We all learned that Jane Goodall died today. Jane Goodall was a renowned British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist, best known for her groundbreaking research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. In 1960, at age 26, she began studying chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Her work revolutionized our understanding of chimpanzees and human evolution. She’s the person who discovered that chimps make and use tools, eat meat, and have complex social behaviors, findings that challenged the prevailing scientific beliefs that these traits were uniquely human. She observed distinct personalities, emotions, and family relationships among chimps. Despite lacking a college degree initially, she earned her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1965. Her research methodology of observing animals in the wild and giving them names (rather than numbers) was unconventional but proved highly effective. She studied the same chimpanzee community for over 60 years, one of the longest continuous field studies of any animal species. All of this led to her being named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) as well as being awarded numerous awards and honors for her scientific and humanitarian work. She was active in her 90s, right up to her death, traveling the world to speak about conservation. Jane Goodall fundamentally changed how we view our closest living relatives and our place in the natural world. I know Jane Goodall mostly because she was the subject of a 1988 movie starring Sigourney Weaver called Gorillas in the Mist.
Goodall was one of those names everyone recognized for one reason or another because I suspect humans have always been intrigued by their place in the animal kingdom, and perhaps especially amongst the Great Apes. Goodall described what she had learned about people from working with chimps: “That we’ve been very arrogant in thinking that we’re so separate.” So, I began to wonder just how separate or different we are as humans from both our Great Ape cousins and members of the animal world altogether. Specifically, given the clear trends we are seeing in the world today towards more, not less, violence and aggression. I am most interested in that dimension. This sort of anthropological exploration appeals to some of those interests I have always held about ancient man. The history of human violence and aggression is complex and spans our entire existence as a species. The prehistoric evidence shows that plenty of violence existed in prehistoric times, with archeological skeletal remains showing us traumatic injuries and evidence of warfare from the earliest times…not so surprising. However, the extent and frequency of early human violence is debated among researchers since some hunter-gatherer societies appear to have been relatively peaceful, while others show evidence of conflict…again not so surprising and somewhat consistent with my observations of society today. Competition over resources, territory, and mates likely drove most early violence. It’s believed that humans inherited aggressive tendencies from our primate ancestors, though we also inherited cooperative behaviors. Our capacity for both violence and empathy appears to be deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. The human brain has mechanisms for both aggressive responses and impulse control.
The shift to agriculture brought significant changes in mankind. Settled communities and stored resources created new reasons for conflict as did a sense of property ownership and wealth accumulation, which created inequality. Larger populations enabled organized warfare rather than one-off fights. Evidence suggests violence may have increased during this period. There is probably a good reason that the notion that “money is the root of all evil” came about. That phrase is actually a misquote that significantly changes the meaning. The biblical passage (1 Timothy 6:10) actually says “the love of money is the root of all evil” (or “all kinds of evil”), emphasizing that it’s greed and obsession with wealth, not money itself, that leads people astray. This distinction matters because it recognizes money as a neutral tool while warning against allowing the pursuit of wealth to become an all-consuming passion that corrupts other values and relationships.
Property and wealth accumulation connect to the rise of cities and states and that tended to bring with it systematic, large-scale warfare driven by the engagement in conquest and expansion. Violence was often used to establish and maintain social hierarchies. Consequently, many ancient societies glorified martial prowess but philosophical and religious traditions also began promoting peace and compassion. My friend Steve, the fervent anti-religionist, would likely debate whether religion was a moderator or instigator and there is certainly evidence on both sides. In fact, feudal warfare, religious conflicts, and territorial disputes created high rates of interpersonal violence in many societies including public executions and corporal punishment. But there is also what is called “The Decline of Violence Thesis” where scholars like Steven Pinker argue that violence has actually declined over centuries. Lower rates of death in warfare (as percentage of population), declining homicide rates in most developed nations, reduction in torture, slavery, and cruel punishments, and growth of democratic institutions and rule of law are the drivers. If that makes you scratch your head about the direction we seem to be taking in the immediate past, you can understand my quandary. It is thought that the development of strong centralized states (yes, that translates to MORE, not less government) with a monopoly on legitimate force (something like “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”) are ways to reduce violence. The expansion of commerce and economic interdependence (global free trade) and the spread of literacy and education (through things like independent Universities and central Departments of Education) as well as humanitarian movements (USAID and the like) and women’s rights and greater gender equality (both in places like the military and in society overall) also drive us in a non-violent direction. Get my point?
The 20th century saw the deadliest wars in absolute numbers. Industrial warfare and genocide (Holocaust, other genocides) showed humanity’s capacity for extreme violence. Nuclear weapons have created potential for unprecedented destruction. This is all why the post-WWII institutions like the U.N. and alliances like NATO were put into place as a reaction to our first hand witnessing of our worst selves. Despite several high-profile conflicts, battle deaths have declined since WWII. Interstate wars have become rarer, but civil wars and terrorism remain significant concerns. Many regions have enjoyed unprecedented peace and security, but that seems to be changing back as I write this. The factors that drive violence like poverty and inequality, political instability and weakening institutions, ethnic and religious tensions and cultural norms around masculinity and honor all make things worse. And access to weapons does not help in the least.
Humans are likely more violent overall than Great Apes. While both humans and Great Apes engage in violence, humans have several distinguishing characteristics. Humans uniquely engage in warfare, genocide, and organized conflict involving thousands or millions of people. No other ape species does anything comparable in scale. Humans have developed increasingly lethal weapons that amplify our capacity for violence far beyond what’s possible with physical strength alone. And humans kill over abstract concepts like religion, politics, nationalism, and ideology, motivations largely absent in other apes. One could say that this tendency is why we ultimately prevailed as a species…but does it also have imbedded in it the seeds of our own destruction? Isn’t that nature’s balancing act?
Humans also have greater capacity for cooperation, altruism, and peacemaking than other apes. Most humans live relatively peaceful lives, and rates of interpersonal violence have actually declined in many societies over time. Our capacity for both extreme violence and extraordinary compassion seems to be part of what makes us distinctly human. Anthropologists describes humans as having high “proactive aggression” (planned, coordinated violence like warfare) but relatively low “reactive aggression” (impulsive, emotional outbursts) compared to chimps. So we’re simultaneously more and less aggressive depending on the type. Research suggests that lethal violence in humans (murder rates) is roughly consistent with what we’d predict for a mammal of our size and social structure…about 2% of deaths in ancestral populations. We’re not outliers among mammals generally, but our capacity to amplify that violence through culture and technology makes us uniquely dangerous. We’re a moderately aggressive species with an unusual combination of capacities for both extreme violence and remarkable peacefulness. Violence is not inevitable…it varies enormously across cultures and time periods. Humans have tremendous capacity for both violence and cooperation. And as for all those factors that reduce violence and aggression and our recent attempts to systematically dismantle them…we should know better. Even the gorillas in the mist know better, right Jane?