Different: Gender through the Eyes of a Primatologist

As with Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, I found this more recent book by Frans de Waal somewhat informative, but, at the same time, annoying to read. The informative aspects relate to his expertise in primates, while the annoying aspects relate to his anecdotal style of writing. Most of his research experience comes from observing primates, and when he writes about them it seems as if he is describing friends and family members who happen to be chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, baboons, orangutans or macaques. Rather than focusing on conceptual issues, which are my main interest, he loves to describe the variability of primate behavior within species and between species. In this instance, I think the book would have been more effective if he had stuck to humans, chimpanzees and bonobos, which are closely related.

Socially speaking, we are not that different from chimpanzees and bonobos. Chimpanzee males are larger, stronger and more physically violent than females. They form hierarchies led by alpha males and maintain territories, which involves attacking and killing members of other groups. Males and females spend most of their time living with their own sex. Social tensions are relieved by grooming others. Alpha males usually have a broad range of social skills and do not rule by brute force; they are often respected by others. The dynamics are quite different in bonobo groups, because, though they are also hierarchical in structure, they are led by alpha females instead of males. Bonobo males are closer in size and strength to females and can be controlled by females who work in concert. The females can be violent and aggressive when necessary, but are usually less so than male chimpanzees. Bonobos stand out from other primates in that, comparatively speaking, they are sex maniacs. They behave in a bisexual manner. Females, who have evolved large clitorises, spend a great deal of time with other females in the missionary position rubbing their clitorises together.

To the extent that there is any theme to the book, it is that gender is not a social construct, and that most primates follow similar gender behavioral patterns. Males focus on physical activities and are not interested in child rearing. Females focus on child rearing and self-decoration. Humans differ from other primates mainly in the development of nuclear families. De Waal thinks that the nuclear family arrangement can cause domestic violence, particularly when there are external stresses, such as the pandemic. The book also touches on transgender issues and notes evidence of transgender behavior in one chimpanzee. 

The general outlook that de Waal seems to advocate is that we are primarily biological entities, and, as such, many of the categories and classifications that we come up with to explain human behavior are crude oversimplifications or misrepresentations that don't capture the complications of the underlying biological processes. One idea that he specifically rejects is mind-body dualism, which allows people to think that they are not their bodies. As I myself have said before, Simone de Beauvoir herself is guilty of this error. Although de Waal describes himself as a feminist, he says that he has had conflicts with ideologically rigid feminist women.

One observation that I found interesting was that, while male chimpanzees attempt to resolve conflicts with other males, female chimpanzees do not attempt to resolve conflicts with other females:

Given that four out of five female conflicts go unreconciled, it's fair to say that female chimpanzees are touched more deeply and are less willing than males to get over their disagreements. In the wild, too, females rarely make up after fights. They tend to disperse, which makes for an easy solution.

This helps explain why some of the females I've known became dogmatic and inflexible when disagreements arose. There was no discussion, and they simply left.

I was a little disappointed by the limited treatment of transgender issues in the book. This is probably because not much research has been done on the subject. The opposite is true for homosexuality and bisexuality, which are now widely accepted and understood. Some aspects of transgender identity may be explained by genetic differences at conception or hormonal exposure during fetal development. In theory, transgender issues could be handled in exactly the same manner as homosexuality or bisexuality. However, if, like me, you adopt a completely materialistic view of the universe and human life, it seems that you are your body. As a materialist, I have difficulty understanding why someone would make risky physical changes to their body through surgery and hormone therapy in order to match their perceived gender identity to their body. It is possible that further research may justify those procedures, but I am a little concerned that, without proper guidelines, children, left to their own devices, may make poor decisions. For example, at this moment, there are probably millions of socially awkward children who erroneously think that becoming transgender would make them more popular. I think that some research-based guidelines are in order.

Generally Speaking

You could characterize a lot of my writing by saying that it involves observation and generalization. Journalists and academics seem more prone to describe and compare than observe and generalize, and fiction writers make things up for the entertainment of their readers, which may involve observation but usually doesn't include much explicit generalization. My writing style tends to presume that through the process I will arrive at a worthwhile conclusion or a formula that more or less sums things up. I do this unconsciously because that is how my mind works. Despite not being a scientist, I may come across as an informal scientist who is always making loose observations and proposing general theories that somehow explain whatever it is that I have chosen to focus upon. For this reason, I sometimes feel as if I am not providing the kind of writing that readers are most likely to expect. I don't write according to a journalistic model, I don't write according to an academic model, I'm not writing fiction, and even though I may seem to follow a scientific model, there is no research behind most of what I suggest. A little discussion of why I generalize is in order.

