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IS WAR IN OUR GENES? |
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by John Horgan St. Phillips Church I have a long-standing journalistic interest in the origins of human aggression and warfare. For obvious reasons, this interest has turned into an obsession lately. I have kids, so my speculations about the future are colored by my hopes for them. I grew up in the duck-and-cover era, and just a few years ago I believed my kids might grow up in a world without that kind of fear. My hopes have been severely tested by 9/11 and everything since. Here are some questions I want to address tonight: Is our propensity for war biologically based? Is it in our genes? And if so, does that mean war is inevitable? Or can we do something to make war less likely or even abolish it? I’m going to give you some facts and theories I’ve found in various books. I’ve divided this talk into good news, and bad news. Let’s start with the bad news. To put it bluntly, human history and pre-history are soaked in blood. There is war or something like it as far back as you look, even among our primate ancestors. As recently as the early 1970’s, scientists studying primates believed that war and even murder were exclusively human behaviors. Other primate species fought but rarely to the death. Supposedly. Then in 1974, researchers at the Jane Goodall Center in Tanzania saw a group of male chimpanzees ambush and kill a chimp from another troop. It turned out that male chimps routinely band together to patrol their territory or raid the territory of neighboring troops. If they catch a rival, they beat him, often to death. In his book Demonic Males, the anthropologist Richard Wrangham suggests that these violent chimpanzees have the same motives that many modern soldiers do. He writes: "Stripped to its ape essence, patriotism is male defense of the community." Among the chimpanzees, violence doesn’t just break out between males from rival troops. Each troop is dominated by an alpha male, who maintains control by beating other males and females. Males may also force females to copulate and kill infants they suspect are not theirs. Here’s the punchline: Chimpanzees, who are called Pan troglodytes, are our closest genetic relatives, and vice versa. We share more genes with chimps than chimps share with gorillas, their closest apes relatives. When you move from Pan troglodyte to Homo sapiens, the news doesn’t get any better. Archaeological research, historical texts, and studies of tribes that have survived into the modern era all suggest that warfare was pervasive well before the age of the modern nation-state. In a book called War Before Civilization, the anthropologist Lawrence Keeley estimates that as many as 95 percent of primitive societies engaged in at least occasional warfare, and many fought constantly. Primitive warfare has often been described as highly ritualized, almost a sport, in which serious injuries and death were rare. It’s true that tribal combat usually involved skirmishes and ambushes rather than pitched battles. But the fighting was often chronic, so that over time casualties exceeded those found even in the most war-torn modern cultures. About 1 percent of all 20th-century males in Europe and the U.S. died of war-related causes. As many as 50 percent of the men in primitive societies were killed by other men. And primitive warriors only had arrows and spears to kill with instead of machine guns and bombs. Primitive warfare was often vicious. Male prisoners were usually killed, and often tortured, mutilated, even eaten. Women and children were enslaved. New Zealand’s Maori warriors, after decapitating their enemies, would taunt the severed heads as follows: "You wanted to run away, did you? But my war club overtook you, and after you were cooked, you made food for my mouth. And where is your father? He is cooked. And where is your brother? He is eaten. And where is your wife? There she sits, a wife for me." There were a few peaceful pre-state societies, but most were beaten into passivity by stronger societies. And yet throughout the 20th century, many intellectuals desperately tried to resurrect the old myth of the noble savage, which depicts primitive humans as peaceful hippie-like creatures who shared their resources and made love, not war. A corollary of this myth is that warfare is an invention or even disease of modern civilization, and especially the nation-state. Another corollary is that aggression stems from repressed sexuality. The more sex you have, the less aggressive you should be. These were the themes of Margaret Mead’s bestseller Coming of Age in Samoa, first published in 1928. Mead described the Polynesian island of Samoa as a blissful utopia of sexual freedom, in which jealousy, rape, murder, and warfare were unknown. This turned out to be a fantasy. Historically, Samoa has been wracked by warfare, and