Four Pack: Four Essays on Aspects of Human Nature

FOUR-PACK

Four Essays on Aspects of Human Nature

Kent W. Shreeve

WingSpan Press

Copyright © 2012, 2014 by Kent Shreeve

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

without written permission of the author,

except for brief quotations used in reviews and critiques.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by WingSpan Press, Livermore, CA

www.wingspanpress.com

The WingSpan name, logo and colophon

are the trademarks of WingSpan Publishing.

First Edition 2012

Second Edition 2015

ISBN 978-1-59594-436-8

ISBN 978-1-59594-888-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012930206

Dedication

To Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Jim Morrison,

and Hunter S. Thompson. Thanks guys.

Table of Contents

1. Human Nature and Politics

Baboons and Europe – The Triumph of Democracy

and Peace 1

2. Human Nature and Film

The Unseen Casablanca – The Neurobiology of a Film

Classic 37

3. Human Nature and Psychology

Understanding Flow – The Short Course 59

4. Human Nature and the Novella

Self-delusion as to Motives – Heart of Darkness versus

Apocalypse Now 71

Notes 111

Baboons and Europe

- The Triumph of Democracy and Peace -

You only have to know about two things to know that world peace is possible—baboons and Europe. By studying one amazing band of baboons in a tiny spot in East Africa and by studying modern Europe (current population about 600 million), one discovers not only that world peace is possible, one discerns the exact formula for achieving it. The Forest Troop of African savannah baboons combines with the post-World War II political system of Europe to reveal the secret.

Part 1 – Baboons

We begin with baboons. These primates live in socially complex troops of about 50 to 100 primarily in the grasslands of Africa. The troops are very non-democratic. They have a rigid and strict hierarchy system and high rank for males is achieved by violently challenging other males in combat. The males intimidate and fight each other using their six inch canine teeth (canines longer than those of an adult lion). Violence pervades this hierarchical baboon culture, as Stanford professor and renowned baboon expert Robert Sapolsky noted: Most males die of the consequences of violence and roughly half of their aggression is directed at third parties…at innocent bystanders such as females or subordinate males.¹

There are a few peaceful exceptions to this general atmosphere of baboon violence. First, once a male has fought his way to the very top of the hierarchy—the much coveted alpha male position—the males who hold on to that top position for the longest periods are not necessarily the most aggressive and violent males. Instead longevity for an alpha male requires not only superior combat skill, but also some non-violent social intelligence (to form coalitions) and impulse control (some tolerance of subordinates and ignoring many provocations). Second, baboons often groom each other by picking fleas and ticks out of each other’s fur, and this important non-violent social component of baboon life builds what scientists call affiliative relations which is another way of saying friendly feelings of group companionship. (But even this peaceful activity has hierarchical implications because who grooms whom and for how long can help establish rank.) Finally, in baboon life, the female baboons do not have to fight their way to the top of the female hierarchy. Unlike the males, female hierarchical status is usually inherited from the rank of your mother, and therefore female baboons do not need to be anywhere near as aggressive as the males, and even after a fight, the females are good at reconciliation. Male baboons are not good at reconciliation, and they never groom each other.

Just as human males are significantly larger than females, baboon males are larger than females. A size difference between the sexes often reveals important information about the environment in which a particular primate species evolved. For example, up in the tall trees of lush rain forests, where food is plentiful and predators less common, male and female primates (e.g., gibbon and marmoset monkeys) tend to be about the same size, look alike, mate for life, and the males tend to assist with the children.² In contrast, primate species which evolved in harsher environments, such as on the ground in the open savannahs (e.g. baboons and humans), where food is scarcer and predators more abundant, tend to produce males that are larger than females. As evolutionary psychological Stephen Pinker explains: The larger size, strength, and upper-body mass of men is a zoological giveaway of an evolutionary history of violent male-male competition.³—i.e. a giveaway that the males had to engage in regular combat against each other for hierarchical rights to food and to breeding opportunities with the most desirable females.

In several of the more socially organized primate species, one sex or the other leaves the band at puberty to prevent disastrous genetic inbreeding. With chimpanzees, for example, the young females leave the band they were born and raised in and attempt to join another band. Baboons are the opposite—the adolescent males depart their natal troop and adventurously launch off to find a new troop of baboons. Life for these immature males attempting to enter a new troop can be quite rough in the beginning. Sapolsky describes the psychological trauma they endure: …months of being outsiders in a new troop, away from friends and family, amid hassling strangers, on the edge of the troop and exposed to predators…. [these] newly transferred adolescent males spend years slowly working their way into the social fabric [of the troop]; they are extremely low ranking—ignored by females and noted by adult males only as convenient targets for aggression. ⁴

