Animal Stories, Part 7- Chimpanzee Politics

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© Davidson Loehr

May 11, 2007

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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PRAYER:

Help us to love ourselves, and to love people and causes outside of ourselves, that we may be enlarged to include them.

SERMON: Animal Stories, Part 7: Chimpanzee Politics

We are hard-wired to conform, follow others, and defer to authority, even illegal authority, to be emotionally stressed when we don’t follow others. But there is more to us than this.

It’s a story about our other closest relatives, bonobos, and about girl power, the role that social expectations play in chimps, bonobos and us, and about some new and exciting findings of neuroscience in studies of animals, including the human animal. Most of all, it’s about those “better angels of our nature,” how we can hear them, and how, together, we can transform our lives, our relationships, and our world. And it’s a story we’ll tell next week, in the final installment of these animal stories. See you in church!

Four hundred thousand years ago in Germany, our ancestors created wooden spears about six feet long that were clearly used as hunting weapons. The spears were found at a site called Schoningen, among stone tools and animal bones” Just last month, chimpanzees were observed making spears and using them to kill Bush babies for food in the wild. (Barbara J. King, Evolving God, p. 113)

So in the art of hunting with weapons we made, we have now discovered we have a lot in common with chimpanzees. But without going to the drama of hunting with weapons, we share even more similarities with chimpanzees when it comes to the conduct of our politics.

Frans de Waal, who has studied chimps for over thirty-five years, wrote a book on this in 1982, which has become a classic in its field. Called Chimpanzee Politics, it’s based on thousands of hours of observations of a chimpanzee colony in the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands, where De Waal first began studying one of our two closest relatives.

The philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) described chimpanzee politics over 350 years ago, as “a general inclination of all [mankind], a perpetual and restless desire of Power after Power, that ceases only in Death.” He was actually speaking of human politics, but his words describe male chimpanzee politics perfectly. (Chapter 4 in Hobbes’ 1651 book Leviathan)

When De Waal wrote his book, he was accused of anthropomorphizing chimpanzees: projecting human motives onto them. But he said it actually worked in reverse. After studying chimpanzee politics, he began to see human politics in a fundamentally different way. That’s what happened to me, too: I’ve come out of this with very different, and much lower, expectations for human politics.

Chimpanzee politics is all about getting and keeping power, by the few over the many, and by any means necessary. Alpha males form alliances with influential males and females – or subordinate males form coalitions to overpower the alpha male, and then consolidate their power by forming alliances with influential females. Males seldom maintain the alpha rank for more than four years. Then there’s another round of opportunistic alliances and vicious fighting to crown a new leader – or as we call them, elections.

The two mottoes of chimpanzee politics are “One good turn deserves another,” and “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics, p. 202)

And the male political alliances are not personal, but functional – not with friends, but with those who can, at the moment, be useful. Yesterday’s enemy may be today’s ally, and we may attack today’s friend tomorrow.

Adult male chimpanzees live in a hierarchical world with replaceable coalition partners and a single permanent goal: power. Adult females, in contrast, live in a horizontal world of social connections, where power and influence are bestowed by others on the basis of their character, not their physical strength. We know from psychological experiments with human subjects that in Western cultures men and women show similar differences. (Frans de Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates, p. 51)

Tancredo Neves, the briefly-elected president of Brazil (January 15, 1985), neatly summed up the male attitude in this arena: “I have never made a friend from whom I could not separate and I have never made an enemy that I could not approach.” (Frans de Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates, p. 51) Neves had been a powerful critic of the government, and just a few days after he was elected, he mysteriously died – so maybe his alliances weren’t quite the right ones.

If presidential candidates take a sudden interest in women, listen to their problems, and hug their children, there are parallels in chimpanzee males who groom females and play gently with infants, especially during periods of status struggle. (Frans de Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates, p. 49)

Yet strength is weakness: an alpha presence automatically generates alliances among weaker males to see if they can topple the power structure. Only very shrewd chimpanzees can maintain power in the face of younger and stronger males.