in modern times its rates of assault, murder, and rape have been much higher than in the U.S., which is one of the most violent societies in the world. In the 1970’s other anthropologists claimed to have discovered a Phillipine tribe called the Tasaday, which was so gentle that it didn’t even have words for conflict or weapon. The Tasaday turned out to be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Phillipine officials to gain mining and lumber rights to a Phillipine forest. The next tribe to be anointed noble savages were the Kung of Africa’s Kalahari Desert, who were celebrated in the book The Harmless People and the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy. Actually, the murder rate among the Kung is four times higher than in the U.S. Then there are the Yanomamo, who live in the Amazonian region of Brazil and Venezuela. The anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon made the Yanomamo famous in a 1968 book called The Fierce People, which is the best-selling anthropology book ever. Yanomamo men were almost comically pugnacious. They sometimes played a game in which two men smacked each other over the head with clubs until one was knocked cold. Just for fun. Men displayed the lumps and scars on their heads like status symbols. What wasn’t so funny was that men from different villages often killed each other in lethal raids. Chagnon claimed that these conflicts almost always stemmed originally from disputes over "reproductive resources"--that is, females. Typically, men from one village would kidnap a female from another village. Then the conflict would become a feud, like the Hatfields versus the McCoys, in which men kill to avenge past killings and can’t even remember how it all started. Chagnon’s most disturbing finding was a correlation between killing and reproduction. Like most tribal societies, the Yanomamo are polygamous. Men who killed the most had two times as many wives and three times as many children as non-killers, according to Chagnon. This finding was widely interpreted as implying that the aggression of men, like that of chimpanzees, may be a product of natural selection. Chagnon’s findings have been challenged, most notably in a book called Darkness in El Dorado. Chagnon is a swaggering, Jesse Ventura-style tough guy, and he has been accused of projecting his own macho fantasies onto the Yanomamo. I once heard Chagnon refer to Yanomamo men who avoided killing as "wimps." But Richard Wrangham—author of Demonic Males--argues that Chagnon’s results correlate all too well with observations of other societies. Early in human history, warrior leaders often kept huge harems of nubile females, who spawned hundreds of children. Wrangham comments: "If a male wins power, he will tend to use it to mate as many females as possible." OK, are you ready for some good news? One piece of good news comes from primatology. In the late 1920s, scientists discovered a new species of chimpanzee in Africa. They are called Pan paniscus, pygmy chimps, or, more commonly, Bonobos. Bonobos are anatomically distinct from their Pan troglodyte cousins. They are smaller, their calls are higher-pitched and softer, and their faces are darker-skinned. But what’s really different is their behavior, which has come to light only in the last decade or so. Bonobos are as gentle and peaceful as troglodytes are aggressive. Male bonobos have never been observed engaging in the kind of murderous raiding that troglodytes do. They do not batter females, force them to copulate, or kill infants fathered by rivals. In bonobo troops, the sexes are co-dominant, meaning that females wield as much power as males. So how do bonobos get along so well? Basically through sex, and plenty of it. Females smooth over conflicts with males--and other females--through copulation and non-reproductive sexual contact, the kind of stuff that’s still illegal in Texas. Bonobos are also the only primates who mate face to face. At the very least, bonobos show that male violence is not inevitable among primates. Another piece of good news comes from an unlikely source, Napoleon Chagnon. He has always denied that Yanomamo warriors have a "warfare gene," which compels them to fight. After all, compulsive, out-of-control killers would probably quickly get killed themselves rather than having lots of kids. Chagnon says successful warriors are usually quite controlled and calculating. They fight because that’s how to advance in their society. If these men had been born in a society that valued farming skills, Chagnon once told me, they might have become good farmers. In other words, Chagnon is emphasizing that the behavior of Yanomamo men is not inevitable; it is to a certain degree a product of their culture. This is an extremely important point, and it’s born out by cases in which aggressive societies became peaceful very quickly. Here are several examples: Up through the middle ages, Vikings