Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are [Paperback]

Primatology, the study of our ape cousins, must at once be the most rewarding and thankless jobs in science. On the one hand, these investigations can tell us more about ourselves than any philosophy or psychology curriculum can hope to impart. We learn of their friendships, conflicts, desires, social manipulations and group politics. The resemblances to humans make compelling reading. On the other hand, the long history of our culture has conditioned us to avoid recognising our evolutionary roots. There are "the animals" and there is "us".

With thirty years' experience in the Netherlands and the United States, de Waal wants us to understand how human values derive from primate origins. His careful studies have revealed things unexpected even to himself. His chief aim with this synopsis is to dispense with the many myths that have emerged over the past few years - chimpanzees as "murderers" or "war-makers"; bonobos as over-sexed and gender indifferent, both as "simply wild animals living at the command of "instinct". Diversity and individuality are a major facet of ape societies which, in de Waal's assessment, not only makes them worthy of study, but worthy of sound comparison with our own species.

At first glance, de Waal's condensation of ape behaviour into four topical chapters seems over-distillation. The material in those chapters, however, shows the complexity of primate personalities. Chimpanzee society is male-dominated, with young males taking every opportunity to displace the "alpha" group leader. They live in a strongly hierarchical society where the males hunt and dispense meat for sexual and other favours. Female chimpanzees form few alliances, although brief excursions with males other than the alpha occur. The other "chimpanzee", as de Waal points out, couldn't be more different. The bonobo, once known as the "pygmy chimp", has a more egalitarian society. In fact, the most dominant individual is usually an older female. When fights occur, they are generally brief and inconsequential. The "alpha" female is more likely to die of old age than be toppled by a younger competitor. The leading bonobo is respected for her conciliation and diplomatic skills. Power, then, is a feature of primate society, but how power is exhibited and maintained varies greatly.

"Sex" and "Violence" form the next two topics. Among the apes, including humans, there are several trade-offs involved in producing and raising offspring. Male-dominated chimpanzee groups can establish parentage with relative ease. "Extra-Pair Matings" [EPM] are discouraged and the alpha male is fairly secure in the babies being his. One of the more distressing discoveries about chimpanzees was the revelation that an usurping alpha would kill all his predecessor's offspring. Bonobos would find such behaviour abhorrent [as do we]. In bonobo society, everybody has sex with everybody else - gender is irrelevant. Consequently, since any baby might belong to any male, infanticide is unknown. It's not unknown among humans. The rate of violence against stepchildren, says de Waal, is a matter of some concern. The rate of human EPM is even higher, with studies indicating as many as one-fifth of newborns fathered by unacknowledged men. Yet, alone among primates, we form the "nuclear family" group.

There's another side to all ape behaviour, says de Waal. That's "Kindness". Science turns over both its own and society's often cherished beliefs. One of those beliefs is that only humans "care". Opening the book with the now-famous case of the gorilla that rescued a small child from a zoo moat, de Waal goes on to explain how apes are kind to each other, and even other species. We like to believe that kindness is something we invented with culture, but de Waal suggests there are roots for it reaching back at least 6 million years when the chimp-human lineage split. "The apes can tell us much about ourselves", he contends. There's no better place to seek that information than among them. While fights among chimpanzees are common and often intense, so is the reconciliation that follows. Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans are form societies. Each has methods to keep those societies functioning. Empathy and mutual kindness are as much a part of ape "culture" as in human communities. De Waal urges that we open our eyes to the examples offered by our ape cousins for hints about solving some of our own problems. The biggest step we must take in that process is the recognition that our habits derive from theirs.

That derivation is de Waal's conclusion to this excellent work. Much has been made of the fact that humans and chimpanzees share over 98% of our DNA. The author passes over the numbers in favour of the behavioural evidence. We and the other apes share the experience of "community" and how to live with others. In aspects of sex and violence, we share habits and diverge - but not far - in others. It's false, he says, to argue that humans are "naturally" violent or loving. We aren't the manifestation of "selfish" genes alone, but adapt fluidly to changing conditions. Like the other apes, we negotiate, maneuver and manipulate, sometimes successfully. Our greatest difference is in the way we occupy and use territory. We evolved in an open environment, but we live enclosed in urban centres. That is a contradiction we must learn to deal with. We are, in his words, "The Bipolar Ape". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

In our explanations of human behavior, there is sometimes a tendency to attribute the brutish and nasty examples to our animal nature, but to claim acts of kindness, altruism and compassion as distinctly human proclivities. This view goes hand in hand with what De Waal calls the veneer theory of civilization -- the idea that morality is a recent acquisition (perhaps aided by religious texts) and that lurking beneath this thin veil of decency is a cauldron of seething, antisocial impulses. Anyone who endorses this Hobbesian view of human nature would do well to consult this book.