But to see how chimpanzee politics works, let’s look at a story of three successive political revolutions within a single community of chimps.

It took place in the chimpanzee colony in the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands, and involved four males named Yeroen, Luit, Nikkie and Dandy.

Yeroen was a shrewd older chimpanzee, and had ruled the group for some years, when a younger and stronger male named Luit challenged him for power, and after humiliating him in two violent fights, dethroned him. I’ll come back to what this loss of power did to Yeroen, which is a revealing story in its own right.

But Luit was alpha for only ten weeks. Wily old Yeroen, who Frans de Waal described as the shrewdest politician He’s seen, formed an alliance with a strong young male named Nikkie during those ten weeks. And one night, when the chimps were put into their separate male and female night quarters, Yeroen and Nikkie attacked Luit and killed him. De Waal says he could never again look at old Yeroen without seeing a murderer.

The following day, they released Nikkie and Yeroen into the group. Immediately a dominant female attacked Nikkie fiercely, chasing him up a tree. She kept him there for ten minutes by screaming and charging each time he tried to come down. She had always been Luit’s main ally among the females, and must have watched the murder from her night cage. (Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics, p. 211-212)

But a few hours after her solitary outburst, the other chimps gathered around the killers, grooming them and accepting them as the new leaders. And the very next day, a new triangle emerged. Another young male named Dandy began making overtures to old Yeroen, grooming him and beginning to form an alliance with him against Nikkie. (Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics, p. 212) When Yeroen and the new young male named Dandy finally got enough power to confront Nikkie, he ran out into the water-filled moat and drowned, and another revolution had taken place. Yesterday’s allies are today’s enemies and vice versa, when it suits the pursuit of power. And that process will not end, because it is the plot of chimpanzee politics.

Not only does the process of gaining political power among chimps sound and feel familiar, but so do the effects of losing power once a male is dethroned. So I want to go back to what losing power did to old Yeroen for the ten weeks he was without power.

The first time Luit gained the upper hand – marking the end of Yeroen’s ancient regime – he reacted in completely uncharacteristic ways, surprising the scientists who had studied him for several years. Normally a dignified character, Yeroen became unrecognizable. In the midst of a confrontation, he would drop out of a tree like a dead man, writhing on the ground, screaming pitifully, and waiting to be comforted by the rest of the group. He acted much like a juvenile ape being weaned by his mother. And like a juvenile who during tantrums keeps an eye on mom for signs of softening, Yeroen always noted who approached him. If the group around him was big and powerful enough, and especially if it included the alpha female, he would gain instant courage. With his supporters in tow, he would renew the confrontation with his rival. So his tantrums were another example of his shrewd manipulation. The parallels with infantile attachment in our own species were fascinating, reminding us of expressions like “clinging to power” and “being weaned from power.” Knocking a male chimpanzee off his pedestal gets the same reaction as yanking the security blanket away from a baby.

When even those tactics didn’t work, and Yeroen finally lost his top spot, he would often sit staring into the distance, an empty expression on his face. He was oblivious to the social activity around him and refused food for weeks. They thought he was sick, but the veterinarian found nothing wrong. Yeroen seemed a mere ghost of the impressive big shot he had been. When power was lost, the lights in him went out.

This sounds so familiar; it’s worth a couple animal stories from our species. Professor De Waal mentioned two similar cases of the behavior of an alpha male who has lost power.

One involved a senior professor, a colleague of De Waal’s on a university faculty, with great prestige and ego. He ran the department, but had failed to notice a budding conspiracy. Some young faculty members disagreed with him on a politically sensitive issue. Quietly, they formed alliances and successfully rallied a vote against him at a faculty meeting. The professor was blissfully unaware of this political coup, partly because up until then nobody had ever had the guts to go head-to-head with him. Support for the alternative proposal had been cultivated behind his back by some of his own proteges. Following the fatal vote, which must have come out of the blue, given his expression of disbelief, all color drained from the professor’s face. Looking ten years older, he had the same empty, ghostlike appearance Yeroen had after he had lost his top spot. For the professor, this was about much more than the issue at hand; it was about who ran the department. In the weeks and months following the meeting, his entire demeanor changed as he strode the corridors. Instead of saying “I am in charge,” his body language now said, “Leave me alone.”

