Six Million Years of Power and Sex

We humans share 98.7% of our DNA with chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives in the diversity of life on this planet. The common ancestor to all three of us existed around six million years ago. Chimpanzees and bonobos split into two species around two million years ago. This split appears to have coincided with a drastic reduction in the flow of the Congo River.

Today, chimpanzees are mainly found north of the Congo River in equatorial Africa. In the wild bonobos are found exclusively south of the river in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why do the two species remain apart? Because of the Congo River.

Chimpanzees are reluctant, or unable, to swim. Bonobos are also reluctant swimmers, although they do sometimes forage waist deep in water.

The Congo River is the deepest river in the world, the ninth longest, and the third largest by discharge volume. It is also very wide, up to 19km across at its widest point. No wonder reluctant swimmers, such as chimpanzees and bonobos, have not crossed from one side to the other during the past couple of million years. But that drop in flow about two million years ago was just enough to enable a band of their common ancestor to cross the river.

Thus, for the past two million years, chimpanzees and bonobos have been evolving along separate trajectories. They may have had a common ancestor but nowadays they display dissimilar behaviours and identities.

Chimpanzees have been studied for much longer than bonobos and hence less is known about bonobos than chimpanzees even today, especially in the wild. As we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees from six million years ago it has been tempting to identify some of our human behaviours as similar to that of chimpanzees, and to trace these comparable behaviours back to that common ancestor.

These studies suggested that our levels of violence and male dominance have their beginnings in our common ancestral heritage. We have been seduced into thinking that such behaviours are innate in our DNA.

However, more recent studies of bonobos are calling this innateness into question.

Bonobos have sometimes been labelled as the hippie chimp. Bonobos do tend to display less aggression and a greater degree of egalitarianism than their chimpanzee cousins. This rigid distinction however, is simplistic. The reality is much more nuanced. Bonobos do become aggressive, although their aggression usually does not go as far as killing one another, as it can do with chimpanzees. Furthermore, bonobo aggression in the male of the species is normally restricted to male-on-male aggression. Chimpanzee males, on the other hand, more often direct their aggression towards females. Chimpanzee males are also likely to coerce females into sex, whereas male bonobos do not.

A further distinction between the two related species is in the manner in which they go about reconciliation after such violence. Bonobos use sex. In bonobo society sex is used to build close relationships, to calm one another down, and to resolve conflict. Sex is also used by bonobos as a way of greeting strangers.

Bonobos can be thought of as xenophiles, whereas chimpanzees act more from a xenophobic stance. Bonobo clans enjoy meeting another, sometimes unknown, clan of bonobos. It is often the females of each clan that initiate this contact, usually with sex.

The ways in which chimpanzees and bonobos deal with power and sex are noticeably divergent. So much so that the noted primatologist, Frans de Waal, quipped that ‘…(chimpanzees) resolve sexual issues with power, while (bonobos) resolve power issues with sex.’¹

All of this, of course, raises questions about the level of violence, and male aggression towards females within our own human societies.

Can we, as was once time thought, blame our genetic coding for male violence within the Homo sapiens species? Has our evolutionary history predetermined that men should be dominant over women?

When we consider the differences between chimpanzees and bonobos, the answer is clearly not.

We (chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans) have a common evolutionary path, yet we find that the two species that split most recently (two million years ago) have developed quite distinct behavioural traits. This suggests that male violence and male dominance is not innate. It is instilled in large part culturally.

If culturally imparted, then it can be culturally immobilised.

Let us hope that it does not take another six million years for that to happen.

 

Notes:

1. Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, Granta Books, London, 2005

Who Am I?

How often do we ask ourselves, ‘Who am I?’ If we seriously ask this question, what sort of answer do we come up with?

We are not alone in asking this question. The question has been one of the most fundamental questions of western philosophy. The answer in most cases has been that I am I, or that I exist. The most famous statement of this conclusion is that of René Descartes who in 1637 published Discourse on the Method.

Writing in French, Descartes expressed his famous maxim as ‘Je pense, donc je suis’ (translated as ‘I think, therefore I am.’) Descartes considered this declaration to be his first principle – a “first principle” is a principle that cannot be deduced from any other assumption.

