Why, of all animals, only humans fight each other? Is it because we're so smart? Or, on the contrary, did we become so smart because we were aggressive? Or some animals can also exterminate their own kind in the mood?
T. Oleinik tried to peacefully sort out all this …
The whole history of man is the history of wars. Along the way, of course, the wheel and hand washing were still invented, but anyone who opened a history textbook would inevitably drown in the abundance of lathered horse groats, bloody swords and Maginot line breakouts.
Even the greatest literary works of antiquity are mostly inspired stories about how Achilles rips out the tendons from Hector, Shiva gives kicks to the asuras, the beautiful Ushivaka destroys Tyra's house, and Cuchulainn, breaking his back to his friend Ferdiad, says some kind, heartfelt words. There is nothing to say about the Bible: there is a continuous beating of babies from the first page to the last.
Considering that biologically a person is a cannibal and a scavenger, it would probably be naive to expect other behavior from him. Nevertheless, over the years of evolution, this predator has accumulated such altruism and such abilities for empathy, compassion and mercy that if you look at humanity from some Alpha Centauri, then, probably, one would expect that by the Paleolithic homo, as it were sapiens put aside his ancient stone ax and be filled with love and goodness. No, well, in fact, how can you cry over a fading flower, and then go to empty the guts of your neighbors?
Where does this interesting schizophrenia come from in us? Why did it take so long for man to form as an animal at war, and what is happening on this front now? Recent studies by anthropologists and sociopsychologists provide very interesting answers to these questions.
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About wars
In the entire foreseeable history, there was not a minute on the planet when a war was not going on somewhere, and until the 20th century, approximately 7-10 percent of the Earth's population died as a result of military operations (in the 20th century, a sharp increase in the population brought down this percentage, despite several wars on a global scale). I must say that humanity has never come up with a single extensive ideological system that would unequivocally say that war is something bad: all religions somehow supported the sacred right of one group of people to slaughter other groups of people, if, of course, very I want to. Individual pacifists have always been perceived by the majority as malachol creatures, poorly understanding the importance of historical moments.
At the same time, the actual murder - the taking of a person's life - was almost always considered a crime. With one caveat: the killer acted alone or in a small group. As soon as the group grew large, any murder committed by it, whether it was called a war, execution, revolution or suppression of a riot, received complete moral indulgence.
And this moment - a person has the right to kill if he is in a group, but does not have if he is alone - explains a lot about the nature of war and man. True, they did not pay attention to him for a very long time.
There are dozens of theories explaining the phenomenon of war: Freud explained it by aggression and a desire for death, Malthus - the struggle against overpopulation, Hegel - the laws of the dialectical development of society, Lenin - the class struggle. In recent years, a lot of wonderful theories have appeared: passionarity, age imbalance (the younger the population in a society, the more willing it is to fight), economic and rationalistic theories. And they all remarkably show in what conditions people are more willing to fight, but do not answer the main question: why are they doing this at all? That is, it is clear that the winners receive some kind of benefits, but in general, war is almost always ruinous for all parties and extremely disadvantageous for the absolute majority of its participants. It's nice, of course, to get a jug for free,two mats and a youthful slave - but was it worth the risk of being left without a head? Pay attention to the fact that all the time people are fighting without any chance of any reward. It is enough to study the history of military conflicts between the primitive tribes of the Papuans of New Guinea, where each tribe is in a permanent state of brutal war with everyone else, where any stranger is perceived as both a murderer and a victim, and where death from natural causes for men (and for many women) is an event exceptional. People simply live by destroying each other. Caring for food, housing, offspring is secondary there, in the first place are constant vigilance, fear of the enemy and hatred of neighbors. It is enough to study the history of military conflicts between the primitive tribes of the Papuans of New Guinea, where each tribe is in a permanent state of brutal war with everyone else, where any stranger is perceived as both a murderer and a victim, and where death from natural causes for men (and for many women) is an event exceptional. People simply live by destroying each other. Caring for food, housing, offspring is secondary there, in the first place are constant vigilance, fear of the enemy and hatred of neighbors. It is enough to study the history of military conflicts between the primitive tribes of the Papuans of New Guinea, where each tribe is in a permanent state of brutal war with everyone else, where any stranger is perceived as both a murderer and a victim, and where death from natural causes for men (and for many women) is an event exceptional. People simply live by destroying each other. Caring for food, housing, offspring is secondary there, in the first place are constant vigilance, fear of the enemy and hatred of neighbors. People simply live by destroying each other. Caring for food, housing, offspring is secondary there, in the first place are constant vigilance, fear of the enemy and hatred of neighbors. People simply live by destroying each other. Concern for food, housing, offspring is secondary there, in the first place are constant vigilance, fear of the enemy and hatred of neighbors.
