Our Inner Ape: The Best And Worst Of Human Nature by Frans De Waal

Author:Frans De Waal [Waal, Frans De]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781783780938
Publisher: Granta Publications
Published: 2014-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

Upon my arrival from Europe more than two decades ago, I was taken aback by the amount of violence in the American media. I don’t just mean the daily news, but everything from sitcoms, comedies, and drama series to movies. Staying away from Schwarzenegger and Stallone hardly does it: almost any American movie features violence. Inevitably, desensitization sets in. If you say, for example, that Dances with Wolves (the 1990 movie with Kevin Costner) is violent, people look at you as if you are crazy. They remember an idyllic, sentimental movie, with beautiful landscapes, about a rare white man who respected American Indians. The blood and gore barely register.

Comedy is no different. I love Saturday Night Live for its inside commentary on peculiarly American phenomena such as cheerleaders, televangelists, and celebrity lawyers. But Saturday Night Live is incomplete without at least one sketch in which someone’s car explodes or head gets blown off. Characters like Hans and Franz appeal to me for their names alone (and yes, I do have a brother named Hans), but when their free weights are so heavy that their arms get torn off, I’m baffled. The spouting blood gets a big laugh from the audience, but I fail to see the humor.

Did I grow up in a land of sissies? Perhaps, but the important point is that there’s a big difference in how violence is portrayed in different societies. And which do we value most: harmony or competitiveness? This is the problem with the human species. Somewhere in all of this resides a true human nature, but it’s stretched in so many different directions that it’s difficult to say whether we’re naturally competitive or naturally community-building. In fact, we are both, but each society reaches its own balance. In America, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” In Japan, “the nail that stands out gets pounded into the ground.”

Does this variability mean that we cannot learn from other primates? It’s not that simple. First, each species has its own way of handling conflict. Chimps are more confrontational than bonobos. But also within each species, like in humans, we find variation from group to group. We see “cultures” of violence and “cultures” of peace. And the latter are made possible by our universal primate ability to iron out differences.

I’ll never forget one particular winter day at the Arnhem Zoo. The entire chimpanzee colony was locked indoors, out of the cold. In the course of a charging display, I watched the alpha male attack a female, which caused great commotion as other apes came to her defense. The group calmed down, but an unusual silence followed, as if everyone was waiting for something. It lasted a couple of minutes. Then, unexpectedly, the entire colony burst out hooting, and one male rhythmically stamped on the metal drums stacked in the corner of the hall. In the midst of all the pandemonium, at the center of attention, two chimps kissed and embraced.

I reflected on this sequence for

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