Another example of the behavior of a fallen alpha male involves someone much more famous. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book The Final Days describes President Richard Nixon’s breakdown after it became obvious that he would have to resign, “Between sobs, Nixon was plaintive. How had a simple burglary – done all this? – Nixon got down on his knees”. [He] leaned over and struck his fist on the carpet, crying, “What have I done? What has happened?”” Henry Kissinger, his secretary of state, reportedly comforted the dethroned leader like a child. He consoled him, literally holding Nixon in his arms, reciting all of his great accomplishments over and over until the president finally calmed down. (Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, p. 50-51) This is chimpanzee politics, from start to finish.

Staying on top is a balancing act between forcefully asserting dominance, keeping supporters happy, and avoiding mass revolt. If this sounds familiar, it’s because human politics works exactly the same. (Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, p. 43)

Power is an aphrodisiac, as Henry Kissinger once said, but it is also charismatic, and hypnotic, drawing subordinate males and females compliantly behind the powerful leader.

This is a really dark side to both chimpanzee and human politics. When the chimpanzee leader was murdered, there was a brief outrage against the murder. But within hours, the group gathered around the murderers, now the new leaders, and began grooming them. They accepted the violence, got over their anger, and helped the new leaders provide stability. “The king is dead; long live the king.” The two males sought power over fairness or justice. The rest sought stability and peace over fairness or justice. For all of them, fairness and justice weren’t a priority.

There are so many instances of this in our own history. It will resonate with some of you in personal relationships, or the silence in families surrounding the sexual abuse of children. But we do it as a society too. Think of the American public’s acceptance of two stolen presidential elections, and the dishonest and illegal invasion of Iraq, and probably soon Iran, with the tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths these illegal actions have caused. This compliant trait of ours is what gives savvy rulers confidence that we can easily be tricked and trained. We support the powerful, no matter how they got their power, if we think they can bring us stability and peace.

And so we say, “Don’t make waves, go along to get along” – or in a more stringent Japanese saying, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered.”

Just this week, for instance, I read an essay by a social critic named Sheila Samples, called “Lost in the Lust of Werewolves.” She reminded me of that chimpanzee female who protested the murders. See how this excerpt from it strikes you:

“I wonder why so many denizens of this Christian nation seem unable or unwilling to wrap their minds around the reality that Iraqi people are human beings just as they themselves are – not rabid dogs to be hunted down and slaughtered.

“They don’t want to know what it’s like for families to cower in terror as their doors are kicked in, mothers and daughters raped, fathers and sons dragged off, never to be seen again. They don’t want to know about prisoners being humiliated and tortured, secretly “rendered” to countries for more torture, held captive for endless years without charges, without hope, without life. They don’t want to know about Iraq’s rich culture, its secular society, its formidable institutions of learning. – All of this, along with Iraq’s long-suffering people were made invisible, the better to smash the country as if it were only a den of thieves and murderers.” (Al-Ahram Weekly, 24-30 April 2003) (From “Lost in the Lust of Werewolves by Sheila Samples, www.dissidentvoice.org, March 8, 2007)

But, as almost always, after a few righteous outbursts, we go along.

By now, you can probably understand why Newt Gingrich put the book Chimpanzee Politics (1982) on the recommended reading list for freshmen representatives, in 1994. (Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master, p. 307)

If you’ve heard enough about chimpanzees for one day, there is a story about ravens that I’ve wanted to share with you for over two months.

Ravens are like very big crows, weighing four or five pounds, and seem to be regarded as the smartest of all birds. They are carnivores, and have hunted with wolves for hundreds of thousands of years, as well as with other large predators.

