This week at the library: Chimpanzees, El Niño, and simple living

This week at the library I've been working through a lull, having finished my last Stack o' Books and having not yet gotten another one. My plans to fetch said stack were modified after I did a twelve-mile hike through hills on Saturday and consequently spent Sunday in bed watching episodes of The Office on DVD. Turns out I'm not as rough and ready as I thought.  I've been waiting for some books to arrive in the post;  one was ordered weeks ago from Georgia. I could walked over and gotten it by this point! Happily it arrived today. I've been biding my time reading a book on composting.  

In the last couple of weeks I’ve read two science books which won’t quite get full comments. The second was Frans de Waal’s Good-Natured, which concerns empathy in animals and  particularly chimpanzees. Considering how much of the book focuses on the same chimpanzees and topics covered in previous works, it’s somewhat redundant; throughout he argues that animals like elephants and chimpanzees are quite socially intelligent,  and delivers example after example to demonstrate how monkeys and chimpanzees act in anticipation of one another’s emotional states, motivated by personal attachment as well as selfish concern.  It’s eye-opening and wondrous if you’ve not read de Waal before, but…I have, and very recently. 

On a different note I read through Brian Fagan’s Floods, Famines, and Emperors, which first attributes the decline of various nation-states to El Niño periods. Considering that in dirt another scientist pinned the decline of some of the same nation-states on their used-up soil,  Flood is something of an example of specialists interpreting everything according to their unique focus. Midway he looks at the stresses climate change has put on historic nations in general, but that is done with more punch in Jared Diamond’s Collapse.  I much prefer the humility of dirt, which offered soil exhaustion as one source of decline, but not The One True Reason.  Fagan remains unique in the field of paleoclimatology, or archaeological meteorology, however.

Presently, I'm reading a delightful book on simple living, and anticipate receiving The Metropolitan Revolution through interlibrary loan shortly enough. Some reviews are in the works for Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England and On Desire, the latter being nearly finished.  Daily Life took some getting into; the first chapter is a formidable treatment of sunken earth homes which even I couldn't take to. Happily after that there's trade, family life, and other such merriment.  Now that I've read about the Anglo-Saxons, I'm free to read The Vikings: can't put the cart before the warhorse!

So, after a busy weekend outdoors and in, the lull is passed and it's on for a few more interesting books. Happy reading, all!

The Bonobo and the Atheist

The Bonobo and the Atheist: in Search of Humanism Among the Primates 
© 2013 Frans de Waal
313 pages

 Frans de Waal has written extensively on moral instincts within the great apes, in books like Good natured and Primates and Philosophers. In The Bonobo and the Atheist, he reviews his experience with chimpanzees and bonobos over several decades with an eye for what they might teach us about human morality. His express purpose is to find hope for building a moral human society outside the bounds of authoritarian, belief-dependent religion, but he’s more interested in examining the basis of natural morality than in condemning religion. Taking a cue from Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists, he acknowledges that religion and human culture have thus far been inextricably bound. His studies of chimp and bonobo behavior, and studies of human behavior, indicate to him that there is more to morality than simple genetic-biased altruism;  we are bound to our communities, kin or no, through deep social instincts, and it is these that are the basis of our morality.

Throughout the book, de Waal explores moral impulses revealed in the behavior of chimpanzees and bonobos. Although chimpanzees have a reputation for violence,  even they discipline one another for failing to practice self-restraint: a challenger for an alpha position can't bite with impunity, nor can adults bully the young who have not yet learned appropriate behavior; violators of these norms and others, like stealing or cheating, are punished with a round of shrieking and beating.  Their morality isn't limited to instinct; it is also informed by their intelligence. As mentioned, youngsters are 'taught' appropriate behavior, indirectly;  chimp youths can chase females in estrus, but as they start to become 'teenagers', they're regarded as potential challengers by the reigning males and taught their place, even if they're not yet  capable of reproduction.  Other cases demonstrate that chimpanzees can take stock of what they've done and remember it later; a chimpanzee who bit a trainer's finger off was later visibly ashamed, isolating itself and covering its eyes; when the human saw him again, the chimp recognized him and attempted to examine the hand.

These behaviors may be safely assumed to be evolutionary boons to a social species, helping mitigate physical damage caused by struggles for power, or preventing competition within the group from destroying it. Moral instincts and acculturation allow a tribe to work better together, and the same holds true for humans. Once our morality would have been guided by the same measures: our every indiscretion would be noticed by the people we lived among, and remembered; we could be directly accountable for our behavior. Once human populations became too large for these tribe-level measures to handle, however, religion became useful, and for that reason not a single human culture today is without it.  Even in the modern era, increasingly secular, we are forging a new path in the form of a civic culture that attempts to foster healthy behavior without the necessity of believing in elaborate creeds.  It is de Waal's hope that the humanist approach, of practicing a moral culture for the sake of human needs, informed by human experience,  will prove workable, though presently its most vocal proponents are men who have limited their advocacy to merely attacking religion, which is fruitless and makes as much sense as 'sleeping furiously'.  Still, he is hopeful that natural morality will prevail eventually; it does have the advantage of being instinctual. Humanity has as much hope of purging itself of its conscience as it does of  becoming asexual.

