A Desultory Diary, Episode 10: The Ape Within

“Nature is red in tooth and claw, wrote Tennyson. This is indeed at least partially true, especially regarding interspecies conflict. I cannot conceive how a loving God, for instance, could have created one species as carnivore and another as prey. Darwin, who intended to study for religious office in his youth—before he became, shall we say, “woke”—had similar feelings. He, too, couldn’t conceive of a loving God who could program a certain type of wasp to sting and paralyze a tarantula, subsequently burying the hapless creature alive with a single egg on its abdomen. When it hatched, it would feed on the tarantula who was unable to move but  still very much alive. This can be considered an excellent survival strategy devised by adaption to one’s environment, but that doubtfully existent God—who even more doubtfully maintained that He "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”--certainly didn’t include mercy for spiders among His inscrutable ways.

When we consider intraspecies relations, there is irrefutable evidence, especially regarding apes, that cooperation and peace-making are widespread. How could it be otherwise? For instance, when a fight breaks out between two male bonobos, females often rush in to make peace. (They do this by offering sex to the opponents, the perfect distraction, at least among bonobos!) There are even examples of interspecies kindness, once again among bonobos.

The idea that human morality is a thin layer of sheep’s clothing covering a wolf underneath is unfounded. Thomas Hobbes, the sixteenth century advocate of absolute monarchy, asserted “Homo homini lupus_--that is, man is wolf to man. This is as true as “Nature is red in tooth and claw,” that is, only partially true. (As a wolf, however, I would rather be surrounded by my own kind than by a pack of frequently savagely unkind human beings.)

Our emotional heritage from the animal within is ambiguous. We certainly find this “moral” ambiguity when we examine the cultural lives of chimpanzees. They can wage brutal wars against chimps of a different group, and sometimes can be savage to chimps in their own group as well. They can also be what we humans would call “kind and compassionate.”

The famous primatologist, Frans de Wall, whose excellent book, The Ape Within, I strongly recommend, asserts that human beings are much worse than apes regarding brutality and much better than they regarding compassion. There is no Holocaust in their history, no United Nations either. While this is true, I think what limits apian benignity and savagery is their relative lack of intelligence. Apes are unable to invent guns, but I think if they could, they would.

If you’re ever confronted by a chimp in a rage, you better get out of the way.There has been a fairly recent case when a chimp—chimpanzees may be smaller, but they are much much stronger than humans—ripped off someone’s face in a fit of anger. What would happen if a chimp in a rage understood what a gun was—quite possible—and had its finger on the trigger?

Humans generally acknowledge that some form of the biblical command to love one's neighbor as oneself constitutes the highest morality. I do not consider this, however, to be an imperial ukase, a divine decree. It is simply the voice of the better angels within us. It has been viewed as a command, however, because aggression, also a part of our genetic heritage, needs to be transcended. 

Apes "fan fresh our wits with wonder". We can also learn many things from them. In the mirror that apes hold up to us, it is as if we see inchoate good as well as inchoate evil.We, after all, share most of our genes with them. Which to emphasize is up to us.

Genes influence destiny, but genes and destiny, however, are not the same thing. Frans de Waal points out that for something to be instinctual it must be present at an early age and be universal. (For instance, laughing and crying). Crimes such as rape are, therefore, not instinctual. Similarly, war is not inevitable. It might well remain a possibility, but under the right cultural and social conditions, that possibility can be greatly reduced. This is indeed good news.