They have been the subject of myths throughout human history, sometimes pictured with wolves, and sometimes just exalted by themselves as wise and mystical birds.

I read a book called Mind of the Raven, by perhaps the world’s leading authority on them, a professor of ethology from Vermont named Berndt Heinrich. He has studied ravens for decades, and traveled the world to observe these magnificent birds. But even he was surprised by some of the stories he heard about ravens.

One was a news story about a woman near Boulder, Colorado. She was working out in the woods behind her cabin, when she was annoyed by a raven making so much noise it was irritating, cackling like crazy and diving low over her head. She had never heard a raven make this much noise, and wondered if it was trying to communicate with her. When it passed over her head again then flew up, she looked up. That’s when she saw the cougar about twenty feet away, crouching and ready to pounce. She weighed only about 98 pounds, so was a good target. But she called her 300-lb. husband, who chased the cougar away.

In the newspaper, she said, “The lion moved his head just a little bit as the raven flew over it. That’s when I saw him. I never would have seen him otherwise. He was going to jump me. That raven saved my life.” The event was described as a miracle in the news. (Berndt Heinrich, Mind of the Raven, p. 193. The event happened September 7, 1997.)

And up in Alaska, a man who had killed a deer came face to face with a bear who also wanted to claim the meat. Wisely, he backed away, leaving the deer for the bear. He said “Ravens were following me and squealing. I thought they were guiding me and telling me that the bear was still following me.” (Berndt Heinrich, Mind of the Raven, p. 194. Event was reported in the Anchorage Daily News, December 29, 1998.)

Pretty impressive and heartwarming stories. But the raven expert said no, that’s not what was really going on. The ravens were making noise to identify the location of prey. The ravens were hunting with the cougar and the bear, and the only thing they were trying to save the humans for was dinner!

Those two people’s reactions to the raven’s actions, like most of our reactions to the story as we hear it, are telling. We tend to assume that the ravens were there to serve us, never thinking that they may instead be there to serve their fellow hunters, hoping to make a meal of us. we’re not special to ravens; when They’re hungry, we’re just meat.

Like chimpanzees, we react to politics this way, too. We assume those in power are going to use the power to serve us, to serve our best interests. We don’t like to think of the fact that they may instead have formed alliances with the influential people who got them in power, and are hunting with them – a hunt in which we are often the victims. When political lobbyists buy politicians in order to get them to remove restrictions on what corporations can do in pursuit of profit, for instance, the bills they pass are given a spin as though They’re somehow for the benefit of the “We the People.” But when the bills they buy also remove bankruptcy protection from workers, remove the ability to sue pharmaceutical companies over faulty vaccines, transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from social services and health care to tax cuts for the rich and huge defense contracts, then we are out in the wilderness with the cougars, the bears, and the ravens, and if we don’t watch out we’ll be dinner.

No, it doesn’t always happen that way. Yes, there certainly are people elected to power who try to serve the interests of regular old powerless common folk. But the temptation is there, and is often strong, to support those whose money and influence got them in office in the first place – to honor the reciprocal nature of the political alliances that brought them into power. But if we’re not rich or influential enough to seek out as allies in the hunt for power, we may just be meat. Any hungry raven or power-hungry chimpanzee would understand this immediately.

We pray to the angels of our better nature and the still small voice that can speak to us when we feel safe enough to listen.

Help us remember that we are never as alone or as powerless as we think.

Help us remember that we can, if we will, invest ourselves in relationships, institutions and causes that transcend and expand us.

Help us guard our hearts against those relationships and activities that diminish us and weaken our life force.

And help us give our hearts to those relationships and institutions that might, with our help, expand our souls and our worlds.

We know that every day both life and death are set before us. Let us have the faith and courage to choose those involvements that can lead us to ward life, toward life more abundant.

And help us find the will to serve those life-giving involvements with our heart, our mind and our spirit.

We ask that we may see more clearly in these matters, and that we have the will to hold to those relationships that demand, and cherish, the very best in us. Just that, just those.

Amen.