At first glance this principle seems logical, even intuitive. Yet, it is a circular argument, verging on tautological. The British progressive/symphonic rock band The Moody Blues articulated this tautology on their 1969 album On The Threshold Of A Dream. The confusion inherent in the maxim is expressed in the opening lyrics of that album; ‘I think… I think I am. Therefore I am!… I think…’

Of course, Descartes was not the first to express such an idea. The ancient Greek philosophers had been pondering existence, individuality, and the distinction between body and soul more than 2,000 years earlier. Aristotle, for instance, declared that ‘…whenever we perceive, we are conscious that we perceive, and whenever we think, we are conscious that we think, and to be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious that we exist…’

The existence of an independent and autonomous self (the “I”) has underpinned western worldviews ever since. Over the past few centuries, the I has become a cult of individualism, and more latterly, toxic individualism, narcissism, and the rise of the rugged individual.

Descartes maxim contains the roots of this individualism within it – “I” think, therefore “I” am. The phrase begins and ends with an individualistic notion of being in the world. The phrase did not immediately kick-start the cult of the individual, but it is one of the foundations of that cult.

We can recognise the inherent individualism within Descartes’ principle by contrasting it with two other, lesser known in western cultures, assumptions. The Zulu concept of ubuntu is especially vivid. Desmond Tutu (the South African Archbishop and opponent of apartheid) describes ubuntu as, ‘the philosophy and belief that a person is only a person through other people. In other words, we are human only in relation to other humans. Our humanity is bound up in one another … This interconnectedness is the very root of who we are.’¹ Tutu begins from a place of relationship between people as the root of who we are, even as individuals.

In a different part of the world, and another religious tradition, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, coined the term interbeing to sum up his understanding of the way in which relationship is at the heart of who we are. He defines interbeing as, ‘the many in the one, and the one containing the many.’ In a nod to Descartes, he articulates it as a first principle: ‘I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am. We inter-are.’²

These two expressions of the self are at odds with the western view, and point to a philosophical and psychological road that western thought failed to travel upon.

During the 20^th century the westernised path of individualism incorporated a number of philosophical ideas and spawned others, such as existentialism, one form of anarchism, libertarianism, and Ann Raynd’s objectivism. Together, these ideas paved the road towards the toxic individualism, egocentrism, and narcissism.

The relationship understanding of who I am, reflected in ubuntu and interbeing were not only rejected, but never considered during the construction of individualism. Community, society, the public good, and even kinship were all discarded along the way. By 1987, the then Prime Minister of the UK, Margaret Thatcher, was able to paraphrase Ann Raynd’s objectivism with the words, ‘There’s no such thing as society.’

The over-identification today with the I has resulted in the wanton destruction of ecosystems, polarisation and hatred of one another, and paradoxically, individuals unable to cope who attempt to escape with drugs, alcohol, fast cars, inordinate wealth, and in its extreme, self-harm and suicide.

We, individually, culturally, and socially, have to reconsider the fundamental philosophical and psychological question:

Who am I?

Notes:

1. Desmond and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving, William Collins, London, 2014

2. Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, 1987

Happy Hour

In many countries of the world pubs, inns, and restaurants advertise a Happy Hour. Usually in the early evening, Happy Hour is marked by reduced prices for drinks in a marketing effort to get customers in at a time when the venue is quiet.

In Australia graduating High School students engage in what is known as Schoolies Week. This is a week following the end of final year exams. Sadly, this time can be marred by heavy drinking, drugs, and violence.

Both these cultural occasions may be poor substitutes for activities now lost from our westernised experience.

Thousands of years ago before we began to settle in large towns and villages, our community would have come together around a fire. We would have shared food, told stories, sung songs, and danced together. It would have been a time for rejoicing, laughing, and connecting. It would have been the time when stories of the hunt would have been told, or the location of a tree about to bear fruit was mentioned. Perhaps an Elder or the Shaman of the clan would have re-enacted the clan’s history.

Is this what Happy Hour tries to duplicate, but without understanding what it is being resurrected? Without true Elders and Shaman Happy Hour can only ever be a semblance of what has been.

So too, Schoolies Week is a pitiable surrogate for the coming-of-age rituals that once marked the transition from childhood to adulthood in our cultural past?

Yet there is a memory in these modern-day events. Although we may have lost and forgotten the ceremonies, rituals, and rites that marked our time many millennia ago, we instinctively know that something is missing.

