Contents
- Introduction
- The Standard Theory of Violence
- Modern Misconceptions
- Animal Combat (re-)Defined
- Human Combat Defined
- Exchange – The Way Out of Violence
- Call to Action
1. Introduction
Everyone agrees that human violence is a crisis. We would prefer not to have nuclear fallout, terrorism, feuds, war, or violence.
Rather, peace should reign supreme.
But among animals, combat reigns supreme and is not a crisis. Animals need to fight to establish dominance hierarchies.
While we must develop a science for understanding human violence, the sciences can’t seem to agree on how to treat violence. They trace our aggression to a primate ancestor.
However, the military sciences say that violence could only begin once humans developed military tactics with advanced weaponry.
Evolutionary psychology traces violence to an instinct for survival and reproduction inherent in all living organisms.
The social sciences trace violence to the onset of cultural institutions.
Disagreements notwithstanding, there is also confusion over how to describe violence. On the one hand, violence is “animalistic” and “inhuman,” but on the other, it’s considered a uniquely human crisis. How can it be both?
To tackle violence as a crisis, we must clarify what it is. I invite you to come on a graphical adventure to understand what violence is, and what to do about it. We will mechanically differentiate human violence (reciprocal, object-based aggression, or ROBA) from animal combat. It will be a quest through the history of life as we know it.
I call it ROBA Quest: An Adventure in Violence.
2. The standard Theory of Violence
The standard evolutionary perspective, founded in modern synthesis, holds that our primate ancestors left the jungles and ventured into the savanna 3–6 million years ago.
There, under intense pressure to survive in this dangerous new environment, our hominid ancestors underwent rapid evolutionary change, acquiring bipedalism and other traits that would one day be defined as “human.”
In the early 20th century, at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, archaeologists discovered the remains of “Lucy,” an ape-like member of Australopithecus africanus with a fierce capacity for hunting. Archaeologist Raymond Dart believed Lucy was the missing link between us and those very primates.
Many cut stones were found near Lucy. They were believed to be ancient tools similar to those used by primates for smashing nuts and other tasks. They were called “Oldowan tools.”
Dart, Robert Ardrey, and many others believe these killer apes used stone tools to hunt larger prey.
Hunting larger animals gave us more meat to eat. Once we learned how to use fire, cooking meat allowed us to eat even more. This allowed our brains to grow more rapidly than other animals.
A bigger brain allowed us to improve our hunting. Improved hunting caused us to evolve more complex communication. The combined effects of enhanced hunting, increased brain size, and more complex language eventually created an autocatalytic process whereby humans evolved from primates to hominids to Neanderthals and, eventually, Homo sapiens.
But bigger brains and more complex weapons caused us to turn our weapons on each other.
The risk of warfare, combined with the threat from large predators and the need to hunt, caused us to form larger social groups, further improving our hunting, increasing our brain growth, etc., furthering the autocatalytic process.
In summary, this approach states that human features like bipedalism, brain growth, advanced tool usage, ritualized hunting, language, kinship, art, religion, and all other human traits gradually evolved through an autocatalytic process over millions of years.
Aggression is one of these components, and its evolution from animal combat (which does not involve objects) to using objects in war was also gradual.
3. Modern Misconceptions
The assumption that human traits gradually descended from corresponding primate traits produces some misconceptions about ancient society. One, the Kinless Caveman, assumes that primitive reproduction was animalistic. Men were selected for specific characteristics, and women were selected for their characteristics. This selection process evolved into our modern sense of beauty and love.
However, this modern conception of ancient courtship negates the reciprocal or exchange nature of kinship. From the Australian Aborigines to medieval Europeans to early-20th-century Chinese, all traditional societies have kinship systems with strict rules for mate selection. Brides or grooms were exchanged, prices were paid for them, and standards of beauty, courtship, inheritance, and other functions were governed by tradition. We’re led to believe the non-kinship of primates evolved into kinship systems. How exactly? We don’t seem to know1.
Another misconception is that of the food hunt. Because chimpanzees hunt animals to acquire food, it’s assumed that ancient man also hunted animals for sustenance.
