Bonobo in the wild

Journalism about biology often tells us more about our cultural assumptions and prejudices than about the science itself. Nicholas Wade’s most recent article in the New York Times about chimpanzees is no exception. After introducing us to John Mitani, the main chimp researcher in his piece, Wade says

Most days the male chimps behave a lot like frat boys, making a lot of noise or beating each other up. But once every 10 to 14 days, they do something more adult and cooperative: they wage war.

When I read those sentences, my mouth dropped open. My definition of cooperation doesn’t encompass war. In fact, cooperation and conflict are opposites as far as I can tell. And if I were a “frat boy,” I would have some difficulties with Wade’s initial comparison. In fact, as an adult human, I have a problem with all the assumptions that undergird Wade’s article.

His first assumption is that chimps are like humans, like frat boys or soldiers in particular. Watching television specials on chimpanzees, I haven’t noticed a great resemblance between the way these animals behave and the pranks of fraternity boys or the activities of army platoons. And in fact, there’s a lot of controversy about whether aggressive chimpanzees are our closest relatives or their cousins, the peacefull bonobos.

His second assumption is that warfare necessitates cooperation, when, in fact, it’s usually a matter of hierarchy, commands, and coercion. The “grunts” do what they’re told, and until recently, they never had any choice about whether they’d enlist or not. Instead, they were conscripted.

And finally, Wade assumes that warfare is more “adult” than the “frat boy” behavior he describes. Whew! I’ve always believed that war was a failure of mature behavior, an inability to work things out as grown-ups are supposed to do.

Where do these assumptions come from? They’re a part of our patriarchally gendered construction of reality. It’s important within a patriarchal society like ours — where men are in power and define themselves in contrast to women and women define themselves in contrast to men — for people to believe that we’re more closely related to chimps than bonobos. Chimpanzees live in a competitive, male-dominated culture, while bonobo society is peaceful, and matriarchal. Bonobos also engage in considerable same-sex behavior, something anathema to the definition of a “real man” within patriarchy. As I titled this piece, chimps make war, while bonobos make love — a lot actually, with almost every other bonobo in their group. As the Bonobo Conservation Initiative states on their website:

Bonobos live in large groups where harmonious coexistence is the norm. While in many ways, males and females have “separate but equal” roles, females carry the highest rank, and the sons of ranking females are the leaders among males. Females form close bonds and alliances, which is another way they maintain their power among males, who are larger and stronger physically.

Looking at the assumption that the chimps are behaving in an “adult” fashion when making war, we can see that in a patriarchal culture, mature masculinity is supposed to be assertive, a short step away from aggression. In contrast, mature feminity is supposed to involve cooperation, nurutrance, and caring. Socially endorsed masculinity in our culture also involves risk taking. These understandings lead quite “naturally” to the belief that mature masculinity is violent and war-like. So the surprising thing about Wade’s article is that he defines the aggressive behavior of chimps as both cooperative — a feminine attribute — AND warlike — a masculine quality.

Of course, women are not the only people who cooperate. And clearly there’s teamwork during war. Without it, many men wouldn’t survive. But cooperation on a social level is something altogether different, an attitude that would ultimately make war unnecessary. So putting these two concepts together is jarring to say the least.

When it comes to Wade’s assumptions about warfare, he’s way off the mark. The development of warfare coincided with the development of the city state in the 4th millenium BCE. From what we can tell, until the beginnings of the city-state, all societies were communal. In these prehistoric societies, survival depended on mutual cooperation. Certainly violent conflict took place between these prehistoric groups. But it was based on voluntary participation. With the beginnings of hierarchy, slavery, and class structure – all outgrowths of the the city-state – warfare as we know it today began to evolve.

What bothers me most about Wade’s article is that in making parallels between male chimp behavior and the activities of human men, he normalizes war. In fact, Wade talks about how

The chimps’ waging of war is “adaptive” … meaning that natural selection has wired the behavior into chimps’ neural circuity because it promotes their survival….The chimps are just innately aggressive toward their neighbors…

War, in his way of thinking, is just a natural part of the chimp or human condition. It’s in our genes and in the genes of our closest animal relatives. This would be the logical outcome if you put together all these assumptions of competitive, patriarchal culture.

But patriarchy is just one of many social forms, and certainly not the one that best serves us, especially if we’re women. And I don’t think it serves men very well either, since it forces them into a straightjacket of competition, risk taking, aggression, and stand-alone independence. Wouldn’t we all be better off in a culture of true cooperation, with the ability to compromise rather than imposing our will on everybody else or having it imposed on us (in its extreme called warfare)? Coercion by violent means needs to make way for a future of generosity, tolerance, and interdependence. In other words, realizing that we’re all in this together.


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