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Chapter 3 : THE EVOLUTION OF CAGED EXISTENCE
If the basic problem and reality which you are facing is that of caged existence, and if your central endeavor for the rest of your life will be to remove yourself from your cages, it is important that you have as clear an understanding as possible of how you became a caged animal in the first place.
Since caged existence is a virtually universal human experience at this time, the history of its development can and must be addressed at both a species and individual level.
Approaching this issue from a species perspective first of all, let it be clearly established that caged human existence is a relatively new phenomenon. In our 4 billion-year evolution from acellular self-replicating molecules to our present form, until about 10 thousand years ago, or .00025 percent of our total life history, we lived in an uncaged manner. We were wild animals and our experience, though unique to our own species just as for each other species, was similar in most respects to that of many other wild animals.
We are a species of ape, most closely related to the chimpanzee, and first appeared in Africa, separating genetically from our ape cousins about 6 to 8 million years ago. Even today, we only differ from the chimpanzees by 1.6 percent in our genetic material. We began to walk upright about 4 million years ago. There have been a variety of hominid species over this time period. Homo sapiens appeared about 500 thousand years ago and there have been several forms of this group as well. Our modern form appears to have begun about 40 thousand years ago and has been named Cro-Magnon for the location in France where their remains were first discovered in modern times.
Forty thousand years ago, human animals numbered only about 2 million in total and inhabited Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. We were not a dominant species on the planet either from the perspective of numbers or of power.
We were hunters and gatherers and, like other wild animals, we had survived by adapting to our various environments and were relatively powerless to control or alter the environment to meet our wishes or needs. As a result we were subject to the harsh rules of natural selection.
Our population grew only very gradually since a great number of our offspring did not survive to reproduce. While average life expectancy was short, it must be understood that this was because the most common causes of death were due to complications around the time of childbirth (perhaps due to anatomical difficulties due to our development of an upright posture) and due to early childhood infectious diseases. Those individuals who survived past this point would often live until their sixties unless they died due to accident or murder.
It is significant that those who did live until adulthood and old age did not generally suffer from the degenerative diseases common today, but were in good health. It may be assumed that those who survived the challenges of the early period of life were of genetically superior quality, just as in all other species.
The full-time occupation of wild homo sapiens, like that of all other wild animals, was to obtain food and shelter. It appears that in this regard they were quite successful. Studies of the remains of humans from this time period indicate that they were well nourished and grew to be of a size that has only recently been matched by the most affluent modern societies.
Their apparent overall health would indicate that they were free of the lifestyle diseases that ravage modern humans. The foods that they ate were varied and of good nutritive quality. By necessity they were very active and thus maintained themselves in good physical condition.
Based on studies of recent hunter and gatherer societies, it is believed that they spent only a few hours a day obtaining what they needed and thus, like most wild animals, had a significant amount of leisure time, certainly more than almost all modern humans.
The focus of their nomadic or semi-nomadic existence was to be fed and sheltered. Once these needs were met, they rested or pursued their leisure activities that were limited in scope. They did not create material wealth, living generally hand to mouth, and so were not preoccupied with all that is involved with its production and protection.
Despite the simplicity of their lives, given our species' general disadvantage physically in many respects in comparison with other wild animals, they were highly intelligent creatures who found a way to survive effectively in the plains, mountains forests, and jungles around the world. If you doubt this for some reason, please try to live as they did for a while to appreciate the challenges that they faced on a daily basis to simply survive.
Their societal structure was very simple. It was based on the band, a group of thirty or so individuals who were generally closely related. All members of the band were involved in the procurement of food and shelter. Unwillingness or prolonged inability to pull one's weight within the group was a sure way to lose its support and would generally mean death for the individual. It is important to understand that our ancestors did not survive as isolated individuals but were successful because of their membership in these small bands which gave them greater food and safety.
The power structure of the group was essentially egalitarian. While there inevitably was a hierarchical system within the group, because of the degree of mutual dependence, decisions were made by consensus. Increased power within the group was due to an individual's ability in some form or other to enhance the quality of life for the group as a whole due to some superior talent or actions. The degree of bonding within the band was high, largely because of the close genetic ties among group members. Furthermore, generally the closer the genetic connection the greater the bond. As in all wild living things, the focus of life was to ensure survival and self-replication of one's genetic material.
Each band would have its own culture that was developed in response to its environment. Because the focus of life was the protection and continuation of one's own genetic material, all bands were xenophobic. If you were a member of another band you were a potential or real threat to the well-being of the group in some direct or indirect manner and would be dealt with as such.
