Ancestral Hierarchy and Conflict Christopher Boehm Presented by Josh Breiger

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

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

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

Hierarchical Structure In chimp and bonobo 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 as powerful bonobos and chimps intervene frequently in conflicts as dominant peacemakers that coerce the protagonists to separate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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