Ancestral Hierarchy and Conflict

1. Ancestral Hierarchy and Conflict Christopher Boehm Presented by Josh Breiger

2. Ancestral Pan • Shared antecedent of humans and human’stwo genetically closest relatives, chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) and bonobos (pan paniscus) • All three descendants of Pan have many societal similarities

3. Attempt of Study • If humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees share a behavioral trait we can infer that the recent ancestor shared by all three of them had this same trait • Analyze similarities across all three descendants of ancestral Pan • Then explore the factors that may have led to the more uniquely human set of behaviors we find in modern Homo sapiens

4. Conflict and Resolution • In general, both conflict and conflict management is present in all three animals • “There is little doubt that conflict and conflict management have coevolved. Being competitive certainly has reproductive payoffs, but a capacity to end conflicts also is beneficial” • Also, a flexible peacemaking approach is ancestral • Including reconciling between the fighting parties, a responsible third party and sometimes simply spatial avoidance

5. Hierarchical Structure • In chimp andbonobo bands a hierarchical structure is present (competition for food and mates). This includes both collations and a powerful Alpha male • Higher ranking members often show selfish tendencies • But also useful aspowerful bonobos and chimps intervene frequently in conflicts as dominant peacemakers that coerce the protagonists to separate

6. Human Differences • Over the past 5 to 7 million years, humans have diverged fromtheir counterparts in 2 important ways: • Become egalitarian • Acquired and were guided by moral feelings including a sense of shame

7. Switch to Egalitarian Structure • Eventually subordinate collations rebelled and attacked powerful individuals that no one would dare attack alone • The only way to ensure that there is no dominant alpha male is complete subordinate power

8. Humans and Death • Humans have the potential to be relatively more lethal because of weapons and the understanding of death • Revenge leads to the potentially more lethal conflicts in humans • But because of our large brains and ability to retaliate we understand the negative effects of disputes and the negatives of large scale warfare

9. Loss of Alpha Male • Lost the alpha male role • When a band suppresses morally deviant behavior it is important that one of the effects is that it preemptively reduces conflicts in the future • This helped lead to development of moral behavior

10. Managing conflict • Moral values play a direct role in managing conflict • Egalitarian band members condemn acts that create conflict (i.e. killing, theft) but also praise virtues of social harmony and promote generosity that foster cooperation • It is important that hunter-gathers follow rules simply because group values support following them • Hunter gathers can’t stop fights once they start so they need to stop fights before they start

11. Rise of Hierarchical System • When distraction, negotiations and mediators don’t work, then spatial avoidance is often used with hunter gathers • But when this spatial avoidance is too costly, then our ancestors gave leaders the power to moderate conflicts • This opened the door for chieftains, kingdoms and states • Led to widespread egalitarianism ending

12. Modern Day Relevance • Humans have the ability for conflict but also the ability to solve conflicts • The ancient capacity for conflict management provides an important tool in examining international politics • Both war and peacemaking become more and more powerful • World conflict resolution still needs a lot of work

13. Relation to Haidt • Haidt believes that the liberty/oppression foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of living in small groups • Problem is if given the chance humans bully and constrain others • The rise of would be dominators triggers a motivation to unite as equals to restrain and even kill the oppressor • Part of the reason that we have such a strong negative feeling with the overstepping of authority is humans evolved a liberty foundation with roots in egalitarian societies