The Controversial Origin of War and Peace: Apes, Foragers, and Human Evolution

I came across this article, by Luke Glowacki, in 3 Quarks Daily. It is an unusually academic article for them to post, but I read it with interest, because war has been so much in the headlines recently. Unfortunately, the article is extremely narrow in scope and focuses mainly on the timeline in the history of war. The questions become "Did war originate with our common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos or later?" and "If it originated much later, was it present among Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers?" I think that the article could have been improved by spending more time defining the role of war and aggressive behavior within a species.

Chimpanzees are known to behave aggressively toward other chimpanzee groups. Bonobos are not as well understood, but they don't seem to be as aggressive as chimpanzees. Glowacki fails to mention that bonobos operate in matriarchal hierarchies, and I think that gender could be a useful lens for discussing war, since female primates are generally less physically violent than male primates, and are accordingly smaller and weaker. Although there is evidence that human hunter-gatherers engaged in warlike behavior, it is somewhat unclear how that manifested itself prior to the development of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. Glowacki does at least mention that, as a practical matter, it would be difficult for early hunter-gatherers to organize and coordinate anything that would resemble a modern army. He finishes by saying:

Recognizing that the capacity for both war and peace may be an outcome of our evolutionary history better explains how our species today can create durable peaceful relationships among societies that encompass billions of individuals but at the same time petty grievances and disputes can precipitate war with little provocation. We carry their evolutionary legacy today in our own struggles to create a more peaceful world, but one in which we all too often turn to violence.

I did not find this saccharine conclusion very enlightening.

My preferred way of looking at human behavior is through the lens of our evolutionary development of eusocial behavior, or, more broadly, cooperation. This occurred in tandem with bipedal gait and, later, the development of language. Through this process, Homo sapiens in effect outcompeted not only chimpanzees and bonobos, but all other hominids. Evolutionary processes permitted humans to achieve greater fitness than all other primate species. Rather than pretty this up for a feel-good moment, I prefer to compare humans to eusocial insects. I am reminded of my earlier post, "The Brutality of Life," in which I described honeybees:

Every spring, a fertilized queen sets out to start a nest. She finds a site, often a hole in the ground, and begins to lay eggs. The queen emits chemicals that cause all of the eggs to become females that do not reach maturity. The nest then becomes a factory where the queen continues to lay eggs and her daughters tend to the eggs, find food and defend the nest. Toward the end of summer, the queen stops emitting the chemicals that control the development of her eggs and offspring. Some of her daughters mature to adulthood, and some males are born. The daughters start to lay their own eggs. Initially, the queen attempts to eat all of the eggs laid by her daughters, but eventually, her mature daughters attack and kill her. The mature daughters that have been fertilized leave the nest seeking shelter for the winter. In the spring, the process starts again.

It seems to me that scientists often ignore the most basic principles of Darwinism. Natural selection is not a pretty process, and for the most part it's just a numbers game: did a species survive, and, if so, how? We like cooperation and social harmony, but that is only because we have evolved to feel that way. Most species don't, and that includes honeybees. While, ostensibly, honeybees are eusocial, like us, the queens exert complete biological control over all of the other members of their hive. Eusociality itself does not imply equality. The end result is that honeybees are an extremely durable species, while nearly all honeybees are, in effect, slaves. In his essay, "Brain Size and the Emergence of Modern Human Cognition," Ian Tattersall describes how modern humans evolved in a rather haphazard manner during periods of vacillating climate change. In an evolutionary sense, this means that we just happened to have the right characteristics at the right times, and we could easily have become extinct with slight environmental differences. As a cautionary note to optimists, I often feel compelled to point out that our notions of morality do not correspond with the universe in general and are simply evolutionary characteristics that have helped our species survive. On the other hand, on a more purely rational basis, there is ample reason to remove from office leaders whose aggressive military actions cause the pointless loss of human life and unnecessary humanitarian crises. The long list of offenders includes not just Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin, but Benjamin Netanyahu and George W. Bush.  

In my opinion, the major problems that we are facing now are human overpopulation and anthropogenic climate change. Those two conditions alone are generating pointless wars. Most countries, including the U.S., currently lack governments that seem capable of addressing those risks.

Diary

I've started on a longer biography but haven't made much progress in it so far. There are more distractions than usual this year, and I only like reading when I can really concentrate properly. One distraction has been a stream of solicitations from my dear friend, Kamala Harris, for more money, and I've sent all that I'm going to send and put "STOP" on messaging and opted out of emails. I also have to admit that it is unnerving to think that Donald Trump could be elected president in a few weeks. I still think that the odds are against it, and, even if it does occur, you have to remember just how incompetent he is. He isn't as talented as Hitler or Napoleon, and nearly every venture that he has undertaken failed. The main problem associated with Trump is that he is an enormous waste of resources when there are many serious national issues that need to be addressed.  But you have to remember that Joe Biden, who already seemed senile in 2020, beat Trump after just one term. At this point, there are more young non-neoliberals in the Democratic pipeline, so the party could recover. Therefore, in my view, Trump is on the way out, and it's only a question of whether it will be in a few weeks or in four years at the most. One consolation for me is to be living in a state where Trump could never win. While Rutland County is a little more conservative than Addison County, it is still Democratic. I recently met my Vermont representative, Stephanie Jerome, who drove to my house to introduce herself to me. She is a Democrat, and I've already voted for her. 

