The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [90]
No! Humans are not “stuck” with an innate, viciously competitive nature any more than we are stuck with genes that make us sick or make us violent. Chimps, who are the closest to humans genetically, offer evidence that violence is not a necessary part of our biology. One species of chimps, the bonobos, create peaceful communities with co-dominant males and females in charge. Unlike other chimps, the community of bonobos operates not with a violence-driven ethic but an ethic that can be described as “make love, not war.” When the chimps in this society become agitated, they don’t engage in bloody fights; they diffuse their divisive energy by having sex.
Recent research by Stanford University biologists Robert M. Sapolsky and Lisa J. Share has found that even wild baboons, among the most aggressive animals on this planet, are not genetically mandated to be violent. (Sapolsky and Share 2004) In one well-studied baboon troop, the aggressive males died out from contaminated meat they foraged from a tourist garbage pit. In the wake of their deaths the social structure of the troop was reinvented. Research suggests that females helped steer the remaining, less aggressive males into more cooperative behaviors, which led to a uniquely peaceful community. In an editorial in Public Library of Science Biology where the Stanford research was published, chimp researcher, Frans B. M. de Waal of Emory University, wrote: “even the fiercest primates do not forever need to stay this way.” (de Waal 2004)
In addition, no matter how many National Geographic specials you’ve watched, there is no dog-eat-dog imperative for humans. We are at the top of the predator/prey food chain. Our survival is dependent on eating organisms lower in the hierarchy, but we are not subject to being eaten by organisms higher in the chain. Without natural predators, humans are spared from becoming “prey” and from all the violence that the term implies.
That does not mean that humans are outside the laws of nature, of course, for eventually, we too shall be eaten. We are mortal, and following our demise, one would hope after a long and violence-free life, our corporeal remains will be consumed and recycled back to the environment. Like a snake turning on itself, humans at the top of the food chain will eventually be devoured by organisms that are the lowest in the chain, the bacteria.
But before that snake turns, we may not live a violence-free life. Despite our lofty position on the food chain, we are our own worst enemy. More than any other animal, we turn on ourselves. Lower-level animals sometimes turn on themselves, but most aggressive encounters among members of the same species are limited to threatening postures, sounds, and scents, not death. And in social populations other than humans, the primary cause of intraspecies violence is either the acquisition of air, water, and food required for survival or the selection of mates for propagation.
In contrast, the violence among humans that is directly linked to securing sustenance or in the process of mate selection is quite minimal. Human violence is more often associated with the acquisition of material possessions beyond what is necessary for sustenance or the distribution and purchase of drugs to escape the nightmare world we have created or child and spousal abuse passed down generation after generation. Perhaps the most widespread and insidious form of human violence is ideological control. Throughout history, religious movements and governments have repeatedly prodded their constituents into aggression and violence to deal with dissenters and nonbelievers.
Most human violence is neither necessary nor is it an inherent, genetic, “animal” survival skill. We have the ability,