I recently read an article by Robert Sapolsky in which he says that by nature not only people but other mammals operate according to mental categories. The specific example discussed is that of gender. Like us, chimpanzees divide the world into male/female; upon coming into contact with a newborn chimpanzee, the first thing they want to know is its gender. I also just happened to notice, in the process of doing genealogical research involving census records, that gender is always one of the most significant characteristics recorded for each household member. This kind of categorization is probably a form of generalization in which different sets of behaviors are associated with males and females, and on that basis alone the future behavior of an individual is predicted. The article points out that there is in fact a range of gender characteristics built into each of our brains which does not necessarily correspond to our sexual organs, so it might be said that chimpanzees would be puzzled by contemporary LGTB thinking on gender, which makes gender identification an interior process that does not necessarily have any exterior manifestations.

It is true that categorizing and generalizing can be haphazard activities that result in distorted understanding of phenomena, but they are also default analytical methods that allow us to make basic evaluations and decisions. In the case of gender, within specific species, males may realistically be expected to behave aggressively and physically attack newcomers under certain circumstances, whereas females may be expected to avoid confrontation with the exception of defending their young. By adopting models of gender-based behavior, certain kinds of life-threatening actions may be avoided most of the time, even though the models may not be appropriate in every case and may not provide an accurate picture of reality. Sapolsky's main point is that gender stereotypes among humans are for the most part intractable, with important implications for transgender people who will find that others may not understand their choice of a gender that is at odds with their bodies. I am only using this as an example of how human minds work, but my personal position is that if I had gender issues myself I wouldn't change anything and would just deal with it. I've noticed an assortment of gender characteristics in myself and others and don't think that making an exterior change to put forth your ideal gender preference has much meaning at all. There have been feminine men and masculine women for millennia, and most of them would probably give you a blank stare if you suggested that they change their gender.

Over the last few years, much research has been devoted to making AI think as well as or better than humans. A major breakthrough occurred in 1997, when the computer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov, who is considered to be one of the best chess players ever. That is seen as a "brute force" method, in which the computer evaluates hundreds of millions of moves per second, which is not at all how humans play. Humans simplify their play by using strategies and insight, which require far less processing than Deep Blue and produce a high relative return for the amount of processing. Improvements in chess programs since 1997 have resulted in newer programs that can run on mobile phones and play at the grandmaster level with less analysis and hardware than Deep Blue. Some AI researchers are looking at tier-like programming that simulates human thinking in order to achieve a more human-like cognition process in AI.

As I've suggested before, I don't think that human cognitive abilities are all they're cracked up to be if you look at how we got them, their purposes, our small brains and the totality of what we don't know. Computers that already exist are capable of processing far more information than we ever have, and their capacities are likely to increase rather than level off. In this context it seems that our brains have evolved, in effect, to get more bang for the buck by using processing shortcuts. Though you can see it in much of our cognitive activity, it is particularly clear in sciences such as physics, which aim at general rules that can be expressed mathematically and have the greatest explanatory power. At the frontiers of knowledge, physics and other fields are becoming so difficult that few people are capable of advancing them on their own. I recently read about a new mathematical proof that is so complex that hardly any mathematician in the world can read it, let alone understand it. Contrary to the image of the robust human intellect that emerged from the Enlightenment and portended almost unlimited mental potential, it is beginning to look more as if we may be reaching an upper limit to our unaided intellectual capacities.

There are two points that I want to make about this. On the one hand, a case can be made that the way we generalize is inaccurate and misleading, and that there may be other more direct ways to understand reality that are beyond our inherent intellectual capacities. On the other hand, we may not be capable of escaping this kind of shortcut method of understanding the world, because it was built into us by our evolutionary development. As a thought experiment you can see how these factors might play out today in the domain of political correctness. A purely politically correct person would theoretically make no inferences about anyone based on their outward appearance. Thus, a demure, fashionably dressed woman in a gown arriving at a gala social event in a black limousine accompanied by an elegant man in a tuxedo would not be presumed to have an inner life different from a burly, unshaven man with windblown hair, sunglasses and tattoos covering his arms stopped at a red light and revving his Harley-Davidson loudly. While it is theoretically possible that the gowned woman and the motorcyclist would have similar inner lives, the odds of that are comparatively low, and a politically correct person who ignored that fact would not only have difficulty communicating with them by treating them identically, but would also be unable to function in society as it exists. In this example, pure political correctness would have the virtue of a complete lack of bias, as if using only deductive logic and never inductive logic. The downside, however, would be significant. Without making inferences about people based on their outward appearances and behavior, their actual personalities become unknowable, hence it would be impossible to apprehend their motives. All people other than oneself would become noumenal, making it impossible to categorize and group them. The human instinct to belong to a group would be stifled if it were impossible to identify groups, and it would not be possible to lead a normal human life as we currently understand it.

