Peacemaking among Primates

by Frans de Waal

Does biology condemn the human species to violence and war? Previous studies of animal behavior incline us to answer yes, but the message of this book is considerably more optimistic. Without denying our heritage of aggressive behavior, Frans de Waal describes powerful checks and balances in the makeup of our closest animal relatives, and in so doing he shows that to humans making peace is as natural as making war. In this meticulously researched and absorbing account, we learn in detail how different types of simians cope with aggression, and how they make peace after fights. Chimpanzees, for instance, reconcile with a hug and a kiss, whereas rhesus monkeys groom the fur of former adversaries. By objectively examining the dynamics of primate social interactions, de Waal makes a convincing case that confrontation should not be viewed as a barrier to sociality but rather as an unavoidable element upon which social relationships can be built and strengthened through reconciliation. The author examines five different species--chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, stump-tailed monkeys, bonobos, and humans--and relates anecdotes, culled from exhaustive observations, that convey the intricacies and refinements of simian behavior. Each species utilizes its own unique peacemaking strategies. The bonobo, for example, is little known to science, and even less to the general public, but this rare ape maintains peace by means of sexual behavior divorced from reproductive functions; sex occurs in all possible combinations and positions whenever social tensions need to be resolved. "Make love, not war" could be the bonobo slogan. De Waal's demonstration of reconciliation in both monkeys and apes strongly supports his thesis that forgiveness and peacemaking are widespread among nonhuman primates--an aspect of primate societies that should stimulate much needed work on human conflict resolution.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Nature, Biology, Animals, Philosophy

310 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Frans de Waal has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. The author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, among many other works, he is the C. H. Candler Professor in Emory University’s Psychology Department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always immensely enjoy de Waal's books. I may, in fact, be turning into a bit of a fan girl of his. As other reviewers have stated, much of this book is seen as anecdotal, but I find his stories totally acceptable because many of them are given as examples to back up scientific studies which have come to the same conclusion. Also, when he gives his interpretation of a series of events without the ability to conclusively know the internal thoughts of the animals, he tells you upfront. And though this book is a little dated, none of the information in it is incorrect by current standards. It has only been expanded upon. A great place to start in understanding a variety of primates' behavior and branching out from there if you find this interesting.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frans thought me this important fact:
Rising in rank and achieving more power in the group is made through aggression and intimidation of the other members. The members that one can dominate, those members become lower in rank, they fear and are submissive to the dominant... For humans is the same, trust me I was a teacher, in Romania, and if you do not make children fear you (sometimes even be able to terrorize them), they won’t respect you, nor learn anything. I am feeble-minded, hypersensitive, extremely introverted and shy, debilitating anxious, and depressed, I don’t think I can withstand the power struggles in society… Mom, always told me that those with powerful psychics tend to dominate me. And that’s true. I am a conflict-averse, peace-loving primate. So I gave up on my ambition to be an intellectual to be seen, to puke babies, to struggle in a marriage… To have lots of money, high rank, etc… I am waiting to find a job as a librarian or translate books at home, start a youtube channel on ideas and spend my life in the quiet of my home. No more drama in my life, I am 30, I’ve seen it all, and I don’t need any more toil and trouble. I mean why do some struggle so much, they want what biology wants, what their genes dictate, to spread their genes. I don’t think it is worth the struggle in a world that is on the brink of nuclear war, and on a planet that’s dying.

Ok, enough with being mean and emo and upset. Now...the book!!!! It was interesting until I reached my beloved bonobos, and then I had three major shocks. Read the book, I won’t display it. It’s a bit weird indeed, but in nature, animals do start their sexual lives quite young, that’s true. That’s very true. It would be horrible if it were so for humans. My great-grandmother was sent to marry by her parents when she was 12!!!12!!! And this guy she married, my great-grandfather was an adult man, omg… that must have been terrible. A nightmare. They were not friends, they did not even know one another. Man, those times were so scary. Thank goodness I don’t live back then. God forbid!!!

