Feb 16 2010
Democracy as Nair: How Our Nature Appears Hairless
In his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Christopher Boehm stated that political coalitions appear only in despotic (hierarchical) species. While there is some obvious truth to this — chimpanzees and macaques are noted for their hierarchical strivings and for the dynamic allegiances they form to aid upward social movement and to sustain reign at the top (1) — one wonders about humankind. Are we a despotic species, ruled and ruling by force? In the least, this is not always the case, especially in more recent history. And perhaps in ancient times of smaller average group size.
In this coming series of posts (in this category — what will become a chapter in my Almighty Alpha book) I will examine the line between hierarchical social organizations (power progressively concentrated in the few or one at the top) and egalitarian (power more equitably shared by all).
Boehm himself concluded that whether or not Homo sapiens is a hierarchical species is a controversial issue. (2) And there are certainly those who argue that we are not, not by nature, anyway. Eight years before Boehm’s book appeared, Margaret Power released, The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee. She wrote:
“In most gathering-hunting societies the woman occupies a position of prestige equal to that of the man and is recognized as being equally important.” (3)
While I might argue with the qualifier “most,” there are other, perhaps more important, issues raised by her statement. Two immediately come to mind: 1) How do we determine whether or not a society is egalitarian? Just knowing one by seeing one? That’s not very scientific. 2) Are there perhaps many shades of gray–social groups that are neither outright egalitarian nor outright hierarchical, but some hybrid of the two?
As for the most–really? For a single counter-point, there is this group of Amazon hunter-gatherers:
The Matses are polygamists with each man having one or more wives. Until recently, the Matses men commonly kidnapped and assimilated women from other tribes (or Peruvian and Brazilian women) into Matsés society. (4)
Okay, so maybe that is one exception to what is otherwise the rule. But what is the rule?
The Wikipedia entry on the subject has this:
Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have relatively non-hierarchical, egalitarian social structures. This might have been more pronounced in the more mobile societies, which generally are not able to store surplus food. Thus, full-time leaders, bureaucrats, or artisans are rarely supported by these societies. [bold mine] (5)
Are hunter-gatherer societies remarkably egalitarian? Some of them no doubt are, perhaps most. Apparently. I say apparently for two reasons. First, because a social group is not overtly hierarchical does not mean it is thus purely egalitarian. There can be types and degrees of both: more-hierarchical social structures and more-egalitarian. Second, because we don’t readily perceive the dynamics of power attainment, signaling and protection, for they could be quite subtle, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
The previously mentioned Christopher Boehm expressed an interesting perception of egalitarian social structures. He described them as “inverted hierarchies.” (6) In a traditional hierarchy, there is one individual at the top, keeping others down, so to speak. He or she may form coalitions to help fortify his/her position, but the top-most position is singular. In an egalitarian society, it is the “others,” functioning as a group or loose-knit coalition, that have the power and work to keep single, aspiring despots down. If the do have rulers and/or figureheads, they serve at the groups’ pleasure. (Much more on this later.)
We can see that even within more egalitarian social structures, power is an issue. Yes, power is more equably spread, but it is still a socially important and behavior-organizing feature. Additionally, coalitions tend to play an even larger role in more egalitarian societies. There is strength in numbers.
In more egalitarian societies power lies in the hands of many group members; in hierarchical societies the power lies in fewer hands, with a clearer delineations of rank. But just how different is a coalition holding power over individuals from an individual holding power over a social group? An inverted hierarchy, indeed.
Perhaps in egalitarian societies we see manifest the informal politics of coalitions.
The following quote by Paul Ehrlich says a lot -
“Thus, in the transition to modern hunting and gathering Homo sapiens, there must have been a general trend toward softening of chimp-like dominance hierarchies, enabling evolution of the increasingly egalitarian, nonstratified societies that many scholars believe were characteristic of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. In them, coalitions presumably would have limited the power of otherwise dominant individuals. Furthermore, given that early hunting and gathering societies rarely had surpluses of food, the advantage of dominance would have been less than in agricultural societies. In the latter, as we will see, dominant individuals could appropriate the surpluses for themselves and begin the process of stratification and specialization that led to political states.”
(7)
In this quote we can see that progress toward or away from more hierarchical toward more egalitarian social structures did not occur in a vacuum. No, it was not some inevitable moral progress that led to the decline of strict hierarchies. Other factors were involved. Which we will explore.
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(1) See de Waal, F. B. M., (ed.), Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001 & Maestripieri, D., Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007
(2) Boehm, C., Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
(3) Power, M. The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1991, p.197
(4) http://www.matses.info/
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer
(6) Boehm, C., Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
(7) Ehrlich, P. R., Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect, Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2000. p.209