How many other modern-day customs are an attempt to re-engage with something primally human? Yet, many of these modern customs have been stripped of their sacredness and their significance. Here are just a few that come to mind:

Childbirth. Once a ceremony and rite involving the women of the community it is now often confined to a sterile hospital setting and overseen by men.

Education. Once an ongoing aspect of life where one learnt throughout the day, and as things arose, in an outdoor setting. Nowadays, education is shut off inside classrooms and lasts only a limited number of years.

Elderhood. Once a respected role in a community, a true Elder held the sacred knowledge and wisdom of the clan. Today, very few true Elders remain, and we have substituted it with “Olders” who are then siphoned off to Old Folks Homes, away from the community.

If our bodies retain a memory of ancient rituals, ceremonies, and rites, then can we reach into the depths of our collective soul to regain the meaning and sacredness of them?

Just a thought to ponder.

Man’s (In)Humanity To Man

(Preliminary note: I have kept to the original noun (viz man) in this blogpiece, recognising that today this is regarded as a sexist description.)

In 1784 the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, composed his poem Man Was Made To Mourn.¹ One of the eleven stanzas of the poem includes the lines,

‘Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!’

During the 250 years since the penning of this poem the phrase ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ has been quoted many thousands of times, mostly as ratification of the inevitability of human atrocities. The phrase, quoted this way, suggests that malevolence is innate to the human condition.

Such implication, however, may not have been Robert Burns’ intention. Burns wrote the poem soon after meeting the father of a woman, Kate Kemp, whom he wished to court. Kate though, was out looking for a lost cow at the time of Burns’ visit. Burns thus had to spend time with her father, a man of ill-temper. Burns’ ill-fated visit with Kate’s father may have been the inspiration for the inhumanity wording. Most of the poem he composed on his walk home.

It may also have been that Burns was recording his antagonism towards the class inequalities that were prevalent at the time in Scotland and throughout Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was well underway, concomitant with poor working conditions, rising inequality, and unhealthy living conditions. The young Robert Burns (25 years old at the time of writing the poem) would have been appalled at what was happening and passionate about protesting it through his poetry.

Hence, the words ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ must be read in the context of the time, Burns’ age, and his meeting with a cantankerous father of his love interest.

I would guess that many who quote the phrase today do not know where it came from, nor perhaps, who wrote it, and why it was written.

Today, it is a line thrown out as verification that humans are basically ill-willed and immoral at heart. When we see clips of warfare and violence happening in Gaza, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, or Somalia Burns’ phrase is sometimes quoted as if to say ‘well, that’s just the inhumanity of human nature.’

But, is this the case?

One of the reasons we see clips like those mentioned above is because they are newsworthy. In other words, they are out of the ordinary, they are literally – news, something new and not something usual. They are un-usual.

And, being unusual, they cannot logically be cited as proof that human nature is basically ill-willed, violent, or in-human.

Furthermore, when a comparative analysis of how different cultures understand the basic nature of humans, we have to concede that the notion that humans are innately inhuman is not a global understanding.

Certainly, it seems, violence and ill-will occur in all cultures. Sadly however, it seems that western culture is unique in its rendering of human nature as being inhuman at core.

The American First Nations author, activist, and historian, Jack Forbes for example, writes of the First Nation notion of wetiko, which he describes as a disease that has no respect for the cycle of life and death and is without any sense of sacredness. But, as he notes ‘Non-wetikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.’ It was this system of cruelty that he saw within the western culture, particularly that part of western culture that colonised the Americas.²

The cultures of SE Asia share a similar conceptualisation, with Buddhism especially speaking of Buddha nature, which has been expressed as the innate capacity for awakening, compassion, and understanding that resides in everyone.

Amidst the struggle against the apartheid system in South Africa Bishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim that, ‘You know human beings are basically good. You know that’s where we have to start. That everything else is an aberration.’³

Sadly however, western culture has so infused the whole world (via colonisation and/or economic hegemony) that western ideas, understandings, and concepts now dominate globally. From within this western worldview it is difficult to look from outside to see that this worldview is not a universal one.

Tragically, when this view of the of man’s inhumanity to man is normalised, assumed to be true, and legitimised it becomes very difficult to confront and change those situations in which violence, ill-will, and inhumanity do take place. After all, if this is the way things are, then they cannot be changed, only shifted slightly until the next outbreak of inhumanity.