I used to love bonobos because they are peaceful and non-violent, they do not go to war, don’t kill one another, etc, but their sexuality is scary because sexual stuff happens to infants too... omg… still it would have been better if they were our ancestors, think there would be no wars, no murders just everybody has sex. Hmm… sounds better, especially now when Putin appears in my nightmares, and threatens to throw the nuclear fart. Sounds way better. Sex, not war and murderers. Sex. The story, the real story is scary… I remember reading in a book that Christians were eating Muslim babies and Muslim soldiers’ asses… Hm… and all the terrible mutilation that happened during war etc… The Holocaust was again something so scary… All because our ancestors had killer instincts, they were xenophobic predators. Now let’s change the story, the bonobo is the ancestor. And we have British mating Africans, Muslims mating Christians, Muslims mating Jews, Japanese mating Chinese, and Germans mating Jews, and the lower classes mating the upper classes, in all kinds of combinations, all types of sex, etc. Better story. It’s a less scary story than what happened during our brief time on Earth. My mother when I told her about bonobos, wrinkled her nose in disgust. WHY? Because they are so incredibly sexual? Those primates, unlike chimps, do not kill one another and they do not go to war, like chimps and humans. I am sorry, but humans and chimps are disgusting. Bonobos are cute and lovely. They solved their aggression problem the best they could. But they have solved it. Have we? Last time I checked we are in danger of a nuclear war. Nice. And how many murders happen daily? Huh? I love this species, the hippies of our family. Next time I come here, gotta be a bonobo. The following finding made me love them even more:

In this light it is not surprising that aggression among bonobos never involved the prolonged hitting, trampling, and biting occasionally seen among chimpanzees. Physical aggression was not absent, but it rarely lasted for more than a second. Kevin would charge past Lenore and slap her on the back, or Leslie would grab Akili's hand, bite his finger, and release him. Attackers might storm wildly forward, only to put on some inner brake before a collision could occur. Once Vernon kept chasing poor Kalind to the point of exhaustion. When the adolescent finally crouched in a corner, I expected a real dressingdown. Vernon, hair on end, made his final charge, halted just in time, then gently poked his screaming victim in the back and strolled away as if he had never intended to do anything more.

THESE ARE THE TRUE INTELLIGENT PRIMATES OF THE FAMILY. NOT HUMANS. BONOBOS ARE SO SENSITIVE AND KIND AND EROTIC. HM... NOW THAT I THINK OF IT; I AM KINDA LIKE A BONOBO. BONOBOS FOR THE WIN!!! I WANT THIS PLANET TO BE POPULATED BY BONOBOS!!! BONOBOS NOT HUMANS!

If the massive, well-funded aggression research of the 1960s and 1970s has failed to illuminate mechanisms of conflict resolution, it is largely because of a strong bias against the notion that aggression can be, even should be, integrated into our lives. During the era of Flower Power human aggression was regarded as a purely cultural product-and a highly undesirable one-the existence of which was entirely in our hands. To get rid of it, people needed only to control their material possessiveness, their desire for dominance, and their sexual jealousy. Why should humanity settle for the canalization, sublimation, or integration of such "diabolical" traits if eradication was within its power? Many social scientists were and are scarcely interested in checks and balances on aggression, simply because they refuse to believe that aggression is here to stay. Today in the 1980s, in the wake of total failure to shake off the unwanted heritage, we are still waiting for a revision of such optimistic theories.

Well, later on I found bonobos are not all light, after all they have a common ancestor with humans and chimps, but still they are billions of times better, a truly hippie child who broke the legacy of hurt.

The big puzzle of course is how these blocs can be reconciled in the absence of a common enemy. Perhaps the threat of nuclear war is taking the place of the alien invaders who might otherwise do the job. If the prospect of an unwinnable war will not bring the human species to its senses, nothing will. The capacity to foresee the consequences of our actions has helped us to plan countless wars; it may help us now to plan a future without war. The process would certainly be stimulated by the development of joint ventures, such as the proposal to organize a U.S.-Soviet trip to Mars, a gigantic enterprise. As Carl Sagan has commented, this would be a fitting symbol on behalf of humanity: "We should embrace not the god of war, but the planet named after him."

Yes, now I realize how old this book is, and I am reading it just now. Yeah just now. Well, Frans, as you can see, nothing will bring Putin to his senses, not even the prospect of an unwinnable war. He is just out for trouble, maybe he just wants to destroy the whole planet. I am sad that nationalism and tribalism are winning everywhere. Stupid peeps.

"Forgiveness is not, as some people seem to believe, a mysterious and sublime idea that we owe to a few millennia of JudeoChristianity. It did not originate in the minds of people and cannot therefore be appropriated by an ideology or a religion. The fact that monkeys, apes, and humans all engage in reconciliation behavior means that it is probably over thirty million years old, preceding the evolutionary divergence of these primates. The alternative explanation, that this behavior appeared independently in each species, is highly "uneconomical," for it requires as many theories as there are species. Scientists normally dismiss uneconomical explanations unless there is strong evidence against the more elegant unified theory. Because no such evidence exists in this instance, reconciliation behavior must be seen as a shared heritage of the primate order. Our species has many conciliatory gestures and contact patterns in common with the apes (stretching out a hand, smiling, kissing, embracing, and so on). Language and culture merely add a degree of subtlety and variation to human peacemaking strategies.