were the scourge of Europe. But their Swedish descendants haven’t fought in a war since 1815. Of course, Sweden isn't entirely pacifist. All males undergo compulsory military training, and Sweden is one of the world's major arms exporters. Nobody’s perfect. Then there is Japan, which in the early 20th century was one of the most aggressive nations on earth. Japan’s attacks on China and other countries were encouraged even by Zen Buddhist leaders such as D.T. Suzuki, who later helped to popularize Buddhism in the west. But since its traumatic defeat in World War II, Japan has embraced pacifism. An especially striking example of malleability comes from the Semai of Malaysia, who are farmers with strict taboos against violence. During the 1950’s, British troops fighting Communist guerillas in Malaysia recruited Semai men as scouts. After the Communists killed some Semai, their desire for vengeance turned them into savage killers. One recalled: "We killed, killed, killed... Wah, truly we were drunk with blood." But after the insurrection ended, the Semai returned to their homes and their peaceful ways. One reason societies embrace peace so readily may be that few societies really relish war, and few men really enjoy killing. Of course, there are exceptions, like Sergeant Eric Schrumpf. Schrumpf is an Army sharpshooter in Iraq who in last Saturday's New York Times was quoted saying : "We had a great day. We killed a lot of people." After admitting that he had shot an Iraqi woman, Sergeant Schrumpf said, "The chick was in the way." But this kind of callousness seems to be unusual. As a tribal warrior in Papua New Guinea once said: "War is bad and nobody likes it. Sweet potatoes disappear, pigs disappear, fields deteriorate, and many relatives and friends get killed. But one cannot help it. A man starts a fight and no matter how much one despises him, one has to go and help because he is one’s relative and one feels sorry for him." Maybe this is how Tony Blair feels about George Bush. Many combat veterans end up suffering from what has been called battle fatigue, shell shock, or combat neurosis. And they don’t just fear being killed; they fear killing. During the Civil War and both World Wars, as many as 80 percent of men in combat deliberately avoided firing at the enemy. That’s according to a book called On Killing by Dave Grossman, a West Point psychologist. After World War II the armed services revamped their training to make soldiers less reluctant to kill. This strategy has been a big success: About 90 percent of American soldiers who saw combat in Vietnam fired at the enemy. But many of them still suffered afterwards from persistent nightmares, flashbacks, and other symptoms of post-traumatic-stress disorder. The best news I’ve got for you is that our world is much less violent than it used to be. In the 20th century, about 100 million men, women, and children died from war-related causes, including disease and famine. The total would have been 2 billion if our rates of violence had been as high as in the average primitive society. In other words, things are getting better. So we should forget about the myth of the noble savage. We can’t find peace by trying to roll back progress and live like the Kung or the Bonobos, as appealing as that may sound. In fact, that would be a disaster. Civilization is not the problem. Civilization is the answer. We need more civilization, not less. Civilization has given us legal institutions that resolve disputes by establishing laws, negotiating agreements, and enforcing them. These institutions, which range from local courts to the United Nations, have vastly reduced the risk of violence both within and between nations. They are what separate us from societies like the Yanomamo. Obviously our institutions are far from perfect. Nations around the world still maintain huge arsenals, including weapons of mass destruction, and war keeps breaking out. So what should we do? Maybe we need more drastic measures to eradicate war once and for all. One possibility would be to tinker with our physiologies to make ourselves less aggressive. Scientists have linked various genes and neurochemicals to violent tendencies. For example, many violent criminals have low levels of serotonin. Should we try to curb our aggressive instincts by altering our neurochemistry or genes? Or maybe we should all have electrodes implanted in our brains that could zap us when we act or even think aggressively. This idea was actually proposed back in the 1960’s by a neuroscientist named Jose Delgado. To show his scheme was feasible, Delgado stuck electrodes in the brains of psychiatric patients and manipulated their emotions with a radio-controlled device. He also did a public demonstration involving a bull with implanted electrodes. When the bull charged, Delgado flipped the remote, and the bull stopped in its tracks. The question is, who gets the electrodes in the