For wild animals where survival is a tremendous challenge, the world is divided into two basic groups - my genetic material and not my genetic material. That which is my genetic material is of tremendous value and that which is not has no intrinsic value. The successful organisms on the planet have adhered to this rule for the last 4 billion years. Such a perspective does not imply an attitude of malice towards other living things but simply a recognition that it is the inevitable desire of each organism to do whatever it can to promote its own survival and continuance, which inevitably results in conflict and struggle. The more that one competes for resources with another creature or relies on the consumption of that creature for one's own survival, the greater the conflict and struggle - a struggle which may mean death for one or the other.
One of the realities of human hunter and gatherer life is the commonality of violence between neighboring bands. Studies have indicated that death by murder at the hands of another human was not unusual, especially among adult males. These murders were generally committed outside of one's own band in order to gain access to territory or females. Killing another would often result in a gain in status within the band for the killer. The frequency of intraspecies killing among human animals is remarkable within the animal world.
All behaviors that persist do so because of some genetic survival advantage and one should assume that this behavior is no different. In order to gain an understanding of human violence, it is worthwhile to look at our closest genetic relatives, the chimpanzees. There are two different species of chimpanzees, the common chimpanzee, with which we are most familiar, and the pygmy or bonobo chimpanzee, which has only relatively recently been recognized to be a separate species.
Looking first of all at the common chimpanzee, recent studies of their behavior have shown them to display the tendency to enter the territory of others of their species even when not actively threatened. They have been observed to do so in order to kill neighbors of their own species in a premeditated manner, to commit genocide against rival bands, and to kidnap fertile females.
These chimpanzees evolved in an environment that required foraging a significant distance from the center of the band in order to obtain enough of the specialized foodstuffs eaten by them. As a result, the members of a band would often be significantly dispersed over their territory. They developed the tendency to attack isolated individuals or small numbers of other bands who would be foraging themselves.
The style of attack was to have a group of several males on the lookout for vulnerable individuals. When conditions arose that there would be little risk involved to the members of the attacking group, they would go after these vulnerable neighbors and kill or severely injure them. In addition, if a young female was left vulnerable she would be kidnapped and incorporated into their band.
The logic of such action was that killing a neighbor of one's own species would simply increase the likelihood of having enough food for oneself and, given the negligible risk involved, it was essentially a no-lose option. One neighbor less was a good thing in terms of competition for the limited resources available. Furthermore, acquiring additional females would increase one's reproductive options.
The society of the common chimpanzee was patriarchal and one in which bonding between aggressive males was the norm. One would assume that those that did not develop this tendency would be effectively eliminated by their neighbors.
The bonobo chimpanzee, however, displays radically different behavior from its chimp cousins. These apes appear to have developed in a different environment in which they had easier access to food. Therefore, as they foraged, they did so together in relatively large groups. By virtue of this, the phenomenon of the isolated ape vulnerable to attack did not occur frequently enough to enable the whole culture of sneak attacks to eliminate neighbors to develop. In order to kill neighbors and neighboring bands one would have to take on the whole band and this would imply too great a risk of one's own death and so negate any possible gain.
Furthermore, among the bonobos, because the warrior male phenomenon did not develop, the male-female dynamic is dramatically different as well. There is a high level of bonding among females, which results in a virtual equality of the sexes, unlike the reality of brute force of males over the relatively isolated females typically seen with the common chimpanzees. This female bonding, in addition to the females' ability to hide their precise time of ovulation, results in less male-to-male violence due to the males' inability to monopolize the females for reproduction. All of this results in a culture that is effective in procuring the necessary food, is very pleasure and play oriented and, although having the capacity for violence, does not include the type of violence seen among the common chimpanzees.
Our hunter and gatherer ancestors also evolved within different environments. Depending upon the nature of the environments and their concentrations of nutritional resources, different styles of hunting and gathering societies developed, inevitably each being somewhat unique. Some bands were more common chimpanzee-like and some were more like those of the bonobos. This is not to say that humans are the same as chimpanzees but simply that our ancestors developed their own patterns of behavior in order to adapt to their particular circumstances.
Different environments create different behaviors.
Our wild ancestors were a unique and successful but relatively insignificant species on the planet until very dramatic changes began to occur about 10 thousand years ago. The cause of these changes was the development of agriculture and what has been called civilization.
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