Do chimpanzees (or other animals) have politics? How does your answer to this question affect your understanding of what it means to be human?

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Do chimpanzees (or other animals) have politics? How does your answer to this question affect your understanding of what it means to be human?

‘Our chimpanzees had demonstrated two against one politics, from the need for unity to the fate of a ruler who becomes too cocky. Power is the prime mover of the male chimpanzee.’ (De Waal, F, 2005, p.45) As politics is mainly the acquisition of power and how society is run, this shows that chimpanzees do have politics, even if it is in a basic form. De Waal suggests that Chimpanzees do have a concept of leadership within their society this being the alpha male, the same rule applies to humans, weather in just social groups, or world leaders. Seeing as all humans are descended from apes, the primitive politics which chimpanzees show proves that due to evolution, it is in human nature to develop a social hierarchy, the difference being, human politics is a lot more advanced that that of our primate cousins, and is based on more than the need for food and that of breeding.

The main differences between human and animal politics is that, such as with chimpanzees animal politics has only evolved as a means to purely find genetic superiors to mate with, or that of foraging for food, ‘for this reason, females must disperse and forage by themselves, and so they never have the opportunity to form coalitions.’ (Epstein, H, 2002, p.376) Epstein here shows that animal politics is only based upon surroundings, more importantly the location of food. This is very unlike that of human politics as we have a social hierarchy, which is much more advanced based on ‘social skills: social learning, communicating, and reading the intentions of others.’ (Tomasello, M, 2008) It is the ability of combined thought, which enables humans to develop different languages, the concept of money and even basic numerical ability. This shows that it is these abilities, which define being human.

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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 ...

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