Although most of de Waal's own experience comes from observing bonobos in an artificial environment, a spacious exhibit in Arnhem Zoo that prevents some pertinent aspects of behavior from manifesting themselves, he couples it with the studies of other populations in the wild.  The Bonobo and the Atheist, like its title, is an interesting discussion that combines primate behavior and the evolution of religion. What is missing, I think, is any mention of Natural Law, which  would have given his mention of civic culture considerable heft. Humans have been attempting to discern moral convention from nature since Aristotle, both inside religion and out of it. A comparison between declared belief in the Rights of Man according to constitutions and charters and the inferred rights in religious texts ("Thou shalt not kill" inferring a right to life, for instance) would have been most interesting. Both in de Waal's view would be expressions of humanity's inherent moral instincts, but civic belief has the quality of being open to change when necessary; a humanistic moral culture would not be limited by dogma. Simply creating a healthy moral culture won't make religious domination a thing of the past -- it has other virtues, other contributions that must also be made good for -- but it would be a start in creating a world more concerned with the needs of people than power, priests, and convention, and less dependent on something as volatile as beautifully dangerous religion.

de Waal's observations and insight prove again remarkable.

Related:

• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt  (whom he quotes from)
• Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton (mentioned)
• Chimpanzee Politics, The Age of Empathy, Primates and Philosophers, Our Inner Ape, etc. Frans de Waal 

Chimpanzee Politics

Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes
©  1983 Frans de Waal
256 pages

Back in the 1970s, primatologist Frans de Waal conducted one of the first extensive studies into the social structures of chimpanzees.  Chimpanzee Politics is the result,  establishing facts now taken for granted, namely that chimpanzee populations are organized by rank, which for males influences how successful they are are spreading their genes. It also illustrates their startling intelligence, both social and physical;  de Waal witnessed chimpanzees collaborating to overcome obstacles, like electrified wire wrapped around the base of a tree that could provide a bounty of food in leaves,  as well as engaging in Machiavelli-level manipulation to increase their status within the community. Admittedly, some of this is subjective, but only some, and de Waal's ideas were confirmed by other researchers' observations of different populations, like Jane Goodall's Gombe Valley project.  Chimpanzee Politics makes for fascinating reading if you've an interest in our fellow primates:   de Waal's work indicates that  leadership, even in a  sheltered environment like the zoo enclosure in Arnhem where he did his work -- comes with responsibilities, like keeping order.  Alpha males haven't simply brute-forced their way into the top of the sexing order; they're seemingly expected to protect the weak against the strong and settle disputes.   de Waal also points out that leadership in a chimpanzee tribe isn't limited to brute force: he demonstrates how an older, deposed chimpanzee was able to maintain a position of immense influence by continuing playing two young contenders for the seat of power off of one another. It's rather like a game of Survivor, with less whining and more fur -- and instead of being voted off, you get beaten senseless. de Waal's study did have its limitations: the chimpanzees did not interact with other tribes, nor did they compete for food, so important aspects of the equation are missing.  He did compare his experiences with those of Goodall's, however, and his general conclusions aren't at odds with those she reached in Through a Mirror.

Related:

• Author interview on Point of Inquiry, discussing his new book, The Bonobo and the Atheist. 
• Our Inner Ape, Frans de Waal
• Through a Window, Jane Goodall

Our Inner Ape

Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are the Way We Are
© 2005 Frans De Waal
288 pages

I've been passing by this one for weeks now, and decided to give it a go this past weekend. It was a short, quick, and incredibly interesting read. Although we human beings like to separate ourselves from the (rest of the) animal world, De Waal states in his opening chapter that we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying the society of our closest relatives, the great apes. While his introduction mentions gorillas, the book is utterly dominated by examinations of chimpanzee and bonobo society. Bonobos are a subspecies of chimpanzees who are in some ways closer to us -- both physiologically and socially. Although we associate our animal nature with "brutish" behavior, De Waal maintains that our nature is a "Janus nature". The nature of the apes lends itself to both violence and peace -- to hate and love. Rather than focusing on one "face" of our existence over the other -- or on one kind of chimpanzee studies over the other -- De Waal belives that we have a lot to learn from either.

The book is divided into four sections -- "Power", "Sex", "Violence", and "Kindness" and finishes with an epilogue. In each, De Waal compares human societies with chimpanzee and bonobo communities, commenting at length on the extent and type of behavior being observed. The book is very well written, I think, and draws directly from field research. He references Jane Goodwall's work as well as his own. He goes into a lot of detail: for me, having read one of Goodall's books so recently was quite helpful. There are a couple of particular points he makes I'd like to share. In the "Sex" chapter, De Waal notes that sexual behavior among the great apes is done a disservice among humans when forced to fit into only a few boxes -- "Hetero", "Homo", and "Bi". Chimpanzees, bonobos, and human beings don't fit into those boxes. Given the range of behavior exhibited by all three species it is more likely that most of us are capable of enjoying intimate relations with everyone when cultural inhibitions are taken out of the equation. Also of note for me was the chapter on "Kindness", in which De Waal demonstrates that even chimpanzees -- the "killer ape" -- are capable of acting with reason and empathy to beings within their group. Religions don't introduce kindness to people, in De Waal's (and my) words: they only build on its natural tenders in us .

I recommend the book -- not only is it very interesting, but it's quite readable as well. I went through it in a matter of hours.