Shipwrecks and Rafts

Acali raft

How often do we hear that the base nature of humanity is pretty nasty and brutish? We may not hear it in our day-to-day conversations, but the belief is not far below the surface.

With the westernised culture based very much on Judeo-Christian teachings and credos the idea that humanity is basically flawed has been taught from early on.  The phrase original sin is not used in the Bible, but the implication is there. It was Saint Augustine (354 – 430 CE) who coined the phrase original sin and the term and its connotations have harassed and tormented us ever since.

Not only have theologians persuaded us of the nastiness of humanity, so too have philosophers over the ages. Thomas Hobbes 17^th century claim that life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ is well known. In the 20^th century we hear the Italian philosopher, George Santayana, claiming that, if you ‘dig a little beneath the surface you’ll find a ferocious, persistent, profoundly selfish man.’

Psychologist too, could not resist the urge to tarnish our human nature. Consider this quote from the grandaddy of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud. Writing in 1930 he asserted that ‘the inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting, instinctual disposition’ of humans.

All this can be summarised in the oft-quoted line, ‘Man’s (sic) inhumanity to man.’ Many of those quoting this are probably unaware of the source of the quotation. It is from a poem by the Scottish bard, Robert Burns. The poem was written in the late 18^th century amidst a time of social upheaval and economic gloom and reflects the pessimism and despair of the times. Even though the poem was written about a particular place and time the words have come to suggest inhumanity is the general nature of the human psyche and being.

In literature too we find this idea well established. Lord of the Flies (1954), by William Golding, is often cited as portraying the base nastiness and brutality of humanity if left without authority and any ethical grounding.

Yet, all these beliefs and worldviews are fictional, imaginary, and false.

At least two events indicate the spurious nature of the claim that we are nasty and brutish by nature.

A Shipwreck …

In June 1965 six Tongan boys (aged between 13 and 19 years old) stole a boat to run away from the boarding school in Nuku’alofa. Unfortunately for them a storm arose and the boat’s sail and rudder were destroyed. The anchor rope was also broken. For eight days they drifted in the Pacific Ocean aboard a steadily disintegrating boat. Eventually they sighted land, the uninhabited island of ‘Ata.

There they remained for the next 15 months before an Australian fishing boat captain noticed them. They were rescued and returned to their homes and families. By this time their families had given them up for dead.

The remarkable thing about the 15 months they spent castaway was that, contrary to the Lord of the Flies narrative, the boys remained in good spirits and shared out any resources and work that needed doing. Working in pairs they tended a garden, collected rainwater, and kept guard. They shared out cooking duties; one of them had built a fire by rubbing sticks together and they kept that fire going throughout their isolation.

At night they kept their spirits high by singing and playing an improvised guitar. Over the 15 months they wrote five original songs.

Following their rescue all six of the boys were found to be in good health.

A Youtube re-enactment with the boys was filmed in 1966. It can be seen here.

… and a Raft

Almost a decade later, in 1973, an experiment was undertaken designed by a Mexican anthropologist, Santiago Genovés. Genovés had read about research suggesting that violence amongst monkeys often was about males sexually competing for females. He wanted to see if this applied to humans as well. Although his intention, of discovering the sources of human violence and hence being able to bring about world peace, may have been admirable, the design and implementation of the experiment was not. The experiment might well fail the standards of an Ethics Committee if presented for academic study today.

Genovés chose a diverse group of five men and five women, all (according to him) sexually attractive, and all aged in their 20s and 30s. He had a raft built and named it Acali (from a Mexican language meaning house on the water. Using only the power of the wind and ocean currents the Acali took 101 days to sail from Spain to Mexico.

The voyage was a dangerous one, especially as they were heading into hurricane season. However, Genovés believed that in dangerous situations people would ‘revert to their baseline instincts.’

When violence between any of the participants did not eventuate within a week or so of leaving Spain, Genovés tried to provoke it by passing out questionnaires to the participants. Amongst the questions were ones such as; ‘who would you like to get rid of?’ ‘Who would you like to sleep with’, and other questions designed to ramp up the tension.

As the voyage progressed the participants, far from descending into their baseline instincts became friendly and more and more suspicious of the intentions of Genovés himself. At one stage they even debated whether to kill him and throw him overboard but decided against this.

The experiment did not bolster Genovés thesis that diverse groups of humans, when faced with danger, would descend into their baseline instincts of nastiness and brutality.

The experiment showed exactly the opposite.

At one point during the experiment Genovés retreated below deck in a depressed state. During this time he wrote perhaps the most insightful line in his journal that he had had during the entire journey.

