The Naked Ape (22 page)

Having brought up the question of religion, it is perhaps worthwhile taking a closer look at this strange pattern of animal behaviour, before going on to deal with other aspects of the aggressive activities of our species. It is not an easy subject to deal with, but as zoologists we must do our best to observe what actually happens rather than listen to what is supposed to be happening. If we do this, we are forced to the conclusion that, in a behavioural sense, religious activities consist of the coming together of large groups of people to perform repeated and prolonged submissive displays to appease a dominant individual. The dominant individual concerned takes many forms in different cultures, but always has the common factor of immense power. Sometimes it takes the shape of an animal from another species, or an idealised version of it. Sometimes it is pictured more as a wise and elderly member of our own species. Sometimes it becomes more abstract and is referred to as simply as ‘the state’, or in other such terms. The submissive responses to it may consist of closing the eyes, lowering the head, clasping the hands together in a begging gesture, kneeling kissing the ground, or even extreme prostration, with the frequent accompaniment of wailing or chanting vocalisations. If these submissive actions are successful, the dominant individual is appeased. Because its powers are so great, the appeasement ceremonies have to be performed at regular and frequent intervals, to prevent its anger from rising again. The dominant individual is usually, but not always, referred to as a god.

Since none of these gods exist in a tangible form, why have they been invented? To find the answer to this we have to go right back to our ancestral origins. Before we evolved into co-operative hunters, we must have lived in social groups of the type seen today in other species of apes and monkeys. There, in typical cases, each group is dominated by a single male. He is the boss, the overlord, and every member of the group has to appease him or suffer the consequences. He is also most active in protecting the group from outside hazards and in settling squabbles between lesser members. The whole life of a member of such a group revolves around the dominant animal. His all-powerful role gives him a god-like status. Turning now to our immediate ancestors, it is clear that, with the growth of the co-operative spirit so vital for successful group hunting, the application of the dominant individual’s authority had to be severely limited if he was to retain the active, as opposed to passive, loyalty of the other group members. They had to want to help him instead of simply fear him. He had to become more ‘one of them’. The old-style monkey tyrant had to go, and in his place there arose a more tolerant, more co-operative naked ape leader. This step was essential for the new type of ‘mutual-aid’ organisation that was evolving, but it gave rise to a problem. The total dominance of the Number i member of the group having been replaced by a qualified dominance, he could no longer command unquestioning allegiance. This change in the order of things, vital as it was to the new social system, nevertheless left a gap. From our ancient background there remained a need for an all-powerful figure who could keep the group under control, and the vacancy was filled by the invention of a god. The influence of the invented god-figure could then operate as a force additional to the now more restricted influence of the group leader.

At first sight, it is surprising that religion has been so successful, but its extreme potency is simply a measure of the strength of our fundamental biological tendency, inherited directly from our monkey and ape ancestors, to submit ourselves to an allpowerful, dominant member of the group. Because of this, religion has proved immensely valuable as a device for aiding social cohesion, and it is doubtful whether our species could have progressed far without it, given the unique combination of circumstances of our evolutionary origins. It has led to a number of bizarre byproducts, such as a belief in ‘another life’ where we will at last meet up with the god figures. They were for reasons already explained, unavoidably detained from joining us in the present life, but this omission can be corrected in an after-life. In order to facilitate this, all kinds of strange practices have been developed in connection with the disposal of our bodies when we die. If we are going to join our dominant overlords, we must be well prepared for the occasion and elaborate burial ceremonies must be performed. Religion has also given rise to a great deal of unnecessary .suffering and misery, wherever it has become over-formalised in its application, and whenever the professional ‘assistants’ of the god figures have been unable to resist the temptation to borrow a little of his power and use it themselves. But despite its chequered history it is a feature of our social life that we cannot do without. Whenever it becomes unacceptable, it is quietly, or sometimes violently, rejected, but in no time at all it is back again in a new form, carefully disguised perhaps, but containing all the same old basic elements. We simply have to ‘believe in something’. Only a common belief will cement us together and keep us under control. It could be argued that, on this basis, any belief will do, so long as it is powerful enough; but this is not strictly true. It must be impressive and it must be seen to be impressive. Our communal nature demands the performance of and participation in elaborate group ritual. Elimination of the ‘pomp and circumstance’ will leave a terrible cultural gap and the indoctrination will fail to operate properly at the deep emotional level so vital to it. Also, certain types of belief are more wasteful and stultifying than others and can side-track a community into rigidifying patterns of behaviour that hamper its qualitative development. As a species we are a predominantly intelligent and exploratory animal, and beliefs harnessed to this fact will be the most beneficial for us. A belief in the validity of the acquisition of knowledge and a scientific understanding of the world we live in, the creation and appreciation of aesthetic phenomena in all their many forms, and the broadening and deepening of our range of experiences in day-to-day living, is rapidly becoming the ‘religion’ of our time. Experience and understanding, are our rather abstract godfigures, and ignorance and stupidity will make them angry. Our schools and universities are our religious training centres, our libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, concert halls and sports arenas are our places of communal worship. At home we worship with our books, newspapers, magazines, radios and television sets. In a sense, we still believe in an afterlife, because part of the reward obtained from our creative works is the feeling that, through them, we will ‘live on’ after we are dead. Like all religions, this one has its dangers, but if we have to have one, and it seems that we do, then it certainly appears to be the one most suitable for the unique biological qualities of our species. Its adoption by an ever growing majority of the world population can serve as a compensating and reassuring source of optimism to set against the pessimism expressed earlier concerning our immediate future as a surviving species.

