince, felt that the struggle for life could lead only to more and more
1572cooperation, he was closing his eyes to free competition and its stimulating
1573effects. The challenge is to find the right balance between the two.
1574Our societies probably work best if they mimic as closely as possible the
1575small-scale communities of our ancestors. We certainly did not evolve to live in
1576cities with millions of people where we bump into strangers everywhere we go,
1577are threatened by them in dark streets, sit next to them in the bus, and give them
1578the finger in traffic jams. Like bonobos in their cohesive communities, our
1579ancestors were surrounded by people they knew and dealt with every day. It’s
1580remarkable that our societies are as orderly, productive, and relatively secure as
1581they are. But city planners can and must do a better job at approximating the
1582community life of old, in which everyone knew every child’s name and home
1583address.
1584The term “social capital” refers to the public safety and sense of security
1585derived from a predictable environment and dense social network. Older
1586neighborhoods in cities like Chicago, New York, London, and Paris do produce
1587such social capital, but only because they were designed for people to live, work,
1588do their shopping, and go to school in. This way people get to know each other
1589and begin to share values. A young woman walking home in the evening will be
1590surrounded by so many residents with a stake in safe streets that she can feel
1591protected. She is surrounded by an unspoken neighborhood watch. The modern
1592trend to physically separate places where human needs are satisfied disrupts this
1593tradition, making us live at one place, shop at another, and work at yet another.
1594It’s a disaster for community building, not to mention the time, stress, and fuel it
1595takes to move all those people around.
1596In the words of Edward Wilson, biology holds us “on a leash” and will let us
1597stray only so far from who we are. We can design our life any way we want, but
1598whether we will thrive depends on how well the life fits human predispositions.
1599I encountered a vivid example of this while having afternoon tea with a
1600young couple during a visit to an Israeli kibbutz in the 1990s. They had both
1601been raised on nearby kibbutzim when children were still being separated from
1602their parents to grow up with other children in the cooperative. The couple
1603explained that this practice had now been abandoned and that parents were
1604permitted to keep their children at home after school and at night. The change
1605was a relief, they said, because having your children close “just feels right.”
1606How obvious! The kibbutz had felt the leash’s limit. I hesitate to predict
1607what we humans can and cannot do, but the mother-child bond would seem
1608sacrosanct as it goes to the core of mammalian biology. We face the same sorts
1609of limits when deciding what kind of society to build and how to achieve global
1610human rights. We are stuck with a human psychology shaped by millions of
1611years of life in small communities so that we somehow need to structure the
1612world around us in a way recognizable to this psychology. If we could manage to
1613see people on other continents as part of us, drawing them into our circle of
1614reciprocity and empathy, we would be building upon, rather than going against,
1615our nature.
1616In 2004, the Israeli justice minister caused a political uproar by sympathizing
1617with the enemy. Yosef Lapid questioned the plans of the Israeli army to demolish
1618thousands of Palestinian homes in a zone along the Egyptian border. He had
1619been touched by images on the evening news. “When I saw a picture on the TV
1620of an old woman on all fours in the ruins of her home looking under some floor
1621tiles for her medicines, I did think, ‘What would I say if it were my
1622grandmother?’” Lapid’s grandmother was a Holocaust victim. The nation’s hardliners
1623did not like to hear these sentiments, of course, and went out of their way
1624to distance themselves from them. The incident goes to show how a simple
1625emotion can widen the definition of one’s group. Lapid had suddenly realized
1626that Palestinians were part of his circle of concern, too. Empathy is the one
1627weapon in the human repertoire able to rid us of the curse of xenophobia.
1628Empathy is fragile, though. In our close relatives it is switched on by events
1629within their community, such as a youngster in distress, but it is just as easily
1630switched off with regard to outsiders or members of other species, such as prey.
1631The way a chimpanzee bashes in the skull of a live monkey to get at its brain by
1632hitting it against a tree trunk is no advertisement for ape empathy. Bonobos are
1633less brutal, but in their case as well empathy needs to pass several filters before it
1634will be expressed. Often, the filters stop it, because no ape can afford to feel pity
1635for all living things all the time. This applies equally to humans. Our
1636evolutionary design makes it hard to identify with outsiders. We’ve been
1637designed to hate our enemies, to ignore the needs of people we barely know, and
1638to distrust anybody who doesn’t look like us. Even if within our communities we
1639are largely cooperative, we become almost a different animal in our treatment of
1640strangers.