Man’s inhumanity to man must be questioned and shifted towards the more central tenet of: Each person’s humanity to each other person.

Notes:

1. Robert Burns, Man was Made to Mourn, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, first published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock in 1786

2. Forbes, Jack D., Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, Seven Stories Press, New York, Revised Edition, 1992. Original version 1979

3. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016

Rugged Individualism: Where Did It Come From?

Lastweek’s blog noted that there was a strong correlation between using first-person singular pronouns (e.g. I, me, mine, myself) and depression. That blog also noted that the use of these pronouns had increased dramatically since the early 1980s.

We might ask: Where did this focus on me, myself, and I come from?

One of the strands that has contributed to this is the rugged individual archetype and the associated myth of the lone hero. They have been with us for a long time.

Stories and myths of this archetype stretch back at least as far as Greek and Roman mythology. Many of us will have heard of, or read of, the exploits of heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Hercules, Romulus, and Remus. Within Norse mythology we know of Odin, Thor, and Hodr. In English mythology we have the rugged individual myths of Beowulf, King Arthur, and Robin Hood. All men. There have been female heroines, although many of us would be hard pressed to name many of them.

The term rugged individual is only recently coined, by US President Herbert Hoover, has been portrayed in Hollywood style Westerns. Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, and others have all etched their rugged individual heroism onto the minds of young boys growing up in the first half of the 20^th century. Those growing up in the latter half of that century were habituated by male heroes such as James Bond, Indiana Jones, Magnum, Rambo, Jason Bourne, and Neo.

These rugged individuals do not need others to fulfill their destiny; they are highly resilient, can withstand a hail of bullets, leap from burning buildings, and of course, save the threatened damsel in distress. The hero rises above his pain, is always in control, and is never vulnerable. It is one of the most toxic archetypes young men can be exposed to. It is an absurd and unattainable self.

Rugged individualism (akin to toxic individualism) promotes an outlook that views other people as competitors rather than as our peers. Accordingly, such an outlook fosters self-promotion and, at its extremity, narcissism. Furthermore, rugged individualism cultivates a belief that one can, and should, solve one’s own problems, even if the solving involves addictive behaviours, such as alcohol and drug misuse, or gambling. A person entrenched in the mythology of the rugged individual is unlikely to be able to reach out for help, further aggravating the likelihood of resorting to unhealthy behaviours.

Francis Weller likens the rugged individual archetype to a prison and says, ‘We are imprisoned by this (hero) image, forced into a fiction of false independence that severs our kinship with the earth, with sensuous reality, and with the myriad wonders of the world. This is a source of grief for many of us.’¹

Sadly, when individuals come to this grief, and crash headfirst into recognising that individualism does not benefit them, the illusion is so firmly entrenched that it becomes extremely difficult to break away from the addictions, habits, and obsessions that have arisen to shore up the false sense of invulnerability.

Paradoxically, it is the very notion of the Self in westernised culture that promotes this sad state of affairs. Western culture, to a large extent, conceives of the Self as a self-sufficient, separate, and a discrete entity. The Self in this construction can be conceptualised as a homunculus residing within our body, responsible to no-one but itself.

Other cultures, especially indigenous ones and those of the Orient, perceive the Self in a different manner. So much so, that within a couple of these cultures the concept of no-Self is more frequently found. The concept of no-Self could be explored in depth and take up much space. A brief clarification will be presented here. No-Self does not mean literally that there is no self and no individual person. It simply means that all selves come into being, live, and pass on, as part of a highly entangled web of life.

Buddhism, for example, calls this concept dependent co-arising; a concept in which nothing arises by and of itself. Rather, phenomena arise by a dynamic interaction of mutually conditioned events. Although this concept is central to Buddhism, and hence to the cultures that embrace it, other cultures have similar concepts.

Within such a concept the idea of the rugged individual is unlikely to gain traction.

Rates of depression vary considerably around the world. It is telling that the highest rates are found in North America, Europe (although Poland bucks the trend), Scandinavia, Australia, and middle East nations. All of whom, to varying degrees, have a high regard for the individual.

On the other hand, the nations where rates of depression are lowest are found mainly in SE Asia, West Africa, and some South American countries. Significantly, these are nations that view the person as being part of a whole, not a separate individual. They are also amongst the least European colonised nations on Earth.

Surely that tells us something.

Notes:

1. Weller, Francis, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 2015

Castles, Forts, and Walled Cities

Imagine you were set down in a region of the world where you had no idea where you were, no idea of which country or indeed even which continent. As you wander about you notice that there are many castles, forts, and walled cities dotted throughout the countryside.

What would you deduce from this about the occupants of this region?

One thing that you might infer is that warfare is a recurrent activity.

Such a situation is the reality for one specific part of the world.

A plot of the world’s castles, forts, and walled cities is a graphic illustration. Around 98% of all the castles, forts, and walled cities of the world are located in the region of the world to the west of the two big rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates, and to the north of the Mediterranean Sea. Many of the remaining 2%, although located in other parts of the world, were built following European/western colonisation of these areas. For example, USA has more than 300 castles, all of them built since the first European colonisers arrived.

This is the region of the world in which warfare took hold in a significant and meaningful manner.

It is often claimed that warfare is an innate human trait. Humanity has been engaged in warfare since time began it is said. If not that long ago, then at least over the past 15,000 to 20,000 years.

Yet, such an assertion is a Eurocentric one. There remains an assumption that because something has been experienced by, and applied by, those of European descent then it must relate to the whole of humanity.

But, as the example above shows, this is clearly not the case. Indeed, Europe is atypical in the building of castles, forts, and walled cities. Europe is also atypically warlike.

So, what was going on in the hearts and minds of Europeans – especially the males of that region?

Native Americans have an answer. They call it wetiko¹ which Jack Forbes² defines as the disease of cannibalism without any sacredness and no respect for the cycle of life and death.

Paul Levy, in his book simply titled Wetiko³, describes wetiko as, ‘A contagious psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a parasite of the mind… (that) covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering people oblivious to their own madness and compelling them to act against their own best interests.’

Locating the emergence of warfare within western culture does not mean that violence did not occur in other parts of the world. However, as Jack Forbes points out, ‘Non-wetikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.’⁴ Furthermore, Jack Forbes recognises that not all Europeans show wetiko tendencies, but that European culture is the major carrier of the wetiko disease.

That wetiko is a systematic psycho-spiritual disease and is unconsciously carried by one identifiable culture is what makes it so pernicious. It seeps and creeps into the psyche and belief systems of individuals and societies within that culture. Wetiko manifests, as Paul Levy notes, ‘as a cannibalising force driven by insatiable greed, appetite without satisfaction, consumption as an end in itself, and war for its own sake, against other tribes, species, and nature, and even against the individual’s own humanity.’

Wetiko, as Forbes and Levy describe it, is a major contributor to warfare.

And, castles, forts, and walled cities illustrate graphically where it originated.

Notes:

1. The word appears in many native North American languages, for example: wendigo, windego, windago, windiga, wentiko, wijigo, windagoo, and many others, indicating that the concept was widely known throughout the continent.

2. Jack Forbes was a prominent author, activist, and historian. Although identifying as of Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape descent he did not enrol in any native American nation.

3. Paul Levy, Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus that Plagues Our World, Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont, 2021

4. Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, Seven Stories Press, New York, London, Melbourne, Toronto, Revised Edition, 2008. First published 1992.

Learning From Cousin Bonobo

All our siblings have died. Homo erectus – dead. Homo habilis -dead. Homo neanderthalensis  - dead. All our evolutionary brothers and sisters are dead and extinct. Only us – Homo sapiens – are left alive from our immediate family.

But we do have a couple of cousins. Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus. More commonly these two cousins are known as chimpanzees and bonobos. They are the closest to us in the evolutionary family. We share 98.7% of our genes with these other two primates.

Our common ancestor lived some 6 million years ago, at which point our immediate families diverged. Then the families of bonobos and chimpanzees further split around 2 million years ago.

Using corridors across the river that no longer exist, one family, the chimpanzees, settled north of the Congo River. The other, the bonobos, made their home south of the Congo River. Neither chimpanzees nor bonobos have learnt to swim, and so the two species live separated today by the mighty Congo River. Hence, they learnt to adapt to their unique environments and learnt differing behaviours.

When Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzees in their natural habitat in the 1960s she thought that if the behaviour of chimpanzees was similar to that of humans, then the behaviour of our common ancestor (the one that lived 6 million years ago) was probably also similar.

Soon after she began her research one of the big debates in the scientific world was that of nature versus nurture. This debate centred around the question; Is a baby born with a clean slate, and will only experience make that child aggressive or kind? Jane Goodall thought she could answer this question through her studies. In a 2021 interview in response to a question about this debate, Jane Goodall replies that, ‘When I said no, there’s an instinctive element to it, I was heavily criticised. But I think it makes sense. How can you possibly look around the world and say that there is not an innate aggressive tendency in humans?’¹

Goodall’s reply is based upon the recognition that within chimpanzee society males show a tendency to use violence and to dominate female chimpanzees. This portrayal of chimpanzee behaviour has been tempered slightly in recent times, with the co-director of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, in the US, saying that aggression ‘only makes up a very small part of their daily activity,’ and that the trait has been overemphasised.

But what of the other cousins – the bonobos?

Research on bonobos living in their natural state has not been as long as that for chimpanzees. Bonobos tend to live in less accessible forest than do chimpanzees, plus their numbers are much less, making study of bonobos less easy than the study of chimpanzees.² However, we are able to discern differing behaviour between these two primates.

Bonobos tend to display contrasting behaviours to that of chimpanzees. They are less aggressive and females are the leaders of bonobo groups. It needs to be noted however, that (as with chimpanzees) this portrayal is also simplistic. Bonobos can be aggressive.

The aggressive behaviours of chimpanzees and bonobos, though, are markedly dissimilar. Chimpanzees show a proclivity towards ganging up on an opponent, whereas bonobo aggression is displayed in one-to-one combat. Significantly, chimpanzees will kill (murder) their opponent, whereas bonobos do not.  

Learning from Cousins

We might ask ourselves: Can Jane Goodall’s wondering about whether the behaviour of chimpanzees and that of our common ancestor suggest an innate tendency towards aggression in humans?

The answer has to be: not necessarily. The answer is nuanced and ambiguous.

When our cousins diverged from each other 2 million years ago, with one going north of the Congo River and the other heading south of it, then, presumably, they took with them the innate tendencies of the common ancestor of them and us from 6 million years ago.

Yet, their behaviours in natural settings today are very different, albeit (as noted above) their behaviours are not clear-cut. We have to conclude that chimpanzees and bonobos learnt differing behaviours. This suggests that they each adopted dissimilar cultures.

Since chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest cousins we could learn something from them.

If we could listen to Cousin Bonobo we might learn how to get along with each other without resorting to murder or warfare. We might also learn how to live in a more egalitarian society in which women bring their nurturing skills and values into the communal setting.

For us to listen to Cousin Bonobo however would mean we would need to give up our belief that we are superior to the “animals” and have nothing to learn from them

Au contraire. We have much to learn.

Notes:

1. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22585935/jane-goodall-chimpanzees-animal-intelligence-human-nature  accessed 20 August 2024.

2. Both chimpanzees and bonobos are endangered. Estimates for chimpanzee numbers in the wild vary from 170,000 to 300,000. Bonobo numbers are much less, estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000

Castles and Walls

Have you ever wondered how many castles there are in the world? What’s more, have you ever wondered where most of them are located?

The answer to the first question is open, with estimates varying between 200,000 and 1 million.

However, the answer to the second question can be answered with more certainty. If you guessed that most of them are located in Europe, you would be correct.

Some 98% of all castles in the world are located in Europe, with Italy, France, Ireland, and Germany together accounting for around 88%.

Although there are over 300 castles in the USA, all of them were built following European colonisation.

A castle, according to experts, is a fortified structure built primarily by, and for the use of, nobility or royalty. This distinguishes castles from, for example, palaces, mansions and other similar buildings.

A castle is fortified.

Another fortified structure is the wall. Some of the earliest cities in the world, particularly in Mesopotamia and the Levant area were walled. Cities such as Uruk, Babylon, and Jericho were walled and fortified. Any traveller in Europe will have noticed the old city walls often found in the middle of European cities today.

Again, most of the walled cities of the world are located in Europe.

The other major parts of the world in which we find fortified walls are in China (the Great Wall is especially famous,) the Indus Valley, and the walls built by the Romans in northern England (Hadrian’s Wall) and Thrace (Anastasia Wall.) Apart from Myanmar, most walled cities in SE Asia were built following European invasions.

Apart from now being tourist destinations and part of the heritage of many European cities, what do all these castles and walls suggest to us?

They strongly suggest a continent of conflict, where one side had to wall themselves in to protect themselves from outsiders.

Castles and walls suggest a mindset of us versus them.

Castles and walls are mean to divide, to cut off the in group from the out group.

This us versus them mindset appears to have arisen concurrent with the building of fortified castles and walls. This mindset arose within one continent and one culture. Europe and the European culture. Walls did not only get built physically, they got built mentally also. Walls and castles got built in our psyches and in the ways in which we perceive the world.

This mindset has since been exported (by the process of colonisation and globalisation) throughout the world.

Let us not pretend that humanity is naturally antagonistic, brutal, distrustful, and divisive.

Most indigenous and nature-based cultures are not. Some groups within these cultures have become so because of the hegemony of the Europeanised culture that has swept the world over the past 500 years or so.

We can read it in the castles and walled cities of Europe.

It is up to those of us from within this European culture to tear down the castles and walls within our own worldview and mindset.

Elderhood: What Is It and Where Has It Gone?

Five years ago I attended a 5-day immersion with Stephen Jenkinson on elderhood. A few months earlier I had read his book Come Of Age.¹ The experience and journey I took during those five days began me on an expedition of enquiry, reflection, and research over the following five years.

I attempted to discover what elderhood was, and where it had gone.

Where has it had gone? Surely it has not gone anywhere. Surely elderhood still exists in our culture?

Sadly not. Or, at least, there are so few elders in our culture² that it is extremely difficult to find them and name them.

During my five years research one of the questions I kept asking was: can I identify elderhood in indigenous and nature-based cultures? Doing so, led me to ask whether I could identify the characteristics of elderhood in those culture that enabled elderhood to emerge and function? Asking those questions was enlightening. I found I could identify some characteristics, contrast them with concepts such as leadership or mentorship, and identify those characteristics that “our culture” is missing.

What follows is a brief article of a presentation I gave to an older group of men about one week ago.³

Characteristics of Elderhood

·       Community-focussed.

·       Builds wholeness within a community. Other similar concepts often display a healing emphasis. Elderhood may incorporate healing, but that is not its focus. It is focussed on the wholing of people and their relationship with the world and the cosmos.

·       Earth/cosmos centred. Other notions are usually person-centred and anthropocentric.

·       Facilitates ritual and ceremony for specific cultural reasons.

·       Spans 14 generations: Seven generations of ancestors plus seven generations of descendants. Most other similar notions (e.g. leadership, mentorship) are far more limited in time, often considering just one generation or, in the case of politicians, one term of office.

·       Elders are often found in Council, whereas similar concepts are usually displayed in individuals.

·       Elderhood is bestowed upon people. Whereas leadership, mentorship, management, or governance are positions that one can become. One does not seek elderhood, it is a gift (and a burden) that a society confers upon a person. This is done usually after many years training, often stretching back decades to teenage years. I have used the word bestow here deliberately. The etymology of the word is revealing. The stow part is from Old English meaning to put or place. The prefix be intensifies that. Be indicates completely, or thoroughly. Hence bestow can be defined as ‘to thoroughly place.’ Having elderhood bestowed upon someone indicates that others (usually the local community or tribe) are acting upon the recipient of the bestowal process. In contrast, becoming suggests that the person is assertively active in their own becoming.

·       Eldership is usually (but not always) place dependent. Elders have usually grown up within a locality, have explored that locality thoroughly, and have been trained in the lores and customs of the people of that locality.

 

Not all the above characteristics may be found in all indigenous conceptions of elderhood, yet these characteristics can be identified in many.

Where Has It Gone?

Reading the above characteristics, it becomes readily apparent that “our culture” is bereft of true elderhood. So, what has happened? Where have they gone? I gave this question some consideration also. This situation has not just arisen in recent times. The genesis of many of the causes can be traced back 10,000 years or more. Amongst a number of interlocking, interconnected, and mutually reinforcing reasons the following can be discerned:

·       Disconnection from nature,

·       Disconnection from each other,

·       Disconnection from ourselves,

·       Cultural belief (conscious or unconscious) that ‘the life of man (sic) is solitary, poor, nasty, brutal, and short.’ This well-known quote of Thomas Hobbes (17^th century) is the epitome of the thinking that dominated European thinking during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. This view has entrenched itself into “our” cultural psyche so much that we hardly recognise it is there.

·       Loss of the sacred and spiritual.