In general, if people spent as much effort as they spend on wars and searching for compromises, they would undoubtedly be able to solve all world issues by spilling one single liquid - ink.
Biologists and ethologists who timidly tried to bring their proposals into discussions were usually harshly pushed out the door. Okay, they said, you can still blather something about sex, psyche, or there, about genetics, but war has nothing to do with biology. Beasts don't fight. Show us a finch with a grenade launcher - then we'll talk.
And the finch was found. Well, that is, not quite a finch …
Brutal manners
Animals don't really fight. They can fight, bite, scratch, drive from their territory and engage in mating battles, but in terms of full-scale hostilities, they have a large history of zero. Predators can hunt in groups, but when they meet a competing group, they will not line up and close their bayonets; individuals may mate, but in general the groups will try to stay away from each other. The famous "ant wars" are also not wars in the human sense: they are simply predatory raids on anthills of a different species with the destruction of these anthills. Hunting - yes. But not a battle.
But for a group of one species to purposefully go to exterminate representatives of another group belonging to the same species, no, nature has not shown samples of such a plan to man. For the time being. More specifically, it was until the mid-1970s, when the natural chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall published a book showing that chimpanzees are at war. They are fighting, without any discrepancies. The males (sometimes females) of the group gather in fighting detachments and try to sneak into the parking lot of the other group, along the way, brutally beating and sometimes destroying the “enemies” they encountered, including the cubs.
Jane Goodall and her restless chimpanzees.
The biologist, temporarily transformed into a chronicler, describes in detail such forays: “Six adult males of the Kasakela group, one teenage male and one adult female, leaving the younger chimpanzees of the flock, headed south, and then heard the screams of chimpanzees from that direction, and unawares male Kahama - Godi. One of Kasakela's males threw the fleeing Godi to the ground, sat on his head and pressed his legs, while the others beat and bit him for ten minutes. Finally, one of the attackers threw a large stone at Godi, after which the attackers fled. Godi was able to get up, but he was seriously injured, was bleeding, and his body was covered with bites. Godi died of his wounds. The next month, three Kasakela males and one female traveled south again and attacked the male Kahama named De, who at that time was weakened by illness or previous fights. The attackers dragged De from the tree, trampled on him, bit him, beat him, and tore out shreds of his skin. The female accompanying De, who was in heat, was forced by the attackers to go with them to the north. Two months later, De was seen alive, but so emaciated that the spine and bones of the pelvis protruded from the hide; several claws were missing, part of a toe was torn off. After that he was not seen. In February 1975, five adult males and one juvenile male Kasakela tracked down an old male Goliath from the Kahama pack. For eighteen minutes they beat him, pounded and kicked, stepped on him, lifted him and threw him backward, dragged him along the ground and twisted his legs … "Two months later, De was seen alive, but so emaciated that the spine and bones of the pelvis protruded from the hide; several claws were missing, part of a toe was torn off. After that he was not seen. In February 1975, five adult males and one juvenile male Kasakela tracked down an old male Goliath from the Kahama pack. For eighteen minutes they beat him, beat him and kicked him, stepped on him, lifted him and threw him backward, dragged him along the ground and twisted his legs … "Two months later, De was seen alive, but so emaciated that the spine and bones of the pelvis protruded from the hide; several claws were missing, part of a toe was torn off. After that he was not seen. In February 1975, five adult males and one juvenile male Kasakela tracked down an old male Goliath from the Kahama pack. For eighteen minutes they beat him, beat him and kicked him, stepped on him, lifted him and threw him backward, dragged him along the ground and twisted his legs … "lifted and thrown backwards, dragged along the ground and twisted his legs … "lifted and thrown backwards, dragged along the ground and twisted his legs …"
The most interesting thing is that recently both of these groups were one. She split after the divergence of the leaders. All members of this group were close relatives who had good feelings for each other before the "divorce".
Goodall's book caused a huge scandal, especially in the camp of fans of the theory that real cruelty in nature is characteristic only of man - a creature that has become detached from nature.
Jane Goodall among a flock of baboons.
Alas, further research by scientists confirmed the observations and even expanded them. It turned out that other monkeys, such as gibbons and baboons, also make military sorties (albeit less cruel and less often leading to death). Even herbivorous gorillas and arachnid monkeys periodically get on the warpath in order to properly pile on neighbors.
Monkey with grenade
The question "why" was still in the air. The chimpanzees observed by Goodall did not suffer from starvation; they had quite extensive hunting grounds that could feed a larger number of representatives of the species. There was a feeling that they were making such forays out of pleasure. The mockery of the corpses and the joyful dancing around them seemed an act of senseless and unjustified cruelty. And why do chimpanzees - so smart, affectionate and empathic, so touchingly cooperating with each other and caring about the safety of their fellowmen - suddenly turn into maddened sadists? What mechanisms have allowed such a property, which is clearly harmful to the species, to evolve and gain a foothold?
And then the next question arose: is it harmful? The most cruel warriors among primates are chimpanzees, they are also the most intelligent living species (apart from humans, of course). So which came first - rationality or cruelty?
A number of researchers believe that the cruelty of warring primates is a consequence of their highly developed ability for thought and compassion. Precisely because they know how to understand other people's pain, they inflict it, experiencing aggression and excitement. And this excitement, fear and empathy become a kind of drug that absolutely cannot be obtained otherwise than by torturing your own kind. The only cubs that deliberately maim small animals and become agitated looking at their agony are chimpanzees (again, if you distract from the person). The kitten can mutilate the mouse, but he will not think about the feelings of the mouse - he just plays with a twitching ball. A baby chimpanzee understands perfectly well that a bird with a torn-off leg is in pain - he alternately demonstrates fear, pity, and gloating, playing with his living toy.
But most evolutionary psychologists still take the opposite view. They believe that the rationality of primates is due to their extreme aggressiveness towards their own kind.
If we put together various theories on this topic, then everything happened like this.
The ancestors of primates lived in an area in which fierce competition for resources gradually began. For some reason, settling outside the usual area was difficult for a long time, and the population suffered from periodic hunger strikes, after which active clashes began between its members for the purpose of, for example, cannibalism or simply regulation of the number (we can observe such pictures in some modern species, for example in lions, hyenas and rats). It was then that mutations turned out to be extremely beneficial, which oriented individuals towards altruism in relation to “their own”, that is, the closest relatives, and aggression towards “strangers” - more distant relatives. Being by nature a creature not too well armed to destroy their own kind, unlike lions, hyenas and rats, the ancestor of man and apes could not easily kill rivals alone. But having united in a group, it was possible to exterminate all unnecessary cousins and second cousins.
A rather large gatherer animal, in need of a large amount of protein, not specialized in grazing and not possessing powerful fangs, claws or teeth, relied on cooperation and aggression towards strangers. For millions of years, it has perfected these wonderful skills. Some of his descendants learned to jump on trees and feed on leaves, so that herbivorous monkeys have such forays, rather, an atavism. But the meat-eating monkeys were forced to continue to train their patriotism and intransigence to enemies, since the easiest way was to get protein from the same monkey, if, of course, you watched it in a crowd and tear off its tasty and nutritious legs (chimpanzees, being not a pronounced cannibal, as a person, they also do not hesitate to eat parts of the bodies of those killed, especially young ones).