But all ancient hunting and meat consumption was laden with religious significance. A ritual was performed before and after the hunt. The meal itself was always an act of communion with the god(s) and never for mere sustenance. We’re led to believe that primate hunting gradually evolved into the ritual hunt. How exactly? Again, we don’t seem to know.
Many other misconceptions persist, but the weaponized ape is most relevant to our needs. Since primates (especially chimpanzees) wield rocks to crack nuts and swing branches to intimidate their opponents, we assume they use these weapons in combat. For instance, many recall the Gombe Chimpanzee War2 being fought with weapons.
But there are no recorded cases of primates warring with sticks, rocks, or other weapons. Though primates will intimidate opponents with such weapons and occasionally throw or swing with them, such object usage is never the primary means of attack, it’s never improved upon, and opponents never anticipate it. In effect, chimpanzees never bring objects to battle assuming the enemy is doing the same. This is not an issue of intelligence since they are known to store preferred rocks they can later use to crack nuts. However, as soon as combat begins, as in Gombe, objects are not used meaningfully. The myth of the weaponized ape is less inspired by reality and more by 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes.
This Mandela Effect mistakenly assumes chimpanzees use weapons in combat. We lose track of the fundamental difference between human and animal combat: only humans use reciprocal, object-based aggression (ROBA), while animals do not.
Was there a time when we didn’t use ROBA but only fought with our natural weapons like fists, feet, and teeth? Our myths commemorate many crucial transitions. For example, many myths commemorate when gods and goddesses introduced hunting to humankind.
Fire is another such myth. In North America, spirits brought fire from secret lodges. In Greece, it came from the sky. In Africa, it came from the rubbing of sticks. James Frazer’s Myths of the Origin of Fire contains hundreds of stories of complaints about life before fire, like “We had to dry the fish in the sun,” “We were cold at night,” and “The uncooked food gave us stomach aches.” These visceral memories demonstrate a cultural memory of life before the use of fire.
There are even myths about tribes evolving from animals such as crabs, crocodiles, dogs, eagles, and bears.
There are many myths of gods introducing new weapons to mankind.
But is there a myth of a god or goddess introducing violence itself to humans? Is there any memory of life without violence? Such a transition would have been a significant moment in human history, far more than the introduction of fire or hunting, as it would have been a fundamental break with the animal order.
The simplest weapon is a stone, but no god of stones or stoning exists.
Only three sources seem to discuss the first moment of violence – Hesiod, Ovid, and the Bible. In Hesiod’s Theogony, the goddess Eris, daughter of Nyx (“night”), is the goddess of strife who appears near the beginning of the world, but there is no mention of an idyllic life before Eris brought strife.
In Hesiod’s Works and Days, the first race, the Golden Race, was peaceful and without war, but they disappeared for no apparent reason. The Golden Race was followed by the Bronze Race and then our own Iron Race, whose men are violent. Therefore, Hesiod makes the same mistake as military scientists by assuming that violence began with the Bronze Age, ignoring that Paleolithic humans used sticks and stones in combat.
The second source is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which copies Hesiod’s eras with minor modifications.
The third source is the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, which tells of the first murder. Although the scene with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden precedes the murder, there are no hints that humans ever lived without violence.[???]
Other than these, there appears to be no specific myth or historical moment when humans transitioned from animal combat to human violence. In fact, neither of these are defined clearly. So, let’s step back and define both, starting with animal combat.
4. Animal Combat (re-)Defined
First, “combat” means intraspecific, kind-on-kind combat, not “predation” between members of different species.
In intraspecific (kind-on-kind) combat, animals only use their natural weapons. As the threat of combat looms, the animals can reliably predict that the opponent’s weapons are identical to their own. Simpler animals like hermit crabs only use the self-assessment phase to anticipate, often correctly, that the opponent has the same weapon(s) as they do.
Higher animals, such as goats and other mammals, proceed to the mutual assessment phase, anticipating the opponent’s weapons based on their own. In this case, the buck on the left might anticipate that the buck on the right, being slightly smaller, may perform a specific maneuver. Nonetheless, both intuit that their opponent’s weapons are identical to their own.