·       Lack of pathways for transitioning from one life stage to the next.

·       Mechanistic, Cartesian, and linear “understanding” of the world/cosmos. Many of the thinkers during the Scientific Revolution often referred to the world and the cosmos as a clock – the ultimate mechanical metaphor.

·       Rejection of the Gaia Principle. The Gaia Principle proposes that the entire Earth is a single, synergistic, self-regulating, complex system that supports the conditions for life. It is named after the Greek goddess of the Earth.

·       Lack of Elders. Our culture is bereft of elders because of a lack of elders. Being bereft of elders means we will lack elders, and lacking elders… We are locked in a vicious cycle.

 

Where Does This Lead?

Elderhood is an emergent process. True elderhood arises out of a healthy and intact culture. Healthy elderhood is extremely difficult to surface when the sustaining culture is contaminated by many of the beliefs and mindsets described above.

If the cultural container is broken, then the worthiest function for would-be elders is to work towards repairing the culture.

Metaphorically, we could think of this work of reparation as like that of the Japanese art of kintsugi, wherein broken pottery is repaired by gluing the shattered pieces back together with a lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum.

This process does not seek to hide the cracks, but rather, to make them visible in such a way that the brokenness of the pottery is now shown to be beautiful.

It is up to all of us to pick up the pieces of our broken culture and, collectively, repair it, so that we can get 

from here                              

to here.

Notes:

1. Stephen Jenkinson, Come Of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2018.

2. By “our culture” I mean the culture that is largely western-style, European influenced, industrialised, and rich. Sadly, many indigenous and nature-based culture have been colonised (often brutally so) by this culture that this culture has now come to dominate the planet. The culture that had its origins in one part of the planet has now become tantamount to the global culture.

3. I will not elaborate on every point, otherwise this will end up being a read of well over one hour. However, I will attempt to elaborate briefly on the most salient ideas.

Cultural Narcosis

The great 20^th century Indian philosopher, writer, and speaker, Jiddu Krishnamurti, is alleged to have said, ‘It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’¹ (some references to this quote substitute insane society for sick society.)

The founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Marshall Rosenberg, was even more forthright. Quoted in the book Say What You Mean by Oren Jay Sofer, he states,

“If we use Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to liberate people to be less depressed, to get along better with their family, but do not teach at the same time to use their energy to rapidly transform systems in the world, then I am part of the problem. I am essentially calming people down, making them happier to live in the systems as they are, so I am using NVC as a narcotic.”

Instead of referring only to NVC, Rosenberg could have mentioned techniques and practices such as; counselling, mentorship, mindfulness, various religious practices, psychology, psychotherapy, and many other forms of the helping professions.

As our world tumbles into a mess of inter-enhancing and mutually reinforcing environmental, social, cultural, and personal harms and troubles, the need to steer clear of providing narcotics becomes of ever greater significance.

For in attempting to help someone or heal them, without acknowledging and concurrently addressing these issues and troubles, all we do is help prop up the very roots of how people come to be seeking help and healing in the first place.

By helping, assisting, or guiding someone to adjust to social norms we, unwittingly sometimes, help to return them to a social expectation of what is normal, or usual. And that, in turn, serves to maintain the sick (or insane) society spoken of by Krishnamurti.

There are some within the helping professions who understand the magnitude of Krishnamurti’s counsel. The Canadian physician Gabor Maté is one of these. He has posited four healing principles (based on the letter A) for individuals – Authenticity, Agency, Anger, and Acceptance. These, he notes, are healthy qualities corresponding to human needs.²

However, Gabor Maté recognises Krishnamurti’s counsel and adds two further As that help in the pursuit of social and cultural transformation – Activism and Advocacy. Advocacy, he declares, includes using ‘whatever privilege we may have to amplify the voices to whom society denies a voice.’

With activism and advocacy, we have the means to escape the narcosis of modern society. We must use them to escape the snare we find ourselves in.³

Notes:

1. Although attributed to Krishnamurti, I have been unable to locate the source, except in a reference in a book by Mark Vonnegut (son of the author Kurt Vonnegut) – The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity, 1975.

2. Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté, The Myth of Normal, Vermillion, London, 2022

3. It is revealing that the word narcosis (a state of numbness, insensibility, or unconsciousness) is related etymologically to the word snare (a trap, net, or noose.)