He wrote: ‘Only one has shown any kind of aggression and that is me, a man trying to control everyone else, including myself.’

Genovés insight shows a keen observation and understanding of the nature of humanity.

Humanity’s instincts are not nasty and brutish.

But there are those amongst us that would use their power to manipulate and control others so that it would seem that way. We must continuously guard against this.

A documentary of the Acali Experiment is available on Youtube here.

The lesson from this shipwreck and raft experiment is that before we assume that the base nature of humanity is nasty, brutish, ferocious, or selfish, and that sinfulness is the natural state of Homo sapiens we might want to reflect on what these two events truly tell us.

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

Caged In - Part 2

Last week’s blog considered whether drug addiction (as well as other addictions) was, in part, triggered by urbanisation. This week the possibility that our brains are changed (for the worse) and that violence is intensified under caged conditions.

When animals are kept in cages they will suffer from zoochosis – a psychotic condition whereby animals display uncharacteristic behaviours, such as monotonous, obsessive, and/or repetitive actions that serve no purpose. Polar bears will swim in circles for hours, lions and tigers will pace back-and-forth nonstop, and elephants will sway to-and-fro. These are all signs of zoochosis.

In some animals, zoochosis can result in self-harm, and in big cats especially, the harm may be taken out on others of their species. In the wild, big cats are normally solitary and territorial by nature. Put into cages conflict and violence can escalate quickly and dangerously.

Zoochosis has been studied and shows that the brains of animals are changed (for the worse) when kept in captivity. A 2024 article¹ notes the following:

‘The chronic stress of living in captivity without any control over their environment leads to learned helplessness, a trauma response that affects the hippocampus, which handles memory functions, and the amygdala, which processes emotions. As a result, a captive animal’s memory and emotions are irregular, and some animals have been shown to become emotionally unpredictable. Prolonged stress also disrupts the balance of serotonin and dopamine in an animal’s brain, which can lead to repetitive and often damaging behaviour.’

Just as we saw last week, human response to being caged in is comparable to the response of caged animals; humans are animals after all!

Neurological research shows that ‘…urbanization represents an evolutionary mismatch between contemporary brains and the neural systems of our human ancestors, an increased vulnerability for psychiatric illness may represent an escalating medical threat as urban populations are projected to rise in future years.’²

So it is then: the brains of we humans too, are changed for the worse when in caged conditions.

Does this changed brain result in greater violence? It appears it might.

A 2012 article on the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) website³ urgently claims that ‘Cities have increasingly become the battlefield of recent conflicts as they serve as the seats of power and gateways to resources.’

Alarmingly, the correlation between violence and urbanisation may not be contained within one or two generations. Transgenerational effects of violence and its related trauma (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD) has been shown to exacerbate the harmful effects of caged living.

Breaking the cycle of violence and its associated PTSD may not be easy, especially as we humans continue to cage ourselves in.

Can we re-wild ourselves in time, before we descend into total inter-tribal, inter-generational, and inter-cultural warfare?

Only through re-wiring our brains and cutting the bars of our cages it would seem.

Notes:

1. https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/latest/blogs/heres-how-captivity-affects-mammals-brains/  Accessed 12 April 2026

2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4774049/  Accessed 12 April 2026

3. https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/rapid-urbanization-and-the-growing-threat-of-violence-and-conflict-a-21st-century/ Accessed 12 April 2026

Too Damn Close!

Readers who are also cyclists will relate to the parable I am about to write.

Imagine you are riding your bicycle along a road. Suddenly, a car passes by you very close. The car almost hits you. You feel the draft of slipstreaming and almost lose balance. Your heart jumps up a dozen beats. You think to yourself and may even shout it out at the receding driver of the car: ‘Too damn close!’

That’s the response I had a couple of days ago to reading the announcement by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in releasing the setting of the Doomsday Clock.

The Doomsday Clock has been set every year since 1947. Initially focussing upon the threat of nuclear annihilation the clock symbolically indicates how close the world has become over the previous year to existential obliteration, represented as midnight. Over the past 79 years other existential threats have been added to the assessment.

The clock’s first setting (in 1947) was placed at 7 minutes to midnight, in recognition of the threat of nuclear warfare following the dropping of nuclear bombs upon Japan in 1945.

In the time since its first rendition the Doomsday Clock has been placed furthest from midnight in 1991 (17 minutes to midnight) following the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START.) Sadly, with increasing numbers of nuclear-armed nations and other tensions, the clock trended towards midnight so that by 2018 it was set at just 2 minutes to midnight.