My thesis, then, is that generalization is what humans do, and that although it is subject to error, we cannot avoid doing it. This means that I favor empiricism and the scientific method over the view that reality is essentially unknowable. There remains the possibility that through future genetic engineering or AI some sort of trans-human model that explains reality without relying on traditional empirical methods will emerge, but in the meantime I intend to stick to what we do best, since that's all we really know.

Gardeners and Nature

Growing up, I had little exposure to horticulture. My grandmother in England had a large garden in which she grew vegetables, as did many to get through World War II, and I can recall shelling peas in her kitchen in the 1950's. My grandparents also had a bomb shelter in their back yard. But when we moved to the U.S. we lived in a rented house followed by an apartment, and we never had a garden until my last year of college. As an adult I began to grow flowers and vegetables in 1977, and I have grown at least tomatoes ever since whenever possible, probably during twenty-two summers in all. Over the last eight years I have received greater exposure to how others perceive gardening, and it has been a slight surprise to me to which I am only gradually adjusting.

My original interest in gardening stemmed from the somewhat hippieish point of view in vogue at the time, which connected it with nature. Hiking and the outdoors were popular in the 1970's, and there were still communes and ashrams around in those days, though I was never a follower of fads. I liked the idea of growing your own food, and in fact it did taste much better and was probably healthier than what was available in stores. I found flowers pleasant and I liked and still enjoy seeing them, but, as you may have noticed, I try to concentrate on what is essential, and food is more essential than decoration, so I quickly focused on vegetables rather than flowers.

I tend to look at everything as part of a continuum in nature, which in a way makes even the most cultivated and exotic flowers nothing more than prettified versions of what grows spontaneously in the wild. Technically most of our vegetables are exotic too after centuries of hybridization and, more recently, genetic modification, but food occupies a different category in my mind, because you can't live without it, though you can easily live without adornments to your surroundings. In other words, food is essential and decoration is not. As an aesthetician of the wilderness, which is where we all live whether we admit it or not, I experience a certain amount of cognitive dissonance with the thinking of gardeners, women usually, whose goal is to create aesthetically pleasing gardens and flower arrangements while not only ignoring the inherent beauty of many natural plants but also waging quiet wars against those plants which might interfere with their plans.

Since few men seem interested in growing flowers other than as a vocation, I am tending to think that flowers are the province of women, and that they fit into the context of what I said earlier about a possible female-specific desire to live in appealing, controlled environments. From a male point of view it is easy to see this as a waste of time, or at least, with respect to priorities, as far less urgent, for example, than preventing the lawn from becoming a jungle or having dead trees falling over and knocking down power lines. Based on my exposure to the local garden club, I don't think that the members have much interest in botany - curiosity is not a factor here - and their primary goal is simply to have pretty flowers and yards, something more akin to interior decoration than anything else. Besides the garden club, it could also be instructive to look at the Dutch tulip bulb bubble of 1637, during which the price of a tulip bulb became ten times that of the annual wages of skilled craftsmen. On that occasion, beyond a simple female interest in pretty things, there must have been competition to own a rare and expensive item, perhaps with prices additionally boosted by speculators. Probably female thinking regarding gardens encompasses both innate predispositions and immediate methods for attaining higher social status. Certainly some women's gardens do serve a competitive function with respect to other women.

As one who inhabits the male end of the gender spectrum, the garden club take on gardening is still somewhat of a mystery to me, though my aesthetic side is sympathetic. The thing that is funny to me is that all organisms can be beautiful in their own way, and often the visual differences simply mask similarities. I prefer to see organisms within their natural habitats going through normal life cycles. If there wasn't a babbling brook with pumped water there before, there needn't be one now. In a way, flower gardens can be as artificial as AstroTurf, another scar on the earth left by mankind. A dying old sugar maple is just as beautiful as and even more interesting to me than any new tulip.

Success

As someone who has never been particularly ambitious, I occasionally think about what motivates the people who do end up becoming notably successful at one thing or another. Some may say that most unsuccessful people simply don't have what it takes: perhaps they're too disorganized, too stupid, too lazy or, more charitably, too disadvantaged, to accomplish much of anything. Others may view those who succeed as having special talents. Some may chalk it all up to luck. I prefer to look closely at those who are thought of as successful and examine what specifically motivated them, because I think this provides a clearer picture of both the individuals and the cultures in which they live.

Speaking anecdotally, it appears that most successful people work very hard before receiving recognition. People such as John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Ludwig van Beethoven, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and Vincent van Gogh all worked extremely hard throughout their careers. Those who aren't quite so industrious may work more deliberately and produce successful results over many years, for example Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin. The definition of success in the arts and sciences is somewhat more variable than it is in commerce. One may become famous posthumously like Vermeer or Mendel, and some excellent art has probably already been lost forever without ever being appreciated. In our age commerce triumphs, and the very rich often acquire a cultural stature that far exceeds the importance of their accomplishments. How else can you explain the current ascent of Donald Trump in the Republican presidential polls? Trump has "buffoon" written all over him, yet he is giving top Republican contenders such as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker a run for their money.