Before we embarked on this religious discourse, we had been examining the nature of only one aspect of the organisation of aggressiveness in our species, namely the group defence of a territory. But as I explained at the beginning of this chapter, the naked ape is an animal with three distinct social forms of aggression, and we must now consider the other two. They are the territorial defence of the family unit within the larger group-unit, and the personal individual maintenance of hierarchy positions. The spatial defence of the home site of the family unit has remained with us through all our massive architectural advances. Even our largest buildings, when designed as livingquarters, are assiduously divided into repetitive units, one per family. There has been little or no architectural ‘division of labour’. Even the introduction of communal eating or drinking buildings, such as restaurants and bars, has not eliminated the inclusion of dining rooms in the family unit quarters. Despite all the other advances, the design of our cities and towns is still dominated by our ancient, naked-ape need to divide our groups up into small, discrete, family territories. Where houses have not yet been squashed up into blocks of flats, the defended area is carefully fenced, walled, or hedged off from its neighbours, and the demarcation lines are rigidly respected and adhered to, as in other territorial species. One of the important features of the family territory is that it must be easily distinguished in some way from all the others. Its separate location gives it a uniqueness, of course, but this is not enough. Its shape and general appearance must make it stand out as an easily identifiable entity, so that it can become the ‘personalised’ property of the family that lives there. This is something which seems obvious enough, but which has frequently been overlooked or ignored, either as a result of economic pressures, or the lack of biological awareness of architects. Endless rows of uniformly repeated, identical houses have been erected in cities and towns all over the world. In the case of blocks of flats the situation is even more acute. The psychological damage done to the territorialism of the families forced by architects, planners and builders to live under these conditions is incalculable. Fortunately, the families concerned can impose territorial uniqueness on their dwellings in other ways. The buildings themselves can be painted different colours. The gardens, where there are any, can be planted and landscaped in individual styles. The insides of the houses or flats can be decorated and filled with ornaments, bric-abrac and personal belongings in profusion. This is usually explained as being done to make the place ‘look nice’. In fact, it is the exact equivalent to another territorial species depositing its personal scent on a landmark near its den. When you put a name on a door, or hang a painting on a wall, you are, in dog or wolf terms, for example, simply cocking your leg on them and leaving your personal mark there. Obsessive ‘collecting’ of specialised categories of objects occurs in certain individuals who, for some reason, experience an abnormally strong need to define their home territories in this way.

Bearing this in mind, it is amusing to note the large number of cars that contain small mascots and other personal identification symbols, or to watch the business executive moving into a new office and immediately setting out on his desk his favourite personal pen-tray, paper-weight and perhaps a photograph of his wife. The motor-car and the business office are sub-territories, offshoots of his home base, and it is a great relief to be able to cock his leg on these as well, making them into more familiar, ‘owned’ spaces.

This leaves us with the question of aggression in relation to the social dominance hierarchy. The individual, as opposed to the places he frequents, must also be defended. His social status must be maintained and, if possible improved, but it must be done cautiously, or he will jeopardise his cooperative contacts. This is where all the subtle aggressive and submissive signalling described earlier comes in to play.

Group co-operativeness demands and gets a high degree of conformity in both dress and behaviour, but within the bounds of this conformity there is still great scope for hierarchy competitiveness. Because of these conflicting demands it reaches almost incredible degrees of subtlety. The exact form of the knotting of a tic, the precise arrangement of the exposed section of a breast-pocket handkerchief, minute distinctions in vocal accent, and other such seemingly trivial characteristics, take on a vital social significance in determining the social standing of the individual. An experience member of society can read them off at a glance. He would be totally at a loss to do so if suddenly jettisoned into the social hierarchy of New Guinea tribesmen, but in his own culture he is rapidly forced to become an expert. In themselves these tiny differences of dress and habit are utterly meaningless, but in relation to the game of juggling for position and holding it in the dominance hierarchy they are all important.

We did not evolve, of course, ‘to live in huge conglomerations of thousands of individuals. Our behaviour is designed to operate in small tribal groups probably numbering well under a hundred individuals. In such situations every member of the tribe will be known personally to every other member, as is the case with other species of apes and monkeys today. In this type of social organisation it is easy enough for the dominance hierarchy to work itself out and become stabilised, with only gradual changes as members become older and die. In a massive city community the situation is much more stressful. Every day exposes the urbanite to sudden contacts with countless strangers, a situation unheard-of in any other primate species. It is impossible to enter into personal hierarchy relationships with all of them, although this would be the natural tendency. Instead they are allowed to go scurrying by, undominated and undominating. In order to facilitate this lack of social contact, antitouching behaviour patterns develop. This has already been mentioned when dealing with sexual behaviour, where one sex accidentally touches another, but it applies to more than simply the avoidance of sexual behaviour. It covers the whole range of social-relationship initiation. By carefully avoiding staring at one another, gesturing in one another’s direction, signalling in any way, or making physical bodily contact, we manage to survive in an otherwise impossibly overstimulating social situation. If the no-touching rule is broken, we immediately apologise to make it clear that it was purely accidental.

Anti-contact behaviour enables us to keep our number of acquaintances down to the correct level for our species. We do this with remarkable consistency and uniformity. If you require confirmation, take the address or phone books of a hundred widely different types of city-dwellers and count up the number of personal acquaintances listed there. You will find that nearly all of them know well about the same number of individuals, and that this number approximates to what we would think of as a small tribal group. In other words, even in our social encounters we are obeying the basic biological rules of our ancient ancestors.