Getting in touch with my inner chimp or why I am not yet done evolving.

Our closest genetic cousins, the apes, are capable of great empathy but also of violent, ruthless killing. Frans de Waal, a prominent primatologist, compares our social behavior with that of two species of apes: chimpanzees and bonobos (which look like smaller, more upright chimps). Despite their physical similarities, the two species behave very differently. Bonobos live in a relatively peaceful matriarchy; when conflicts do arise, instead of fighting they often use sexual activity to resolve them, defusing the aggression with friendly physical contact. Like hippies, they make love, not war. Chimp society, however, is a male-dominated hierarchy based on power. Unlike the gentle bonobos, who seldom kill, chimps will hunt for meat and even kill members of rival groups.

Sound familiar?

When I was just a tadpole I remember feeling embarrassed about being a human. It seemed from what I was learning in school that we had a history of violence. The Vietnam War was still raging so I knew that we were still definitely a warlike people. I felt disconnected from what my species was capable of.

Then I started junior high school.

In that environment the level of human interaction was at its most primitive. I was forbidden to fight. My mother made me promise. I held it together pretty good until the ninth grade. Then somebody pushed too far. I damned near hospitalized the asshole. And...it felt good. Very good. It took years to fully get the beast back into his cage.

Now looking back I understand what role violence plays in our lives and I know how easy it is for us to use violence to solve problems that are best solved in other ways. This is why we have laws. Because some times in the heat of passion we forget the more evolved methods for solving our disputes. Without those laws what would we be? Less human? Or more human?

I think the answer is less human. We created these rules to contain the primitive part of us that wants instant gratification and to take things that are not ours to take. These rules make us feel more....human. We are horrified by the violence that we see on televison news programs yet we often go to movies that glorify that violence. Why? Because it lets us release those urges that we spend all day suppressing. It lets us release the less evolved of our emotions.

I understand that there is part of me that almost wants conflict. There is a part of me that welcomes aggression. There is a part of me that is not very evolved. But that part of me is never in charge. That part of me survives deep in my psyche, in case. In case somebody else maybe does not interact with me in a fully evolved manner. Maybe this somebody else tries to do me harm. Then the part that I constantly control will just be let go. He will have a job to do then. That is why he exists.

Now there is every possibility that there will never be a circumstance where it will be necessary to revert to this primitive impulse. I hope there never will be. Well, most of me hopes there never will be.

I hope for a world where the use of violence is never necessary. I hope that someday people forget how to make fist, shoot a gun, wield a knife. I want a world where everyboy loves and cherishes each other. I also know that I don't live in that world right now. But someday my childrens children might.

Until then I will be sitting here, quietly evolving.