As you might expect, I tend to see the drive toward success as having evolutionary roots. Competition has historically been the province of males, who are directly or indirectly and consciously or unconsciously attempting to attract mates, produce offspring and protect them. High social status draws women like a magnet, and attractive young women still put up with the likes of old sexist geezers such as Hugh Hefner, who, I am sorry to say, remains a role model for millions of men. Women are equally interested in procreation, but biology has placed them in a different strategic position in which they must concentrate on the actual details of bearing and raising children, a situation which can be facilitated with a powerful husband. The recent cultural emphasis on gender equality has complicated the landscape in which both males and females operate, but men still tend to be more competitive than women, and women are still more interested than men in creating and maintaining safe environments that are suitable for raising children, whether they have children or not. Gender flexibility may have some biological justification, but there must be limits to that flexibility if populations are to reproduce.

The male idea of success can be seen in men's desire to compete in sports, games and at work. Being rich usually does the trick for attracting women, especially in the U.S. I have always found the case of Jacqueline Kennedy instructive. Here you had an upper-class, well-educated, attractive and intelligent woman who, in my opinion, married down for both John F. Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis. Though he had some good qualities and eventually the high status of being president of the U.S., Kennedy was the son of a rather crass and unpleasant social climber and Wall Street crook. Onassis was a crude Greek ship owner who clearly had nothing to offer Jackie besides money. Whether they think about it this way or not, men with lots of money are generally going to have better reproductive options than paupers, with a better pick of the lot than most others.

The female idea of success can be seen in childrearing and the formation of cohesive communities. Having an enriched, safe environment with lots of support provides optimal conditions for raising children. Also having the right sort of men around for protection helps, and this may partly explain why women are often attracted to risk-taking men, who otherwise might seem foolish or irresponsible. Women themselves, I find, are comparatively risk-averse and would usually rather delegate that role to men. This is probably borne out in mortality statistics, which consistently show women outliving men. Basically, from an evolutionary standpoint, having some guy die instead of you and your children is a pretty good deal. And men are accommodating anyway: they like being heroes, even at great personal cost.

Observer that I am, I enjoy seeing lives as a whole, and how, over a period of many years what once seemed like a special talent that sprang from nowhere years later looks like a rather pathetic monomania from which a person can't escape. Bob Dylan is a good example of this. Here you have one of the best pop lyricists ever, a lousy voice and passable instrumentation. He worked very hard and everything gelled for him in the early 1960's, but it might easily have turned out quite differently. He happened to be a talented writer who was in the right place at the right time, but writing was apparently not his main interest: he preferred performing in front of live audiences. Now, fifty years later, most of his lyrics are forgettable, but he is still on tour as an aged rock star, stuck in a formula from which a more creative person might have extracted himself. Similarly, I fail to see the point of how billionaires choose to live. Even one of the most likable, Warren Buffett, seems crazed: he's still working at age 84 with a net worth of $72 billion. Perhaps he has spent his life trying to prove that Harvard Business School was wrong to turn him down in 1950.

Lifelong obsessions can also be found in the arts. Vincent van Gogh, I think, expressed loneliness in many of his paintings. He had a rather difficult personality and couldn't get along with anyone for an extended period. Yet he yearned for companionship, and this appears in his painting of his bedroom in Arles, which shows everything in pairs, as if two people lived in it. His obsession, you might say in this instance, was the absence of a mate. Many artists and writers become typecast early in their careers, like villains in Westerns. They may end up spending their lives producing the genre that brought them success initially well after it serves any artistic purpose to them. In the arts, it is easiest to succeed with a brand, because the truth is that consumers of art don't really like much change. Painters and writers do this frequently: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Stephen King, Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling, for example.

It is important to recognize that many of the people who have been successful have had net negative effects on mankind. Besides all of the deaths caused by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, there is the global pollution caused by successful industrialists, and many wars can be attributed to religious leaders from across the centuries. Even when you look at advances in agricultural and medical technologies, you have to wonder whether anyone considered the desirability of the unchecked population growth that ensued. The world population has grown from just one billion when our house was built two hundred years ago to more than seven billion today. To some extent today's refugees are the product of yesterday's technological and industrial successes.

I'm not saying that there aren't any breathtaking artistic, technological or conceptual achievements, but rather that when they occur they must be seen in context, and one person's success doesn't imply someone else's failure. Subliminal drives are what produce success, and those drives exist more or less in everyone. For those who are happy living in their own skin, being unsuccessful may at the most fundamental level mean little more than not having the most attractive husband or wife.