My tomatoes are still holding out, though the weather is turning cold. A local man, who is living with a large family that includes his children and grandchildren, took a large bag of ripe tomatoes and all of the green tomatoes. He said that he would take whatever is left at the end of the season and feed it to his pig. Our local social media is Front Porch Forum, and it comes in handy for getting rid of things that you don't want. Vermonters are less wasteful than most Americans. I still have plenty of tomatoes for myself and eat a tomato salad for dinner every other day. Next year, I think I'll grow two of the same plants plus one cherry tomato plant.

I currently seem to be all set with my mouse friends. I heard them in the walls recently and did another full inspection of the house exterior. At the top of the roof, under the eaves, they had enlarged a small opening by chewing on it. In order to see it, you had to hang over the eaves and look underneath. The evening after I sealed it, the two remaining mice panicked and ran through the house to the back porch, where I trapped them. I released them in the yard, since they can't get back in now. The mice here are wild, and they don't enter the house looking for food. They primarily seek shelter during the winter. They also like to store food in dry places. Before there were humans here, they were doing the same things in trees. As far as they're concerned, the house is a big tree.

I will have a visitor here next week, so my blog posts may be delayed a little.

Diary

The fall colors are intensifying now, and it looks as if they may almost be peaking in the mountains. I think this is the best time of year here, followed by May. When I lived in Oregon, I didn't enjoy the climate much. There weren't enough deciduous trees to make the fall spectacular. There was no snow in the winter. The spring was hardly noticeable. The summer was boring, with no thunderstorms. The lack of dynamism in the climate seemed to translate into the insipidity of the local population. I think that the only things I liked there were the mountains and the rugged coast, but I spent most of my time in the Willamette Valley. Although I like some of the progressive aspects of the West Coast, I can't say that I've met anyone from there who appealed to me. In my readings, I've noticed that Czeslaw Milosz, Bertrand Russell, Carl Zuckmayer, and Vivian Maier disliked it. Even though I'm not really European, I still feel that way. The Northeast isn't exactly European either, but it's physically closer and still slightly connected.

I've been trying to find some good reading material but haven't come up with anything suitable yet. I gave up on two books that I started and am about to begin searching again. Every few years I get rid of a pile of unread books because they are a waste of space. I am the opposite of a hoarder. 

The presidential election is drawing closer, but I can't exactly say that I'm excited. Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is not qualified for the job, and there is now a large chorus, including Republicans, saying the same thing. Just to show how bad Trump is, Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris. Almost no economists endorse his economic plan. While campaigning, he is usually incoherent. Experts on geopolitics think that world leaders find him easy to manipulate. So, what we're talking about is voter psychology. A majority of men prefer Trump, probably because he is an alpha male and can bully women or whomever he chooses. A majority of women prefer Harris, probably because she is pro-abortion and supports women's rights. This generally has little to do with policies. If Harris is weak on policies, she is more likely to use her available resources to find new ones. Trump, on the other hand, makes most of his decisions on an ad hoc basis; he is a "shoot from the hip" thinker who regularly demonstrates that he doesn't understand economics or foreign policy. His only goal in life seems to be to increase his self-esteem – whether he deserves it or not.

The other big story is the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. It's also hard to get excited about that. I think that Biden has handled this incorrectly and ought to  have reigned in Netanyahu long ago. A commentator recently said that Israel has tactics but no strategy. That seems to be correct as I've been observing this. Over the years, Israel has built up its defenses without a real plan, and whenever an opportunity arises, they just say "Hey, we can blow that up!" I have seen no evidence that they give any thought to the long-term consequences of their actions. Of course, I tend to view this in terms of evolutionary biology. Like chimpanzees, the Israelis and their neighbors are incapable of producing effective long-term plans, and all they can do is engage in tit-for-tat confrontations. To my way of thinking, this is primarily a case of animal crowding, in which physical violence is the default solution whenever a conflict arises. With the Israel lobby, Netanyahu thinks that he can ignore the U.S. and U.N. whenever he feels like it. He has the insight of an alpha chimpanzee. It seems to me that Israel has created an unnecessary humanitarian crisis along with millions of victims who will seek retribution for decades – simply because they could do it.

At the moment, I am concerned that the Israel situation, Hurricane Helene and the dockworkers strike may add further confusion to the U.S. election. However, it is possible that people's common sense will kick in and Trump will be permanently ousted. It doesn't take much intelligence to recognize that, when circumstances are becoming more chaotic, a person who is known for creating pointless chaos is not the best choice for addressing those conditions.