Peacemaking Among Primates

"De Waal came to fame in an earlier book Chimpanzee Politics , which reminded us about something very important in many primate societies. This is that although such societies are intensely competitive, they are as much about competition between coalitions and groups as they are about competition between individuals. In a group-living primate society any individual is engaged in a complicated balance between trying to cooperate with some individuals but at the same time competing with those individuals against other groups of individuals – and competing to be accepted by the coalitions that are powerful. This explains some of the tension between the cooperative and competitive instincts that we feel simultaneously when we’re in complex societies. Peacemaking Among Primates says that fighting and reconciliation are not incomprehensible pathologies of modern society. This book reminds us that we do have evolved talents for fighting and for making up after we have fought. Given how often we fight, it would be astonishing if natural selection hadn’t given us some talent for dealing with that. In De Waal’s picture, the cycle of fighting and reconciliation should be understood as the exercise of evolved talents rather than just an inexplicable breakdown of something that ought to be operating more harmoniously. I think that’s the general message of this book and it’s a wonderful book for that reason. But I also love it for a reason related to my recent book The War of the Sexes , because it talks a lot about the different ways male and female primates build coalitions. He has a lovely study of the way in which male chimpanzees, when they meet up with each other, have a very high probability of fighting. But after they fight, they make up rather easily. His observations of female chimpanzees suggest that it is much rarer for them to fight – they are much more loyal to each other and their coalitions are much more stable – but when they do, it is also much rarer for them to make up. In my book I don’t make simplistic comparisons between the characteristics of chimpanzees and humans, but the idea that there may be gender differences in coalitional behaviour is not far-fetched. I describe pieces of evidence that suggest it may be an important phenomenon. Bonobos are fascinating for all sorts of reasons. They do appear to be much less violent than their close cousins the chimpanzees, because they use sex as a diffuser of aggressive impulses in a way that is rarer among chimpanzees. It’s a general reminder that sex in many animal species has adaptive benefits that are not just to be understood in terms of the offspring that result from sexual encounters. The idea that sex can serve to cement friendships and coalitions is a very important part of the adaptive consequences of sexual activity. It’s one reason why there’s no mystery about the evolution of homosexuality, because homosexual relations – which the bonobo enjoys with exuberance – might not result in offspring but they do have consequences for the making of coalitions and friendships in a group-living species. Those coalitions and friendships have very important adaptive consequences."