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The two inner apes are the ones who can help us use our strengths to achieve success.
Big Idea #1: Recent research shows that morality is not a human invention – apes have morals too.
Charles Darwin believed that man was not created by a god. In his book, On the Origin of Species, he argued that all species evolved over time and genetic variations helped them survive while others disappeared.
In his book, On Aggression (1963), Konrad Lorenz argued that the purpose of evolution is to pass on one’s genes. In doing so, it would be beneficial for individuals to dominate others and even hurt or kill the members of their own species if this helped their genes.
In 1975, Richard Dawkins took this line of thought one step further when he proposed the idea that genes are selfish. He argued that it isn’t the individual that counts, but rather the gene itself. Dawkins used his theory to explain why people help each other out in a social way and even to family members who aren’t genetically related to them.
Since the early 1980s, researchers have published studies that contradict these theses. One of them is Frans de Waal, who studied how chimpanzees reconcile after fights. Other researchers documented examples of selflessness and sportsmanship in animals’ behavior. The work on bonobos changed our approach to primate research because their social lives are very different from those of chimpanzees.
Big Idea #2: “Make love, not war!” – the bonobos are the hippies of the primate world.
In the past, bonobos were called pygmy chimpanzees. They are smaller than chimpanzees and have long hair with a prominent middle part. They can walk upright and their voices are much higher than the chimpanzees’.
Bonobos have only been studied for a short period of time, but even before that people noticed differences between them and chimpanzees. For example, one circus tried to breed bonobo offspring with the female chimps in their troupe. However, the progeny were so sexually active that they couldn’t be used for children’s shows.
Others had also noted that bonobos are more sensitive than chimpanzees. The population of the entire zoo died during bombings in World War II, but all the chimpanzees survived.
When a Japanese research team went to the Congo, they learned that bonobos are very different from other primates. Bonobos don’t fight and kill each other. The females dominate them in sexual matters and have sex frequently. They also found this was more common than with chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutansand humans.
All bonobos are pansexual, meaning that they love to have sex with anyone. They rub their genitalia together and stroke each other’s penises and testicles. In order to observe one another’s reactions during sex, they often look into each other’s faces while having intercourse.
Three out of four bonobos’ sexual encounters are not for procreation. They greet each other, resolve conflicts and have sex during just about every social interaction.
