Christopher Boehm is a professor of anthropology and director
of the Jane Goodall Research Center at the University of California. He has read hundreds of anthropological
studies on a variety of human societies.
He also spent time with Goodall at Gombe National Park, observing the
behavior of wild chimpanzees. These
experiences inspired him to speculate on our evolutionary journey, and to attempt
the daunting challenge of defining “human nature,” the core essence shared by
all humans. He presented his ideas in Hierarchy in the Forest.
Before we begin, the goal of my work is to help people who
are interested in learning about ecological sustainability. Boehm’s book pays little attention to
ecology, and I quit reading about 75 pages before the end. Folks who are eager to learn about the
various trends and controversies in cultural anthropology should put it on
their reading list. I was intrigued by
some of the passages I read. My plan is
to jabber a bit about these, and then call it a day.
There are numerous types of societies, ranging from
egalitarian (no bosses) to hierarchical (some have more power than
others). Among hierarchical societies,
some have many layers of rank and status, like wolf packs. At the extreme, despotic societies have a
dominant alpha to whom all others must submit, like chimps or Nazis. Boehm presented theories on the evolution of
politics and morality among chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and humans. Based on how the four species behave today, he
imagined that the common ancestor of all four, who lived seven million years
ago, was innately despotic — and that all four today remain near the despotic end
of the political spectrum.
He believed that humans took a strange path. In the beginning, we were hierarchical. Later, for much of the hunter-gatherer phase,
we were egalitarian. Then, around 12,000
years ago, with the domestication of plants and animals, hierarchy returned to
ascendance, and grew to monstrous proportions over the centuries. This was not black and white, some early
societies of herders or horticulturalists remained egalitarian, despite having
private property and unequal wealth.
Oddly, egalitarian societies were also hierarchical. Civilized societies have pyramid-shaped
hierarchies, with the powerful at the top, and the dominated masses spread out below. Egalitarian societies have an upside down
pyramid, a “reverse dominance hierarchy.”
When someone began behaving in an inappropriate manner, the entire group
united to confront the misbehaving oddball.
Cooperation was fundamental to the success of hunter-gatherer
societies, so conflict avoidance was imperative. Upstart males, exhibiting impulses to
dominate others, were a serious threat to the stability and survival of the
society. Nothing was more uncool. The antidote to disruptive upstarts was
sanctions — criticism, ridicule, disobedience, ostracism, shunning. Sanctions often helped the upstart get the
message, and return to conformity. If
these failed, the upstart might move to a different group. If all else failed, he might be executed.
Hunter-gatherer cultures had time-proven methods for
encouraging conformity, and discouraging the impulses of problem personalities.
It was always uncool to be boastful,
arrogant, or overbearing. When a hunter
brought home excellent meat, he would apologize for the worthless crap that was
unfit for dog food. Self-depreciation helped
to level out differences, and discourage painful swellings of pride.
Once upon a time, Boehm had succeeded in earning the trust of
Navajo elders, in his quest to learn about mental illness in the tribe. One day, he realized that he had left a
watermelon in his car, which he had bought to be a gift. He ran out, got it, ran back, offered it to
the elder — and immediately obliterated the trust he had carefully earned,
terminating his research. His action had
been too sudden, and was perceived as aggressive. The Navajo have a low opinion of white
people, and are highly distrustful of them.
In Indian country, people are expected to be calm, composed, dignified,
and respectful.
One passage especially touched me. Jean Briggs was an anthropologist who spent
more than a year with the Utku Eskimos of northern Canada. She apparently behaved like an ordinary
American, who had moody days, and sometimes displayed a flash of anger when
irritated. This freaked out the Eskimos,
who sometimes ran out the cabin when she was crabby and hissing. In that society, folks were expected to
smile, laugh, and joke — to behave like happy people. Nothing was more uncool than showing your
emotions, because strong thoughts can kill or cause illness. Anger was dangerous juju, highly toxic.
The Eskimos tolerated a lot of extremely inappropriate
behavior, because Briggs was a visitor from a tribe that was notoriously loony. They gave her hints for behaving more
politely, but she missed their meaning.
Eventually, they reached their limits, and Briggs became a nonperson. She simply could not learn how to conform.
Briggs was brought up in a hierarchical culture, where we all
compete against one another to acquire, hoard, and display the most status
trinkets. Self-centeredness is the
expected norm. Most of us live amidst
hordes of perfect strangers, and the sight of strangers must make our tropical
primate brains squirm and sweat. When
chimps see a strange male, they don’t welcome him with smiles and hugs; they kill
him. Gorillas are also impolite unknown
visitors. Of course, humans take great
delight in savagely killing foreigners by the millions.
It’s hard for us to imagine spending our entire lives among a
small group of people, where survival depends on cooperation, where competition
and conflict were toxic. The Eskimos
were not merely “acting” happy. They
were raised in a culture where it was normal and healthy to mindfully maintain
respectful relationships with all others.
They had to spend long dark winters in close quarters, so it was
impossible to tolerate selfish spoiled brats or infantile tyrants. Everyone’s highest responsibility was to
maintain the stability of the group.
Boehm’s book was published in 1999. Most research on wild bonobos occurred after
2003. Early studies had to be abandoned,
because of a civil war that raged between 1994 and 2003, claiming three million
lives. Based on incomplete information, Boehm
assumed that bonobos were at the despotic end of the spectrum, but later
research revealed that they were remarkably
egalitarian. Also, they were not
egalitarian in the sense of “reverse dominance hierarchy.” For bonobos, egalitarian behavior was normal,
natural, almost effortless. Humans are
closely related to both despotic chimps and egalitarian bonobos.
Why are chimps and bonobos so different? Ecology may be the primary factor. Bonobos enjoy an ideal habitat, with abundant
food, and no serious competitors in their niche. Chimps live in leaner lands, and compete for
food with gorillas and baboons. Scarcity
creates tensions, and territorial boundaries must be aggressively defended
against trespassers. Crowding is the
mother of conflict. Extreme crowding
turns humans into bloodthirsty mass murdering maniacs.
Boehm, Christopher, Hierarchy
in the Forest, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1999.