Within just two years, with the realisation of the enormity of the threat of climate change and cyber-warfare, the clock was set (in 2020) at 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds) to midnight.

The Doomsday Clock has remained at less than 2 minutes to midnight ever since. In 2023 and 2024 it was set at 90 seconds to midnight. Then last year (2025) the clock moved a further one second towards the fateful hour of midnight.

And this year?

The clock has been set at 85 seconds to midnight.

That is too damn close!

The clock has been set closer to midnight this year because of four threats: 1. Nuclear threats intensified and three regional conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan, and Israel/US bombing Iranian nuclear facilities), threaten to intensify, 2. Climate change outlook has worsened, 3. Development of “mirror-life” carries with it catastrophic risk, 4. Accelerating evolution of artificial intelligence (AI).¹

Compounding these threats has been the rise of autocratic leadership throughout the world, especially within three of the world's superpowers. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announcement notes that, ‘Leaders of the United States, Russia, and China greatly vary in their autocratic leanings, but they all have approaches to international relations that favour grandiosity and competition over diplomacy and cooperation.’

Returning to the parable of the cyclist and the car.

One car may be a scare. The Doomsday Clock announcement, however, indicates that the cyclist is being closely passed by a procession of cars, anyone of which on their own could cause the cyclist serious harm. That is terrifying. All of them together gravely increases the danger to the cyclist.

The drivers of the cars seem to not notice.

We cyclists must call out:

Too damn close!

Notes:

1. The full announcement can be read here: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/#nav_menu

Known For All The Wrong Reasons

One of 500 Dafur refugee children's drawings
from the Waging Peace collection

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Franco, Kai-Shek, Mao, Hussein – all well-known names. Most likely though, they are known for the wrong reasons. Asked to associate single words with any of these names and many people would come up with a list looking something like this: dictator, despot, genocide, holocaust, brutal etc.

We know their names because of the atrocities committed under their rule.

Stalin is estimated to have had 40-60 million killed during his regime.

Mao Tse Tung had somewhere between 45 million and 75 million killed whilst in power.

During Hitler’s Reich the number of deaths is estimated at 17-20 million.

Chiang Kai-Shek murdered about 10 million.

Approximately 2 million were killed during Hussein’s rule. Pol Pot’s Cambodian rule killed a similar number.

The number killed during Idi Amin’s reign is indeterminate but estimated at between 100,000 to 500,000. Franco, in Spain, is responsible for about 400,000 deaths.

Those eight names, all from the 20^th century, were responsible for at least a conservative estimate of 116 million deaths. The death toll could have been as high as 170 million. And that number is only by those eight. Others that could be mentioned are: the dictator Milosevic, and the genocides of Rwanda, Dafur, Armenia, and the Rape of Nanking.

More than 116 – 170 million wrong reasons for knowing their names.

In 1948 the Genocide Convention was drafted and gained 153 state parties to it (as of February 2025.) The Convention defines genocide as the ‘… intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group…’  The Convention includes in the rubric of genocide not simply outright killing, but also the causing of bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life that will bring about destruction, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children from the group to another group.

When genocide is considered in the light of this Convention, then the total numbers given above are likely to rise by a considerable number of orders of magnitude.

This definition also enables us to recognise a number of other historical events as genocide. The colonisation (including slaughter) of native Americans by European invaders from the 16^th century onwards, the Atlantic slave trade, the stolen generation in Australia.

Genocide did not end with the signing of the Genocide Convention, and genocide did not end with the shift from the 20^th to the 21^st century. Genocide is continuing.

We can name the names of those contributing to genocide today.

They also will be known for all the wrong reasons when the history of the 21^st century is written.

Machiavelli’s Legacy: Deserved or Not?

Niccolò Machiavelli

What other personal name could be more associated with many of the nasty sides of human behaviour than that of Niccolò Machiavelli. His name is synonymous with traits such as ruthlessness, cruelty, manipulation, deceit, despotism, and fear. Indeed, the word machiavellian has now become a synonym for these traits.

A diplomat, philosopher, author, and historian, Machiavelli lived during the Italian Renaissance and is best known as the author of The Prince.¹

In that book, Machiavelli enunciated his ideas about what it takes to be a ruler and/or leader in those times. He has been called the ‘Father of political philosophy.’ His writings, especially The Prince, became foundation stones of politics from his time onwards. We still see his ideas played out in the actions of rulers all around the world today.

Male leaders in particular aim to be seen as tough, uncompromising, and decisive. All qualities that Machiavelli would have admired. Of course, female leaders have also attempted to rule in likewise manners. The UK’s Margaret Thatcher comes to mind; she wasn’t nicknamed the Iron Lady for nothing.

When Machiavelli was writing The Prince sometime around 1513 (although not published until 1532 – 5 years after his death) Italy was divided into a number of kingdoms, duchies, republics, and states – notably the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Florence, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Sicily. These various regions were constantly forming and unforming alliances and attacking one another.

Machiavelli’s attempts then to summarise and define the qualities of a leader under those circumstances becomes obvious. His intention was to provide leaders with means by which they could maintain their position of authority.

When viewed at from this distance, five centuries later, Machiavelli may not deserve his legacy,

However, as with so much, context is everything.

Let us consider a few of Machiavelli’s statements. The best-known Machiavellian maxim is the end justifies the means. For centuries this statement has enjoyed an almost self-obvious truthfulness about it. Yet, it is unhelpful and flawed. A whole systems understanding of the world and how it works recognises that ends and means are not discrete events but, rather, describe portions of the same continuous whole. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, asserts that ‘means are ends in the making.’

In today’s highly connected, and increasingly polarised, this Machiavellian axiom is extremely unhelpful.

Some lesser-known statements from The Prince include: 1. ‘A leader mustn’t worry about being labelled cruel when it is a question of keeping his subjects loyal and united.’ 2. ‘It is a natural and ordinary desire to acquire.’ 3. ‘Is it better to be loved rather than feared?... since they don’t go together easily, if you have to choose, it’s much safer to be feared than loved.’ 4. ‘…fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and thrust.’

Each of these statements, when applied in today’s world, tend only to exacerbate polarisation, violence, and hatred. The fourth of these statements, although Machiavelli was using it metaphorically (applying his comment to fortune) it does display the manner in which women were treated at that time. Today this would be outright misogyny.

Within our cultural psyche we tend to pay more attention to negative thoughts than towards positive ones. This negativity bias is an evolutionary adaptation. Our survival once was more guaranteed if we paid greater attention to perceived threats than if we ignored them (and even more so if we paid attention to the juicy fruit hanging from the tree instead!)

Thus it is with Machiavelli’s writings. We pay more attention to his negative expressions, even though circumstances have changed.

Consequently, with Machiavelli’s writing being still quoted and applied to positions of leadership today, we must view Machiavelli’s negative legacy as deserving.

In other words, the word machiavellian remains a synonym for cruelty, misogyny, deceit, manipulation, despotism, violence, and fear.

Sadly, leaders and rulers of today keep listening to the advice of Machiavelli.

Notes:

1. Quotations taken from the Penguin Classics edition of Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, UK, 2014.

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.

Scripture Pointing

Below are six scriptural verses. Three are from the Bible, and three are from the Qur’an. Can you tell which is which? My guess is that, unless you are a religious scholar or an ardent believer in Christianity or Islam, then you are likely to have trouble identifying which is which – Bible or Qur’an.

A.    ‘Whoever would not seek (the Lord) should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.’

B.    ‘As for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’

C.    ‘Slay the idolators wherever ye find them, arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.’

D.     ‘Remember when your Lord inspired the angels…I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve…Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.’

E.     ‘Slay them wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out.’

F.     ‘Now go and strike... and devote destruction to all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep and donkey.’

Can you do it? Can you identify which verses are from the Bible, and which from the Qur’an?

Often we hear people pointing at the verses from one or the other of these holy books in order to claim that the other (i.e. not their own) religion is not peaceful or proclaims that killing is justified.

Yet, for those who would point to passages in the holy book of the others, half of the passages quoted above come from their own holy book.

My intention in quoting these scriptures is not to disrespect the Bible or the Qur’an. Nor is it my purpose to dishonour the believers of either religion. My intent is the following:

By pointing at a piece of scripture from the holy book of the other the (often tacit) inference is that those belonging to the other religion are heathens, infidels, non-believers, idolators, or at worst - evil. After all, “they” condone killing.

The scriptural texts quoted above are not, in and of themselves, the source of these issues. The source is the willingness – even eagerness - to point the finger at others, meanwhile ignoring the fact that each of us is as guilty or blameworthy as anyone else.

Thus it is that the pointing of the finger of accusation (or blame or guilt) at other people is at the core of the mistrust, polarisation, and violence (both latent and explicit) of the world.

Those who do point the finger, at either the scripture or the person, might do well to remember another piece of scripture, viz.

‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged...And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye. Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.’