brain, and who gets the remote? In his classic book On Aggression, the biologist Konrad Lorenz said it might be possible to "breed out the aggressive drive by eugenic planning." But that would be a huge mistake, Lorenz argued, because aggression is a vital part of our humanity. It plays a role in almost all human endeavors, including science, the arts, business, politics, and sports. If you want to see healthy male aggression in action, just watch one of our pond-hockey games here in Garrison. Aggression can even serve the cause of peace. I’ve known some extremely aggressive peace activists. Even if war is biologically based, we can’t end it by changing our biology. Modern war is a social and political phenomenon, and we need social and political solutions to end it. One encouraging finding to emerge from political science recently is that democracies rarely if ever wage war against each other. But does that mean democracies like the U.S. should force democracy down the throat of countries like Iraq? If history teaches us anything, it’s that war begets more war. A perennial proposal is for all nations to yield power to a global institution that can enforce peace. This was the vision that inspired the League of Nations and the U.N. If the U.S. goes on to conquer Iraq, North Korea, France, and all its other enemies, maybe we will have a global government. But I doubt whether this is what Woodrow Wilson had in mind. Maybe we all need to be more religious. After all, religions preach love and forgiveness, and they prohibit killing, at least in principle. But in practice, of course, religion has often inspired killing. The original meaning of the Biblical commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" was that Jews should not kill other Jews. Non-Jews were fair game. Many feminists have predicted that as women gain more political power, we’ll evolve toward a more peaceful world, like the Bonobos. After all, females are much less prone to violence than males, and historically they’ve probably suffered much in wars than men. But Richard Wrangham points out that historically women have also perpetuated war--at least indirectly--by favoring demonic males as mates. This choice makes Darwinian sense: in a violent world, tough guys can protect women and their offspring, and they are more likely to produce tough, sexually attractive sons, who will perpetuate their genes. Women in primitive societies rarely fought in wars, but they often contributed to the war effort by feeding and nursing warriors and carrying weapons. Women in some tribes also publicly ridiculed cowards and urged warriors on with what Lawrence Keeley calls "dances of incitement." If you want to see what dances of incitement look like, check out Fox News. About half of American women support our current war, and one of them, Condoleeza Rice, helped plan it. And remember that one of feminism’s triumphs is getting more women in the military. Obviously ending war won’t be easy. Last December, a website called The Edge asked a bunch of science geeks like me to spell out what they considered to be the most important remaining scientific problem. My answer was the inability of nations to resolve disputes peacefully. I proposed that the U.S. create an Institute for the Scientific Study of Peace, which would seek to understand the causes of war and find ways to avoid it. The institute would also explore scenarios for achieving total, global disarmament. No arms, armies, or arms industries. After I posted this, I got an email from Steven Pinker, who’s a psychologist at MIT. In his recent book The Blank Slate, Pinker argues for what he calls a "tragic" view of human nature, which accepts that we are limited by our biological heritage. Pinker uses the term "utopian" to describe the belief that we can transcend human nature and create a perfect world. By utopian, Pinker means hopelessly naive. Pinker told me that my vision of a disarmed world is utopian. He insisted that we will always need some military force to protect us from our own aggressive instincts. Total disarmament is a pipe dream, a dangerous one, because if carried out it could allow sociopaths such as Saddam Hussein or Hitler to seize power unimpeded. Maybe I am hopelessly naive. When Frank called me back in February and asked me to give this talk, I honestly didn’t expect that by this time we’d be at war. I thought somehow we’d find a way to avoid it. That’s how naive I am. But deep down--maybe because I have kids--I have faith that we will solve this problem. If the capacity for war is in our genes, so is the capacity—and the desire—to end war. The protests erupting all around the world right now are proof of that. I don’t believe in God, but I believe in humanity’s common sense, and moral decency, and instinct for self-preservation. We will abolish war someday. The only question is how, and how soon.
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