One observes a similar dynamic in monkeys still today. Male chimpanzees (our closest living relative, with whom we share 96 percent of our DNA) will compete through “magnanimity”: through the direction of unsolicited altruism toward subordinates. Such magnanimity is usually gastronomic in nature: enduring danger to provide the troop with food, sharing out the proceeds of one’s own kills charitably, and confiscating those of others for the purposes of reallocation. As the primatologist Frans de Waal points out, “Instead of dominants standing out because of what they take, they affirm their
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