During a clash, animal weapons are generally evenly matched, and their defenses are evenly matched against these weapons. Therefore, animal combat rarely results in death, making it a reliable (and repeatable) way for animals to establish their dominance hierarchies.
Many animal species, like crows and chimpanzees, use objects to acquire food.
Otters and orangutans use objects to prey on other animals.
However, animals abandon their objects in combat, preferring to fight using their natural weapons. Only primates will use sticks or rocks for intimidation in combat, and they might land a blow with these.
But the opponent never takes the object seriously because they are not real threats. If they were, primates would bring rocks and sticks in anticipation of battle, just as they do when bringing rocks around to crack nuts. But they don’t. While primates are innovators regarding sustenance and predation, their combat systems remain affrays of fists, feet, and teeth.
This runs against the common misconception that primates, especially chimpanzees, fight with clubs or other objects. All animals, including primates, always revert to using their natural weapons in combat.
5. Human Combat Defined
By contrast, humans are capable of using objects in combat. This includes everything from rocks
to shields and spears,
katanas,
guns,
bombs,
and space lasers.
This makes the weapon a wildcard in human combat. No antagonist can be 100% certain what the opponent’s weapon will be before the fight,
or during the fight,
or whether the loser might come back for revenge with another weapon, or reinforcements, or both.
An object like a rock or a sharp stick is much deadlier than any natural human weapon (fists, feet, teeth).
Therefore, we attempt to increase our odds of winning the fight by escalating, bringing additional people, bigger weapons, etc.
However, both antagonists know that the opponent can also use objects in combat. Both also anticipate that the opponent is anticipating them in return. And both anticipate that the opponent can (and will) escalate.
Human conflict thereby presents a paradox: the longer we escalate, the more dangerous it becomes to attack and not to attack. Combat threatens to kill both antagonists whether they remain inactive or active.
The escalatory nature of violence causes it to spread like wildfire. It can wipe out an entire family,
or village,
or the whole world.
While animal combat is safe, contained, and optimized for setting the dominance hierarchy, human violence is escalatory, apocalyptic, and contagious. For this reason, violence is unoptimized for setting our dominance hierarchies. So, what can we do if we can’t form dominance hierarchies using violence?
6. EXCHANGE – The Way Out of Violence
In human combat, the antagonists anticipate and counter-anticipate one another to an infinite degree to predict the opponent’s weapon. Caveman A anticipates that Caveman B is anticipating that Caveman A … and vice versa. Escalation makes human combat explode into an apocalypse.
This is the key difference between violence and animal combat: the infinite layers of reciprocity in violence create its exchange nature. The same kind of exchange is seen in sports, debates, religion, language, courtship, haggling, and all other modes of human culture.
Violence must be exchanged with (or deferred by) a different mode of culture in which it is safe to escalate to extremes. The violence can then be deferred by sharing a drink,
speaking kind words,
partaking in religion,
or producing works of art…
violence must be exchanged for higher cultural forms where we can escalate to extremes.
Humans alone have this crisis, and we alone can resolve it.
7. A Call to Action
In summary, the ROBA Hypothesis states that:
- Animal combat involves natural weapons, but human violence is exclusively reciprocal, object-based aggression (ROBA).
- ROBA escalates to extremes and becomes apocalyptic.
- ROBA has an exchange nature and can be exchanged for culture.
This is all we need to diagnose violence and resolve it.
Check out my book, If These Fists Could Talk: A Stuntman’s Unflinching Take on Violence, which details the ROBA Hypothesis and its implications. You can buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/These-Fists-Could-Talk-Unflinching/dp/B0DLP7SWQJ/
Thanks for coming with me on this adventure!3
- Freud’s “Primitive Horde” hypothesizes an event when primates transitioned to humans by collectively killing their father, but he never clarified why no other primates made such a leap
- A war between two groups of chimpanzees in the early ’70s in which one side, the Kasaleka, killed off 2-3 members of the opposing group every year for 4 years.
- Images generated by Gemini.