Our Inner Bonobo vs Our Inner Chimp

Annamaria on Monday 

Thanks to advances in genome research, we can now prove that our closest evolutionary relatives on this planet are bonobos and chimpanzees.  It is only in the last few years, though, that researchers have begun to study in earnest how natural section made us who we are today.  Evolutionary anthropologist Evan L. MacLean of Duke University, who who published the chart above only five years ago, compared traits of our primate cousins as a step in defining how we got to be us.

Take a look at MacLean's chart.  We know that all of us humans are capable of both empathizing and systematizing. That said, I am - simplistically - I admit, calling the (ahem) lefthand  dominant traits our inner bonobo and the righthand ones our inner chimpanzee.

 

When studying these species, researchers find that chimps live in patriarchal societies, with a ruling "alpha" male. All males are ambitious and can be quite violent. Down-rank males form coalitions to challenge the top male. Brutal, bloody, sometimes fatal battles can ensue. (Sounds like Game of Thrones, no?) Ambition really asserts itself when it comes to fights for who gets to mate with the females. And male chimps will kill offspring of their rivals to ensure that their own offspring survive. Likewise, they are unlikely to share food.  Males eat first.

Bonobos are socially just about the complete opposite.  Societies are matriarchal and peaceful and far less hierarchical.  Females form groups, and although both genders find food, females oversee how it is shared. Offspring eat first.  And sharing is pervasive among their behaviors. They readily share their food with complete strangers.  In fact, xenophilia and trust are a bedrock for bonobos, and essential to their--at this moment--tenuous survival.

Among bonobos, sex - both heterosexual and homosexual - is a way to keep the peace, make friends, avoid violence, and find comfort. Unlike the sexual domination practiced by other primate species, there is no infanticide among bonobos because there is no way of knowing which offspring is whose.  

So are we more like bonobos or more like chimps? Well, there is no difference in how much genetic material we share: 98.7% both cases. There are ways in which we are more physically like bonobos.  Unlike chimps, they have upright skeletons and relatively long legs, so they can walk upright more easily.  They also have long hair on their heads.  Most interesting, I think, is that bonobos brains have more gray matter than chimps in areas that control emotions and impulses.

Certainly, to a very great extent, humans have - as a species - spent the last several millennia acting much more like chimps than like bonobos. These dominant behaviors have been firmly imbedded in cultures all over the globe.  The three major religions have all been male-dominated and more or less hierarchical. They have also laid down strict rules controlling female sexuality. Nations and their governments have enshrined male dominance in laws and practices.  Primogenitor laws have kept wealth and power in the hands of men.  

These cultural norms persisted pretty much through the first half of the last century, but recently, albeit at a snail-like pace, those norms have begun to change.

The recent rise of nationalism, white supremacism, and xenophobia is a backlash against these changes.  They are a defense of chimpanzeeism if you will.  The poor at-risk bonobos are a threatened species thanks to human occupation of what used to be their territory. But perhaps, (I pray) their genetic propensities are resurgent in human behavior.  

At least, we can say that the inner bonobo in many of us has begun to actively assert itself.  Look here and see the progress we have already made: