The Primal Roots of Violence

In the documentary “The Cove,” there is a brutal and macabre scene where dolphins are senselessly butchered. At the end of the slaughter, the surrounding water looks like tomato soup, most of the dolphins have been decimated, and I am left wondering, “For what?” Why do dolphins, self-conscious cetaceans who can ostensibly see through our bodies with the help of sonar, need to die just because we have destructive, vindictive, and unquenchable lusts? Do we honestly think we’re masters of the animal kingdom just because we can wield weaponry that can harm and kill other animals? Do we honestly think other animals are just servile pawns? Do we honestly think we rule the roost in the egregious pecking order of primal power? Surely we are headed towards a rude awakening in the future if we adhere to this patriarchal mentality for much longer.

After watching the horrific scene in the Taiji cove, another question also flashed across my mind like lightning inside of ominous, brooding clouds: “Where does this violence in us come from?”

Many primatologists and evolutionary theorists are now saying the roots of violence can be traced back to our primate ancestors. After much painstaking and well-observed field research, these scientists are basically saying that the need to dominate, control, and destroy are all exhibited in primate habitats. Sadly, this obviates the “gentle ape theory” of the romantic naturalist. It makes it seem far-fetched. We have the “violence gene” because the chimp has bequeathed it to us. The Son of God is like God, and Man is like the Chimp, or least in some ways.

When langur monkeys have a problem with the boss, they don’t just depend upon diplomacy to fix the festering issue. These monkeys actually storm the proverbial gates and demand respect. A clique of rancorous langurs will actually run up to the chieftain of the group and dethrone him. Then they commit “infanticide”. In the chilling words of Howard Bloom, “They wade into the screaming females, grabbing babies left and right. They swing the infants against the trees, smash them against the ground, bite their heads, and crush their skulls. They kill and kill. When the orgy of bloodlust is over, not an infant remains. Yet the females in their sexual prime are completely unhurt.” The mutinous monkeys do this so they can cleanse the langur tribe of all traces of the chief. With all the babies gone, they can start over and forget about the former leader.

In “Demonic Males: Apes and The Origins of Human Violence,” Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson talk about Goliath. Goliath was a primate who was assailed by a throng of bloodthirsty raiders known as the “Kasekela tribe”. The vicious attack took place in the Kahama Valley in Africa. “While Goliath screamed and the patrol hooted and displayed, he was held and beaten and kicked and lifted and dropped and bitten and jumped on,” writes Wrangham and Peterson. “At first he tried to protect his head, but soon he gave up and lay stretched out and still. His aggressors showed their excitement in a continuous barrage of hooting and drumming and charging and branch-waving and screaming. They kept up the attack for eighteen minutes, then turned for home, still energized, running and screaming and banging on tree-root buttresses.” Goliath was never seen again after the beating. It was assumed he stumbled somewhere, fell over and croaked.

This looks bleak as far as the “violence gene” is concerned. Our need to defend our ideologies and territories and cherished possessions comes to us from some kind of primate turbulence in the gene pool. We have gangs, and nation-states, and borders, and angst because the primates did and still do. But this is only a part of the story. There is another side to it. This side is less bleak and more endearing. This side involves the “Bonobos”.

In contrast to the chimps, the bonobos look like emissaries from some enlightened and galactic simian council who espouse play and partnership. Where the chimps spend their time scheming and raiding and raping and pillaging, the Bonobos spend their time strengthening the communal bonds of their society. They do this through pacifistic and egalitarian measures. Because they aren’t ardently focused on usurping other territories and killing distinguished leaders of rival clans, the bonobos can fine-tune their societal lives and their emotional selves. In the words of John Major Jenkins, an expert in the field of Mayan cosmology, “Bonobos evince a greater emotional sensitivity than the chimps and a surprisingly wide spectrum of emotional responses and expressions. Young bonobos make ‘funny faces’ in long pantomimes, alone or while tickling each other, and are more controlled in expressing emotions than the chimps.”

Now it seems that we have both the bonobos and the chimp in us. One is all about equality and emotional diversity, and the other is all about power and perversity. This convolutes the gene pool somewhat, and sheds some light on the partiality of social Darwinism. The dictum, “survival of the fittest,” no longer seems absolute and almighty in lieu of the recent findings. It may be better to say, “survival of the one most entranced by deep play”.

I do prefer the latter dictum. It will lead us to a situation where no more dolphins die in the oceanic waterscape they help make musical.