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Monkey Business
Mar. 12th, 2006 08:47 pm"Are there any lessons to be learned here that can be applied to human-on-human violence - apart, that is, from the possible desirability of giving fatal cases of tuberculosis to aggressive people?"
A quote from an actually quite optimistic article in Foreign Affairs reviewing monkey cultures and their environmental versus genetic hereditability. One case study involved a baboon tribe where the aggressive males would go out to raid a garbage dump that was camped out by another tribe. One day a batch of bad meat sold by a corrupt meat inspector killed off both the garbage dump tribe and all the aggressive males. Not entirely surprisingly, the remaining male baboons in the tribe exibited much more sociable traits, with less aggression and more grooming (more grooming is always good, right?) What makes this interesting is that in baboon culture, young males in a tribe always go off to join other tribes, they never stay in their original one (in contrast to chimps where the females are the ones who leave). What this meant is that a generation later, all the males in this tribe were newcomers*, with no genetic link to the original "peaceful" baboons who had by this time all died off. And yet, all the peaceful behaviors persisted. The theory presented in the article is that the females of the tribe had become much more trusting of males than in normal tribes, and the new potentially aggressive males in response became relaxed and calm.
Yes, I wrote this all out as justification for the first quote. But it is interesting anyway. But hopefully the take away lesson is that primates can pass peacefulness on culturally, once we get there...
*Vaguely reminiscent of the step-ladder/banana/water-hose story
A quote from an actually quite optimistic article in Foreign Affairs reviewing monkey cultures and their environmental versus genetic hereditability. One case study involved a baboon tribe where the aggressive males would go out to raid a garbage dump that was camped out by another tribe. One day a batch of bad meat sold by a corrupt meat inspector killed off both the garbage dump tribe and all the aggressive males. Not entirely surprisingly, the remaining male baboons in the tribe exibited much more sociable traits, with less aggression and more grooming (more grooming is always good, right?) What makes this interesting is that in baboon culture, young males in a tribe always go off to join other tribes, they never stay in their original one (in contrast to chimps where the females are the ones who leave). What this meant is that a generation later, all the males in this tribe were newcomers*, with no genetic link to the original "peaceful" baboons who had by this time all died off. And yet, all the peaceful behaviors persisted. The theory presented in the article is that the females of the tribe had become much more trusting of males than in normal tribes, and the new potentially aggressive males in response became relaxed and calm.
Yes, I wrote this all out as justification for the first quote. But it is interesting anyway. But hopefully the take away lesson is that primates can pass peacefulness on culturally, once we get there...
*Vaguely reminiscent of the step-ladder/banana/water-hose story
