Can We Have a Moral Society?
by John Repp
In Christopher Boehm’s earlier book Hierarchy in the Forest: the Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (1999), he describes how hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies created egalitarian societies. The band or tribe members co-operated to prevent “alpha” type males from dominating their group. Having language helped them achieve this political equality. Boehm is an anthropologist and a primatologist and has studied egalitarian band, tribe and village customs and chimps in the wild. Without language that allows them to communicate and better cooperate, chimps end up with hierarchical societies. Human’s egalitarianism is not exactly “natural”–i.e., DNA driven–but is made possible like abilities like language facilitated by DNA. Egalitarianism is the result of actions and a culture–i.e., learned behavior. It is a question of the actions by all the adult members of the society to block potential tyrants or bullies from using physical force to dominate. It allows most males to have mates and requires hunters to share animal kill among the band. It requires alpha types to be generous, not aggressive.
In his newest book Moral Origins, Boehm looks at the evolution of conscience and the sense of shame, linked to the nearly universal physiological response of blushing. He writes that only when humans achieved egalitarianism could human morality evolve. He tentatively dates these developments with egalitarianism evolving 250 thousand years ago while human morality was more or less completed by 50 thousand years ago. By that time, the weak, but clearly evident (for example when young men volunteer for the military to help their nation), human propensity to altruism, which is defined by biologists as extra familial generosity, had evolved. Boehm writes that It evolved by “social selection” not natural selection. In egalitarian bands, the vast number of band members selected the traits it wanted of its members. A tyrant would be gossiped about, coldly greeted, directly talked to, kidded, ridiculed, shunned, ostracized or even executed With positive reinforcement, the generous and emotionally tranquil, those not taken to anger, were seen as better marriage or hunting/gathering partners. These desired traits and individuals were socially selected affecting gene pools.
This version of the human story explains a problem for peace and justice activists. If human beings are by nature selfish or self-interested as mainstream social scientists assert, how can we create the kind of society we want? If the vast majority of people learn to cooperate as their ancestors did, they can use nonviolent methods to force an altruistic morality on our societies Counter intuitively, it is in the self-interest of the vast majority to create a society with an altruistic culture, for it benefits all. If it is true that human morality could not evolve in prehistory until our ancestors achieved egalitarianism, what has happened to human morality since? In strongly hierarchical societies like ancient Rome and the America of plutocracy and empire, most people see the “breakdown of morality.” The upshot of Boehm’s thinking is that we need to create an egalitarian society or at the least a true equal opportunity society. Only then, when everyone has the necessities of life and some dignity, can we say we have truly become moral.