-        Matthew 7: 1-5 (the Holy Bible)

That is a verse we all, believers and non-believers, might well try to remember as often as possible. If we were to do so, we would find that we are indeed all brothers, all sisters, all family.

Regarding the six passages quoted at the beginning of this post, it should be noted that they are all quoted out of context. Quoting out of context is very easy to do, yet by doing so it is possible to bestow meaning on a piece of text that the full context may not support.

And, in case you want to know the source and context of each of these quotations, they are as follows:

A.    Bible, 2 Chronicles 15: 12-13

B.    Bible, Luke 19: 27

C.    Qur’an 9:5

D.    Qur’an 8:12

E.     Qur’an 2: 190-191

F.     Bible, 1 Samuel 15: 2-3

It is worth noting that the comments above are not restricted to the religious realm. The pointing of the finger of blame occurs in many fields of human endeavour.

Finger pointing is, arguably, one of the biggest barriers towards a peaceful, tolerant, and harmonious world.

Eleven, Eleven, Eleven, Eleven

Part of painting by John Thiering
(used with permission)

In two days time some nations of the world will celebrate the 105^th anniversary of Armistice being the ending of World War 1 in 1918. The nation of my birth (New Zealand) and the country I now live in (Australia) will be two of those.

Dubbed the war to end all wars WW1 was a war that should never have happened – if indeed, any war should ever happen. The phrase came from a series of articles by H G Wells published in London newspapers soon after the war began. The articles were later compiled into a book with the title The War That Will End War.

But, as we sadly know, it didn’t end war. Nor did it end the arrogance and stubbornness of those directing that (and any) war.

When we consider Armistice Day one number comes to mind – the number Eleven. The ceasefire in WW1 took place at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in 1918.

There is a further little known eleven that can be added to those elevens. On the last day of the war (11^th November 2018) there were around eleven thousand casualties; dead, missing, or injured on all sides.

11,000!! On the last day!

Surely, that is the height of lunacy. Knowing that the war was ending, 11,000 soldiers still suffered, with a couple of them within just one or two minutes of the ceasefire.

How many lives could have been saved (on all sides) had the commanders not been so bullish and arrogant?

By October 1918 German commanders had realised that continuing the war was futile and that they had all but lost the war. Consequently, on 5 October the German government sent a message to President Woodrow Wilson seeking to negotiate terms based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points.¹

However, the British, French, and Italian governments declined to accept this offer of truce, nor did they accept all of Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

The war continued on.

With these offers not being sufficient for the Allied Forces, Wilson then demanded that negotiations would not take place unless the Kaiser abdicated. This demand was deemed unacceptable by Erich Ludendorff (chief policy maker for the German military and government.)

The war continued on.

Finally, it was not to be the Allies or Ludendorff who opened the way towards Armistice. It was the German people themselves, and principally the sailors in the German navy.

The German command issued an order on 24 October 1918 designed to engage the British navy in an all-out climactic battle.

German sailors responded with an emphatic No! Revolts took place first in Wilhelmshaven on 29 October and spread to Kiel (opening to the Baltic Sea) on 3 November. The sailors’ example quickly extended all along the coast and to large cities such as Hanover, Frankfurt, and Munich.

The German people had had enough of the war and their Kaiser. The German Revolution had begun. Kaiser Wilhem III abdicated on 9 November.

An Armistice could now be negotiated.

At 5am on the 11^th November, a time for a ceasefire was set for 11am.

But still, the war continued on.

The belligerent and obdurate minds of military commanders meant that 11,000 were killed, went missing, or were wounded in the final hours before 11am on the 11^th day of the 11^th month. The Americans in particular were commanded to press on right up until the 11^th hour, resulting in almost one-third of those 11,000 being American personnel.²

Lest We Forget; Best We Learn

Armistice Day is sometimes referred to as Remembrance Day. We often hear the refrain Lest we forget on this day. We read it too on WW1 memorials in many parts of the world.

Knowing what happened in WW1, and in all other wars, the refrain Lest we Forget and simply remembering is insufficient. We need to supplement it with a further three-word refrain.

Best We Learn.

Notes:

1. President Wilson’s Fourteen Points were 14 statements of principle to underpin peace negotiations. They included German evacuation of Russia, Belgium, France, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, the establishment of the nation of Poland, freedom for the Austro-Hungarian people, sovereignty for Turkey, a re-adjustment of the border with Italy, a reduction of armaments, and freedom of navigation on seas outside of territorial waters.

2. The commander of the American Expeditionary Forces during WW1, General John Pershing, later had to face a Congressional hearing to explain why there were so many casualties when the hour of the Armistice was known in advance.