1641Such attitudes were summarized by Winston Churchill, long before he
1642earned his reputation as a brave warrior-politician, when he wrote, “The story of
1643the human race is War. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has
1644never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was
1645universal and unending.” As we have seen, this is a gross exaggeration. No one
1646denies our warrior potential, but Churchill definitely got the interludes wrong.
1647Contemporary hunter-gatherer groups coexist in peace most of the time. This
1648probably applied even more to our ancestors, who lived on a planet with lots of
1649space and relatively little need for competition. They must have experienced
1650long stretches of harmony between groups, interrupted only by brief interludes
1651of confrontation.
1652Even though circumstances have changed—making the maintenance of
1653peace much harder than in those days—a return to the mind-set that enabled
1654mutually beneficial intergroup relations is perhaps less of a stretch than it may
1655seem to those stressing our warrior side. After all, we have at least as long a
1656history of getting along with other groups as of fighting them. We have both the
1657chimpanzee side in us, which precludes friendly relations between groups, and
1658the bonobo side, which permits sexual mingling and grooming across the border.
1659WHICH INNER APE?
1660When Helena Bonham Carter was asked during an interview how she had
1661prepared for her role of Ari in Planet of the Apes, she said that she had simply
1662gotten in touch with her inner ape. She and the other actors went to a so-called
1663simian academy to acquire ape postures and movements, but even though the
1664petite Bonham Carter played a chimp, what she’d found within herself instead
1665was, I believe, a sensual bonobo.
1666The contrast between those two apes reminds me of a distinction by
1667psychologists between HE and HA personalities. HE stands for “Hierarchy-
1668Enhancing,” meaning a personality who believes in law and order and harsh
1669measures to keep everybody in place. HA, on the other hand, stands for
1670“Hierarchy-Attenuating,” meaning a personality who seeks to level the playing
1671field. The point is not which tendency is more desirable, because it’s only
1672together that they create human society as we know it. Our societies balance
1673both types, having institutions that are either more HE, such as the criminal
1674justice system, or more HA, such as civil rights movements and organizations
1675that care for the poor.
1676Each person leans toward one type or the other, and we might even classify
1677entire species this way, with chimps being more HE and bonobos more HA. Do
1678we perhaps act like a hybrid between those two apes? We know little about the
1679behavior of actual hybrids, but they are biologically possible and do in fact exist.
1680No self-respecting zoo would intentionally crossbreed two endangered primates,
1681but there’s one report of a small French traveling circus featuring apes with
1682curious voices. These apes were thought to be chimps, but to the expert ear their
1683calls are as shrill as those of bonobos. It turns out that, unbeknownst to it, the
1684circus long ago acquired a bonobo male, who became known as Congo. The
1685trainer soon noticed this male’s insatiable sex drive, which he exploited by
1686rewarding Congo’s best performances by a romp with the circus’ female apes, all
1687chimpanzees. The resulting progeny—perhaps to be called “bonanzees” or
1688“chimpobos”—walk upright with remarkable ease and strike everyone by their
1689gentility and sensitivity.
1690Perhaps we share a lot with these hybrids. We have the fortune of having not
1691one but two inner apes, which together allow us to construct an image of
1692ourselves that is considerably more complex than what we have heard coming
1693out of biology for the past twenty-five years. The view of us as purely selfish
1694and mean, with an illusory morality, is up for revision. If we are essentially apes,
1695as I would argue, or at least descended from apes, as every biologist would
1696argue, we are born with a gamut of tendencies from the basest to the noblest. Far
1697from being a figment of the imagination, our morality is a product of the same
1698selection process that shaped our competitive and aggressive side.
1699That such a creature could have been produced through the elimination of
1700unsuccessful genotypes is what lends the Darwinian view its power. If we avoid
1701confusing this process with its products—the Beethoven error—we see one of
1702the most internally conflicted animals ever to walk the earth. It is capable of
1703unbelievable destruction of both its environment and its own kind, yet at the
1704same time it possesses wells of empathy and love deeper than ever seen before.
1705Since this animal has gained dominance over all others, it’s all the more
1706important that it takes an honest look in the mirror, so that it knows both the
1707archenemy it faces and the ally that stands ready to help it build a better world.