This knowledge does not solve the problem of violence in our societies, but I do hope that it will bring a change in perspective. Instead of looking at reconciliation as a triumph of reason over instinct, we need to begin to study the roots and universality of the psychological mechanisms involved. It is time for science to enter the scene. A rational approach should replace the mystique that surrounds the peace issue today. We need not be under the illusion that aggressive tendencies will ever leave us, but neither should we neglect our heritage of reconciliation. In shifting the emphasis from the one to the other, we would in no way be crossing the boundaries of human nature. We would only be making use of what we have, and doing what we do best-adapting to new circumstances in our own self-interest."

YEEES, TELL THEM FRANS!!!

All in all, this book was a dream, and it’s almost the last book I read by Frans. Maybe scientists (primatologist, neuroscientists, psychologists and anthropologists will crack this conundrum. Oh, I hope it happens in my time, because I also wanna know. Yea, I wanna know!!! I wanna know!!!!). The last one will be Natural Conflict Resolution… I thought it just won’t be interesting so I left it almost the last one. And I was a loser because this book was so fascinating. I have found so many interesting things about the stump-tail monkeys and rhesus monkeys. Paragraphs about them appeared in other of his books also, but now I had a clearer picture of them. I will never read primatology articles because I’ve heard that they are unreadable, because of all the statistics, I will stick with books. I love Frans, he is the greatest mind of this century. So now, I will start the final book written by this genius. Let’s get started.

[Colin M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now over two decades old, this classic remains a must read for anyone who studies primate social behavior. de Waal forces us to think beyond aggression and how conflicts are mediated and resolved rather than merely explaining agonistic behavior. Indeed, we should no longer view aggression as abnormal behavior; it is essential to social cohesion. Powerful anecdotes from the author's study of chimpanzees, macaques, and bonobos are used to immerse readers into the social lives of these primates. Devoid of mathematical and scientific jargon, de Waal uses simple descriptive statistics to highlight primate peacemaking behavior and interspecific differences.

[. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great info. Much of this can be gleaned from his other books and I'm pretty sure this book could've been 70 pages shorter, but I can't knock off any points for those... this book is as old as I am.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

1989
I have this book. A few B/W photos, not at all clear. Whereas his glossy big book on bonobos has beautiful, large, clear, color photos.

Frans de Waal was in Arnhem observing chimps 1975-1981, and after that in Wisconsin and finally in Atlanta, Emory U, Yerkes Primate Center. The chimp colony in Arnhem had been first set up in 1971.

180 'In The Naked Ape Desmond Morris presented humans as the sexiest of all primates. He argued that the almost continuous sexual receptivity of women is necessary to maintain pair bonds. Pair bonding, in turn, may be a way of avoiding competition among men. During hunting and territorial defense men need to cooperate closely; they cannot afford daily quarrels about sex. Tensions are reduced by dividing the women among them in a stable arrangement. '

212: "Among bonobos there is more aggression at feeding time than at other times. In contrast to the sex-contract hypotheses, I emphasize the reduction of competitive tendencies. For much of their rivalry bonobos substitute enjoyable erotic activities....Conflict resolution is the more fundamental and pervasive function of bonobo sex.
...219 The art of sexual reconciliation may well have reached its evolutionary climax in the bonobo."

In the last [large] chapter De Waal applies what he has learned to human behavior and comes up with interesting stuff. Not until the 1980s did social scientists even start to study aggression and reconciliation among humans, mainly preschoolers. De Waal wants a LOT more observational research on humans, particularly how humans deal with [nonviolent] aggression, which he feels is natural and unavoidable, and how humans repair relationships, i.e. reconcile or forgive.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

My boss gave me this after a conversation about monkeys at work one day. Being the behavior geek I am it hooked me in. Overall it was very good though some of the information might be dated by today's standards. (I don't know much about the scientific studies of primate behavior.)A great read for anyone interested in monkeys and apes. Now I know more than the average person needs to know about the social dynamics of monkeys/apes. (in captive studied groups that is) It also had a section on some cultural differences of humans in regard to peacemaking as well.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 5 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned more about primates than I ever thought possible but the Bonobos section was truly fascinating - provided some valuable insight into human nature.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a Primate ecology and behavior class. It includes mostly anecdotes but de Waal applies these anecdotes in a way that is creative yet also scientifically valid.

[Barry Behrstock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A interesting addition to the degree that reciprocal altruism and cooperation exist within the primate culture

[David Zugman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for anyone who wants to understand de-escalation