In "Our Inner Ape", Frans De Waal seeks to ground both our darkest and most sublime tendencies in a continuous, evolutionary history. He chooses two of our closest primate relatives to prove his point -- the chimpanzee and the bonobo. De Waal assumes absolutely no background knowledge on the part of the reader (in fact, he takes some time to spell out the difference between a monkey and an ape). Sandwiched in between an opening and a concluding chapter, the meat of this book concentrates on the topics of `Power', `Sex', `Violence' and `Kindness'. De Waal's accounts of the highly intricate social networks formed by the ape species and their complex forms of interaction within those networks are extremely interesting.

However, what some might view as the strong point of the book, to me seems like precisely its weakness. I am referring to the book's purely anecdotal tone. Having read it, one comes away less with factual information on the social life of the higher primates than with a somewhat random series of stories. Though these stories are intriguing, there are so many of them that it makes one wonder how much of what has been read will be retained. The book is not so much a concentrated study as it is scattered story-telling.

Also troubling was De Waal's misdirected swipe at Dawkins' "Selfish Gene". Dawkins did go to some extent to distinguish the difference between individual selfishness and what he meant by the phrase `selfish gene'. He also went to some lengths to point out how the term `selfish gene' was not to be understood literally but purely as a metaphor. To believe that Dawkins was out advocating heartless individualism is a gross misreading of his work; it also ignores the fact that Dawkins explicitly stated that his work should under no circumstance be read as a guidebook for how to organize our society. De Waal's reading of Dawkins here is uncharitable and it attacks a straw man version of his argument. There is actually far less dissonance between Dawkins' `selfish gene' and what De Waal proposes in "Our Inner Ape", for De Waal also assumes that morality emerges from a process of natural selection and that it grows out of kin selection and reciprocal altruism (effective strategies for gene propagation).

In some ways this work by De Waal seems like an updating of the outdated "Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris. It is similarly geared specifically toward the general audience who will reap the most satisfaction from this book. It does not seem to offer much that is new to the reader who is even minimally acquainted with primate studies.

Proving that all social science remains cyclical, Frans De Waal offers readers a new trip around in the never ending debate of the biological roots of human culture and behavior. For decades, as any student who sat in on an intro anthropology class will tell you, the reigning comparison stood between Homo sapiens and chimpanzees. Thus these aggressive, territorial, and -- to anthropomorphize a bit -- brutal primates, with their hierarchical and male dominated social structure stood as the explanation for all of humankind's worst impulses. Such analysis fit well into the several millennium old dichotomy between our "animal" (evil) and "human" (good) impulses.

Through his fascinating and often amusing analysis of the bonobo, another primate with whom, like chimps, humans share 98.5% of genetics'. Where the chimp is brutal the bonobo is peaceful. Where chimps are territorial and hierarchical, the bonobos share and maintain a female dominate structure. Where chimps jealously guard sexual privileges, bonobos mate, well like animals, sharing partners in all conceivable combinations (De Waal pays this great attention, suggesting that such "loose" sexual relationships prevent aggression).

De Waal writes well, and offers an interesting thesis that in fact both sides of human nature may well come from our animal roots. He even presents interesting evidence for empathy among bonobs and more startling still, the elusive notion of consciousness, that an individual can project themselves into an alien form, such as bonobos caring for birds. All of this makes for a fun and thought provoking read.

De Waal falls short, however, in not going deep enough. While he demonstrates evidence for the emotional hardiness of chimps vs. the far more delicate bonobo (during a bombing in WWII all a zoo's bonobos suffered heart attacks, while the chimps survived), but does not go far enough in examining the potential genetic basis of such behavior. Also, while he does offer in bonobos interesting evidence of alternative survival strategies to aggression, he unfortunately empathizes a bit too much with these gentle creatures. The resulting anthropomorphize, while forgivable, distracts the readers and leads De Waal to make some arguments that seem a bit forced and ignore viable alternatives.

Such criticism, however, should not cause any to shy away from this quite enjoyable and thought provoking work.

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