Re: Hierarchy In the Forest

Richard,

I am curious about your praise of Boehm. I am not familiar with this 
particular version of the "tendencies toward dominance are in the genes" 
argument, but am curious about the argument and the use of the phrase 
"alpha males" in reference to humans.

Are you familiar with Owen Lovejoy's argument about the origins of 
bipedalism and its relation to the peculiarly human sexuality? There is a 
nice version of his argument in an anthology entitled The Origin and 
Evolutions of Humans and Humanness." (It is a development and reworking 
of an earlier piece in Science, called, I believe, "The Origin of Man" 
but I am not sure.)

Dirctly on the question of alpha males: humans lack the strong sexual 
dimorphism, particularly in the size of the canines, which is related to 
sexual strategies that depended on competititon among males for access to 
females. Large canines are not particularly useful for consuming food; 
rather their advantage would seem to be in the displays and fighting 
which mark competition among males for females, but humans lack them. 
What does that tell us?

Chimps have conspicuous estrus, where female displays indicate sexual 
receptivity and spark competition among males for access to 
females. In contrast, humans have hidden estrus and permanent 
sexual receptivity. What does that tell us?

Chimps mate indicriminately; humans form sexual pairs. What does it mean?

Female chimps, who are alone reponsible for nurturing infants, are severely 
limited in the number of infants they can bear and nurture in an adult 
lifetime. In contrast, human societies can provide for children and their 
parents when they cannot provide for themselves, enabling the nurturing 
of more children. How are these facts connected? What doe they tell us 
about humans?

This combination of features, and many others, seem to indicate that 
there is a fundamental change in human (versus chimp) social organization 
and reproductive strategies. Lovejoy relates this to the orgin or 
bipedalism and sharing (or communism). That is, bipedalism makes it 
possible to use the hands for carrying and this in turn makes it possible 
to organize social life (the foraging camp) based on going out, 
retrieving food and bringing it back in order to share it. In turn this 
makes it possible to nurture more infants.

Human sexual strategies come to depend on pair bonding, sex for bonding 
(not just reproduction), and families as sharing groups. This is written 
on our faces (lack of large canines) and in our sexuality (hidden estrus).

Do I know that this is true? Does Lovejoy? Here, again, in the article in 
the anthology on humans and hummanness, Lovejoy is very good on the 
epistemological limitations of these speculations.

So I think it is time to say once again: speculations about "alpha males" 
and an "innate tendency toward aggression and domination" say much more 
about the politics of the writer than they do abou the weight of 
scientific evidence.

In struggle,

Paul

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

> Having now read the review of "Demonic Males" more carefully, I can again
> recommend "Hierarchy In the Forest" by Boehm.
> 
> He makes a sophisticated argument about human politics and inequality
> based comparative analysis using data from a) observations of chimps
> and other great apes, and b) surveying ethnographic data on hunting &
> gathering societies.
> 
> In a nutshell, he argues that there is an innate human tendency toward
> hierarchy, domination by alpha males, (as is the case with all the
> other great apes, but is even more pronounced in modern human societies),
> but that there is also a counter-tendency, most clearly exhibited in all
> hunting & gathering societies, toward egalitarianism.  He characterizes
> the countertendency as an *ethos,* a moral norm.  Its prevalence is one
> piece of good news as far as the possibility of egalitarianism.  (Speaking
> of chimps, Boehm presents a fascinating account of chimp coalitions, and
> makes a plausible case that humans and chimps are more alike than
> different as compared to gorillas.)
> 
> The final piece of his argument is based on group selection.  Rather
> amazing if you know anything about modern biological theory, because group
> selection was decisively rejected in the 60s, replaced by a strict,
> parsimonious theory of individual-level selection.  Boehm argues that the
> long period of hunting & gathering society presented precisely the
> conditions for group selection to operate.  If groups that enforced the
> egalitarian ethos survived at a higher rate than despotic groups, then
> egalitianism could have been selected for at the group level.
> 
> So this is another piece of good news -- our (relatively) recent
> evolutionary past may have modified the underlying hierarchical tendency
> with an increased egalitarian disposition.  
> 
> Whether you agree with all of it or not, it is, in my opinion, an
> excellent piece of research, and a high-level theoretical
> exercise.  (Enough to give one hope that anthropology hasn't yet been
> totally overrun by postmodernists.)  It ought to become THE baseline for
> discussion, debate, and future research on these critical questions.
> 
> RH
> 
>