However, if the new adolescent can bear the stress, bide his time, play the game, start to gradually climb the violent dominance-combat ladder, and eventually achieve that alpha male status, life can be very good for him at the top. The science of evolutionary psychology posits that the entire purpose of existence, from a strictly evolutionary point of view, is for any organism to get the maximum number of copies of its genes passed into the next generation. That is precisely what makes being the alpha male of a baboon troop so reproductively worthwhile—about 50 per cent of the mating in a troop is done by the alpha male.⁵ He gets the first opportunity with the most attractive females, which Sapolsky defines as females who have high rank (so her children will have privileges) and who have already had some kids who survived (proving she is a competent mother), but not so old that her fertility has declined. In the case of such an [attractive] female the males compete ferociously and [the] number 1 male is likely to be with her on her most likely day of ovulation, [the] number 2 [male] for a day on either side of that and [the] number 3 [male] on a day of either side of that and so on.⁶ For particularly attractive females, the alpha male even may try a consortship—i.e. continuously guarding an ovulating female to prevent other males from mating with her during her fertile period.

In addition to gaining access to the most desirable females during their most fertile periods, the alpha male gets to keep his strength up for such important work by having favored access to food. If a lower ranking male has found a desirable tuber, an alpha male can just chase him off and steal the meal. And of course the females want to groom the alpha male so they can have an affiliative relationship with power. Being the best fighter in the troop, the alpha male is supposed to defend the young children from predators, and this he will do quite well—provided he can be reasonably sure the threatened child is his own. This attitude makes sense from the evolutionary psychology perspective of getting copies of your genes into the next generation—from that perspective, why should an alpha male fight to protect the offspring carrying the genetic material of someone else? When a predator threatens the child of another male baboon, the alpha male often exercises his prerogative to take the highest and safest position in the tree from which to watch the contretemps.

——

This dominance driven, zero-sum system of winner-take-all fighting to become the alpha male causes violence to ricochet and spread throughout the culture of the baboon troop due to the psychological phenomenon of displaced aggression—where frustrated losers turn around and attack those who are lower in the hierarchy. Sapolsky describes the dynamic: … an incredible percentage of baboon aggression consists of someone in a bad mood taking it out on an innocent bystander…A male loses a fight and spins around and chases some sub adult who, cheesed off, lunges at an adult female who swats an adolescent kid who knocks an infant over.⁷ In short, the unrestrained alpha male system cascades waves of violence, paranoia and stress throughout the entire troop.

With the story of a baboon he named Solomon, Sapolsky nicely captured much of the nature of the alpha male dominated baboon system. When Sapolsky arrived in Africa in 1978 to observe the Forest Troop (so named because they spent the night in a forest grove), the wily old Solomon was enjoying an unusually long three year reign as the alpha male. Previously, Solomon had only been the number three male in the troop hierarchy, but one African morning the reigning alpha male at the time and the number two male had an epic showdown as the number two made his move to become the alpha male. The fighting continued for hours. Solomon just watched. Finally, after the two combatants became exhausted, Solomon charged into the battle. The reigning alpha male was killed and the wounded number two, who would limp for the rest of his life, had to give in to Solomon, who seized the alpha male status. Solomon was one of the most savvy baboons that Sapolsky had ever observed, and he was able to extend his reign for an unusually long period.

One day, however, Solomon was consorting with young Devorah, who was in estrus, and who was perhaps, at the time, the most desirable female in the entire troop as she was the highest ranking daughter of the alpha female. In marched a huge young male that Sapolsky had named Uriah, who tried to mount Devorah. The challenge for the position of alpha male had been made. Solomon easily beat Uriah and caused him to run away. But the younger Uriah sensed weakness, and he came back to challenge Solomon the next day. This went on for a couple of months, Uriah losing the confrontation every day but slowly wearing down the older Solomon. One morning Solomon was sitting with the beautiful Devorah, who was not in estrus at that time and therefore not sexually receptive, but she was grooming him. Uriah came up to challenge again. Solomon had finally had enough. He gave the baboon gesture of submission and the mantle of the alpha male passed to Uriah. How did Solomon spend the remainder of that day? He attacked a mid-ranking male baboon without provocation, brutally mauled the lowest ranking male in the troop, broke up the innocent play of two adolescents, ran after a mid-ranking female and her child, and chased down a desperate and screaming Devorah, who was not in estrus, and raped her. That is the psychology of the baboon killer males.

——

It would be inaccurate of course to paint all individual male baboons with the same violent brush. Just as in human societies, there exists a wide variety of male personalities in a baboon troop. For example there was a baboon Sapolsky called Isaac who eschewed the crazed canine slashing competition for the prime females. When dominance interactions with other males occurred, Isaac