Even though human politics is much more advanced than that of primates, it is clear that they do show politics in some form. This is proved by the study of the bonobo monkey where they ‘move through the forest in larger groups. This in turn, gives females an opportunity to form coalitions and to assume greater power within the group.’ (Epstein, H, 2002, p.376) Even though this is drastically different to the nature of human politics which is predominantly male based (as is that of chimpanzees), it still is a form of politics as it proves there is a social order within bonobo society, in fact male ranking in bonobo society depends on how high ranked the female he associates with, ‘the son of a high ranking female is more likely to hold high rank himself.’ (Epstein, H, 2002, p.366)
It is chimpanzee politics however, in which our politics bears most resemblance to, as it is a male based social order purely based on power. De Waal in his book ‘Our Inner Ape’ describes the story of a chimpanzee called Luit, who was brutally murdered by two other apes purely because he was the alpha male ‘those two had been plotting against him in order to take back the power they had lost.’ (De Waal, F, 2005, p.42) Luits death occurred as he had taken power from one of the two conspirators beforehand. Political murder is found in human politics as well, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The only difference being the extreme violent circumstances in which Luit was murdered. This is a clear indication of what it means to be human as it is our higher intelligence, which separates us from the apes.
Other similarities, which could be drawn between human society and primate society, would be that of the bonobo monkey and native Samoans. Bonobo monkeys are well known for their rampant sexual activities, a study of Samoans showed ‘ a culture much like that of the bonobos. The Samoans were peace loving and sexually free.’ (Epstein, H, 2002, p.368) This proves that even though humans are much more intellectually advanced, some still share similarities with that of primate society. The difference being that the bonobo monkey copulates to form a pecking order primarily among females and to express many emotions whereas humans have many ways of expressing just one emotion.
Other animals less advanced than that of chimpanzees also show basic signs of politics and social order, in some cases there are even exceptions to the cross-species social hierarchy. In De Waal’s ‘Our Inner Ape’ he writes about a boy named Thorleif Schjelderip-Ebbe, who became fascinated with chickens. He studied their behaviour and described social triangles based on ‘who pecked who’, ‘in which hen A is master over B, and B over C, but C over A.’ (De Waal, F, 2005, p.56) This is very rare behaviour for most animals, and is only occasionally apparent in human social order. Although this again proves that animals do have their own form of basic politics in their social order, compared to that human politics is much more advanced.
It is undeniable that animals have politics, no matter how basic it is, all animals from chickens to primates display politics in almost everything they do. It is within every animals nature to crave power, none more so than that of humans. Even though we don’t display such violent tendencies as that of chimpanzees, we will do anything to climb the hierarchical ladder, ‘We love to make fun of the higher-ups. We’re always ready to bring them down.’ (De Waal, F, 2005, p.82) This rings true for every species, which displays the use of politics, none more so than humans. However, the main features which separates us from animal politics is our ability to learn from and with other people, to be able to communicate emotions within a matter of seconds using tone and body posture and to be able to co-operate in a group in order to reach a common goal. These are all things, which animals cannot do, and what defines being human. We do bare similarities with that of apes, but have evolved much more, enabling our society to be much more complex.
Bibliography
De Waal, F. (2005) ‘Power: Machiavelli in Our Blood.’ Our Inner Ape: The Best and Worst of Human Nature. London: Granta Books, pp. 41 – 84.
Epstein, H. (2002) ‘Bonobos in paradise.’ In Star, A. (ed) Quick studies. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 365 – 377.
Tomasello, M. (2008) ‘How Are Humans Unique?’ [Internet] [accessed 22 October 2009]