Hi @cmartenson, Long time follower and subscriber, took the crash course back in 2010, your platform is one of a very small handful of sources that I trust deeply. I don’t post often so I understand if my voice doesn’t have much weight, but in this instance I did feel compelled to put my two cents in the ring.
We are as closely related to bonobos as we are with chimps, so you can’t really comment on the behaviour of one ape species and how it relates to human behaviour without also acknowledging the behaviour of the other. Bonobos are generally more peaceful and socially tolerant, and this his peaceful nature and their ability to cooperate with one another within and between social groups are seen as potential evolutionary models for human peacemaking.
Given that well over 95 percent of the time that our species has existed we’ve lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers moving about in small bands of 150 or fewer people, perhaps another useful comparison would be to look at the behaviour of humans pre-civilization vs post-civilization?
I’ve done my best to read a book a week for the last 20 years and I’d like to share a couple of relevant passages from two of my all-time favourite books:
The first is a book by Christopher Ryan, ‘Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress’:
“Any way you look at it, Despite significant variation in ecological context, anthropologists have noted near universalities in the behavior and social organization of foragers, from the Amazon basin to the Arctic to the Australian outback. Three characteristics consistently found in foraging societies roughly align with social, physical, and psychological realms: egalitarianism, mobility, and gratitude. Other aspects of hunter-gatherer life can be seen as extensions of these essential qualities, which anthropologists and ethnographers agree to be ubiquitous among practically all foragers. We’ll get into more detail on the specific variations within foraging life later, but for now this will give you a general sense of the foundational principles of our ancestors’ social, physical, and psychological lives:
Fierce egalitarianism/sharing. Anthropologists refer to foragers as “fiercely egalitarian,” meaning that an individual’s autonomy is non-negotiable. Leadership cannot be imposed and tends to be informal and noncoercive, growing out of respect and consensus. Individuals can and do attempt to persuade one another, but they have “little or no leverage to impose their wishes. Reciprocity is expected, and the hoarding of food or selfishness of any kind is not tolerated. Children are respected as autonomous individuals and cared for by unrelated adults as well as their biological parents.
Mobility/fusion-fission. Base camps shift and reconfigure frequently, often seasonally, as individuals and small groups move through the environment in search of food. This mobility is an important factor in social organization in that people can easily walk away from uncomfortable situations. Because bands join and split apart frequently, moving to a neighboring band is always an option to avoid brewing conflict or just for a change in social scenery.
Gratitude. Foragers tend to see themselves as the fortunate recipients of a generous environment and benevolent spirit world. The land is the source of all they need. This view is roughly the opposite of the ‘Narrative of Perpetual Progress’, with its depiction of the natural world as hostile, dangerous, and begrudging. Similarly, foragers tend to relate to a spirit world populated with multiple generous (if sometimes capricious) entities ranging from dead ancestors to elements of their surroundings (water, sky, wind, and so on) rather than the single jealous, “deity at the helm of monotheistic religions.
Until the radical transformations triggered by agriculture around ten thousand years ago, human lives were characterized by egalitarianism, mobility, obligatory sharing of minimal property, open access to the necessities of life, and a sense of gratitude toward an environment that provided what was needed. In foraging societies, leaders were simply those whose opinions happen to be more highly regarded than the views of others at the moment. Power was fluid, not something that could be seized, inherited, or purchased.”
The second is a book by Tyson Yunkaporta, an Australian indigenous man, ‘Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World’:
"There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilising control over what some see as chaos. The Sumerians started it. The Romans perfected it. The Anglosphere inherited it. The world is now mired in it.
The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity.
A combination of social fragmentation and lightning-fast communication means we now have to deal with the crazy people alone, as individuals butting heads with narcissists in a lawless void, and they are thriving in this environment unchecked. Engaging with them alone is futile—never wrestle a pig, as the old saying goes; you both end up covered in shit, and the pig likes it. The fundamental rules of human interaction do not apply to them, although they weaponise those rules against everyone else.
The basic protocols of Aboriginal society, like most societies, include respecting and hearing all points of view in a yarn. Narcissists demand this right, then refuse to allow other points of view on the grounds that any other opinion somehow infringes their freedom of speech or is offensive. They destroy the basic social contracts of reciprocity (which allow people to build a reputation of generosity based on sharing to ensure ongoing connectedness and support), shattering these frameworks of harmony with a few words of nasty gossip. They apply double standards and break down systems of give and take until every member of a social group becomes isolated, lost in a Darwinian struggle for power and dwindling resources that destroys everything. Then they move on to another place, another group. Feel free to extrapolate this pattern globally and historically.”
My take is that cheating / greed / narcissism is not natural or normal human behaviour, but behaviour that arises when humans are disconnected from the natural living systems and social structures that we are biologically wired for. Or at the very least that social and cultural checks and balances to weed out these behaviours have been lost as we have ‘Progressed’ as a species…
coming from?