Chimpanzee Politics
"This extraordinary account of schmoozing, scheming, and consensus building among the chimpanzees of a large zoo colony in Arnhem, The Netherlands, attracted attention.". "Throughout this revised edition - which features a new gallery of color photographs along with a new introduction and epilogue - de Waal expands and updates his story of the Arnhem colony and its continuing political upheavals. We learn the fate of many memorable characters and meet the colony's current leaders and their allies. The new edition remains a detailed and thoroughly engrossing account - of sexual rivalries and coalitions, of actions governed by intelligence rather than instinct - and it reaffirms the complex bond between humans and their closest living relatives. As we watch the chimpanzees of Arnhem behave in ways we recognize from Machiavelli (and from the nightly news), de Waal reminds us again that the roots of politics are older than humanity."--BOOK JACKET.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
28mentions
15people
2012–2026years
54% recommend46% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I thought maybe I was using the phrase wrong, but the first two definitions I find are "the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others" and "a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect". You'll note that those are both inherently social. And both "good enough" and "with respect" are about one's position in the caste/hierarchy structure.
The reason I assume what the psychologist meant is that most of them are neurotypical, and neurotypical people are deeply invested in social primate dynamics. I understand that this is hard for neurotypical people to see, but you might read things like DeWaal's "Chimpanzee Politics" or Johnson's "Impro" [1]. Plus there's my personal experience, where psychologists are very inclined to talk about self-worth in the social sense. And I think that's fine; I'm sure it works well for their neurotypical patients.
[1] particularly the section on status transactions, which are vital for authentic theater performances, but are rarely articulated because it's so natural to neurotypical people
- For humans, a lot of the "dumb" stuff is rooted in our evolutionary history as primates, for whom dominance hierarchies are a big part of their evolutionary environment.
For our nearest ancestors, chimps, being a dominant male has a lot of value in terms of reproductive success. So it's not shock to me that humans males are prone to the same sort of dominance assertion and performance of being highly placed that chimps are. I read this sort of behavior as the driver asserting his "superiority", putting "lesser" people in "their place".
If you're interested, de Waal's "Chimpanzee Politics" was a real eye-opener for me. There was a big chunk of human behavior that went from "what is wrong with him" to "ah, ok, primates gonna prime".
- It also conveys a benefit to those of low status.
High-status individuals' job is to produce stability.
Read Chimpanzee Politics; it will completely change the way you see human interaction and power.
- HN produces better book recommendations than any other place I know of. People at HN have recommended such books like Chimpanzee Politics, which are so basic yet eye-opening that everyone would benefit from reading them.
If you would get to recommend a single book for everyone to read, what would it be?
- (Excuse the length; formatted it for readability.)
Your guesses are all good (and by "classics" I meant the works of Seneca, Cicero et al). You'll also find many gems in the bibliography section of any book with real substance. A good author will share their sources. On why I recommend these: Many of these researchers spent years grappling with the said topics. They are "invested" in it, and to be charitable, were/are trying to arrive at truth, however imperfectly. Even when they get things wrong, these books are more likely to make us think than the vapid "books" by charlatans.
On Thinking, Fast and slow being hard to read: it is a hard read. For Pete's sake, the book asks you to grapple with probabilities, which we humans are terrible at. If you're trying to read Prospect Theory (a key idea from the book) in bed when tired, or in a noisy train station, you will be frustrated. Read it when you are fresh and are able to concentrate well.
Note though, none of these books are "perfect"; there will be things in them that might irritate you. Read them anyway, for the mental nourishment they provide.
More broadly, if you're interested in psychology, primate behaviour, neuroscience, philosophy, game theory, and linguistics, here are a selection of books that I've found helpful:* * *• Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio
• Neuroscience: Exploring the brain by Bear, Connors, and Paradiso (this is a fantastic illustrated text book with great explanations; fully worth the 72 euros I paid for it)
• Behave and Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Sapolsky (I wrote my "why" for Behave here[1])
• Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
• The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
• Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal
• Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga
• Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
• Becoming Human by Michael Tomasello
• For Stoicism, I wrote a detailed guide here[2] on good quality English translations by foremost scholars
• Not least of all, read some of Plato's dialogues—they're immensely fun, even if you don't agree with anything he says. Here's[3] a few recommended English translations.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25559890
- If you ever get the chance or make time to read Chimpanzee Politics it is uncanny just how closely the behaviors match that of humans.
Except you get to see it without any of the rationalizations that we make. You get the raw distillation of this behavior.
It'll never change.
