The human race has made unprecedented advances in technology, but has also gained the ability to destroy the world it lives in. It came to this perilous situation as a descendant of an animal lineage that some 25 million years ago split itself into monkeys and apes. The apes further evolved into orangutans (14 million years ago), gorillas (about 10 million years ago) , and some 7 million years ago into the genus Pan, comprising modern Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Bonobos (Pan paniscus). Chimpanzees and bonobos are the closest genetic relatives of humans, with whom they share 99.6% of their DNA.
Notwithstanding this close similarity, chimpanzees and bonobos behave in fundamentally different ways. Chimpanzees are xenophobic and view outsiders as threats. Their society is male-dominated, aggressive, and violent. The primatologist Frans de Waal famously described chimpanzee politics as not being entirely out of place at a Renaissance court. Males compete, cultivate allies, form coalitions, patrol territorial boundaries, and attack their neighbors. Yet within their own community, the same animals may groom one another, cooperate, form enduring friendships, and reconcile after fights. Bonobos, by contrast, are xenophilic, friendly, and welcoming to strangers. They are female-dominated, matriarchal, egalitarian, and peace-loving, though popular accounts exaggerate their peacefulness. They also quarrel, compete, and occasionally fight. But compared with chimpanzees, they are far less aggressive. Females form strong alliances, social tensions are frequently defused through affiliative behavior, and highly aggressive males dominate society less.
About nine million years ago, the lineage leading to modern humans split from the other great apes and evolved into the humans we are today. We tend to be aggressive, tribal, violent, prone to fight and to subjugate one another, as shown by the history of mankind from ancient times to modernity. In our behavior, we form alliances and compete for status. We also distrust outsiders, remember insults, and seek revenge. But we reconcile more easily, cooperate, share, console, adopt orphans, form friendships, and sometimes risk ourselves for others. If we want to understand why nations behave so irrationally, we could do worse than look at the apes and learn what they can teach us.
The Alpha Male is another warning from ape society. Humans are fascinated by dominant individuals. We admire confidence, decisiveness, strength, and victory. Under conditions of fear, populations may become especially willing to follow leaders who promise protection and demonstrate aggression. But primate research shows that brute strength alone does not necessarily produce stable leadership. A powerful male who terrorizes everyone may eventually discover that several weaker individuals together are stronger than he is. Societies should be suspicious of systems that place enormous destructive power in the hands of a single individual, however impressive that individual may seem. Wise societies assume their leaders are still apes.
For thousands of years, the weakness of our weapons limited the consequences of our aggressive instincts. A victorious army could burn a city, but even the greatest conquerors could destroy only a fraction of humanity. Technology has removed that limitation without removing the destructive instincts, leaving Stone Age emotions with modern weapons capable of ending history. The study of apes shows that aggression is not our only inheritance. Alliance, affection, reconciliation, restraint, empathy, and cooperation are also ancient primate capacities. Our species has become powerful enough to determine its own fate, whether to destroy itself or choose to survive.