And yes, in group battles, it was not the strongest who won, but the smartest. Observant, cautious, with high communication skills, mutual understanding and mutual assistance. Those who tried to prevent any quarrels in their group (remember the important point that a lone killer is always an outcast in our country, since personal aggression, especially in relation to “friends”, does not bring bonus points to the group, but takes them away).
So it was not the mind that gave rise to aggression, but, probably, on the contrary: we received our big and intelligent brain as a gift from our great-great-grandfather, who, with his help, successfully mined smaller brains.
Such interesting news comes to us from the world of birds and animals.
Cursed forever
And what, a person is doomed to be a “killing person” for life, since such a species specialization has turned out?
Imagine a father of a family who tenderly kisses his children and his wife, straightens a knitted blanket on a baby, strokes a pussy, pats a dog behind the ear, sprinkles a canary with millet, and then takes a berdan and goes to shoot a bastard who encroached on peace and quiet in his beloved family. Are we ready to understand it? Of course ready! At least at this stage in the development of society. Protecting our own, especially females and young, we have such a priority over all other forms of compassion that even when we see attacks on peaceful home nests in the movies, our fists clench and our hair stands on end on the ridge. The human capacity for love and compassion is truly limitless, with it can only be compared with rage towards those who threaten what we love - whether it is our family, property or the whale we are saving from slaughter.
It remains only to divide the world into "friends" and "aliens". For chimpanzees, “friends” are those chimpanzees with whom he has been in contact for the last couple of months. Or not only chimpanzees, but also, say, the same dogs or favorite plush toys - in general, what the chimpanzee has recently sniffed, stroked and honored as his own.
For a person with his vast communications and super-pumped brain, everything is much more complicated. He can sincerely hate his neighbor in a communal apartment and love his president dearly, although he sniffs his neighbor every day and has never seen the president (although the TV is trying to rectify the situation). He simply grew up in the consciousness that “his own people” are his best people in the world, headed by the best leader in the world, and this is not discussed. Even a fully developed and civilized person can be turned into a chimpanzee blazing with hatred in a matter of weeks, if every day from special boxes you confidentially tell him how the damned Pechenegs make sausage from Christian babies, and the vicious Phoenicians are planning to drop their marines into his bathroom.
But if from the same box, or from church pulpits, or from the pages of good books, you constantly repeat that all people are brothers, all children need protection, that you cannot offend the weak, no matter what color they have gills, and in general “don't touch the bird, put the dog down, "then the concept of" ours "may well extend to the size of the Galaxy and even beyond that. And all these pacifists of the past - Erasmus of Rotterdam, Victor Hugo, Francis of Assisi and Leo Tolstoy - ultimately expand this Galaxy. Not for everyone, unevenly, but the process is going on.
Here is a 17th century Japanese writer who writes a tale about a robber who robbed and killed people, and then he was caught and sentenced to execution in boiling oil. The robber's little son was thrown into the cauldron, and when the oil was poured, the robber, fleeing the heat, stood on the child with his feet, and "the audience laughed at him." Seventeenth century, enlightened writer. But today, even in ISIS, we are unlikely to recruit spectators who would be able to laugh at such a spectacle …
Because a person, fortunately, is changing - changing rapidly and for the better. The sight of the torn bodies of enemies is less and less pleasing to the public, if you do not take completely atavistic individuals. The safer we feel ourselves, the more kindness we are ready to pour out on the heads of our near and far. The more we are told from each iron that violence is unacceptable, the more we tend to agree with this.
And vice versa: where, taking the levers of information, monkeys come to power, very soon almost the entire society will be covered with wild wool. Especially that part of society, whose education, due to its smallness and stuntedness, will not be able to act as a reliable shield that protects against fear and hatred of "strangers". Fortunately, information in the modern world knows no boundaries, and every year it is more and more difficult for the totalitarian rulers of this planet to really charge their people with fear and hatred, if in fact nothing threatens this people.
So chimpanzees, in general, can begin to say goodbye - until the worst times. And who knows how evolution went there on Alpha Centauri.
Author T. Oleinik