Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

The alpha male will intervene to prevent conflict, especially between hotheaded young males pumped up on testosterone, or when aggression is directed at infants or juveniles. Sometimes a withering glance will suffice. Sometimes the alpha will charge the pair and force them apart. Generally, he approaches with a swagger, arms akimbo. It’s hard not to see here the rudiments of government administration of justice. As in all primate leadership positions, an alpha male must accept certain obligations. In return for deference and respect, for sexual and dining privileges, he must render services to the community, both practical and symbolic. He adopts an impressive demeanor, even something approaching pomp, in part because his subordinates demand it of him. They crave reassurance. They are natural followers. They have an irresistible need to be led.

Beyond the reaching out of hands there are many styles of submission, of which the most common is, in the scientific literature, demurely called “presenting.” What is it that’s being presented? The subordinate animal, male or female—but here we’re discussing males in the dominance hierarchy—wishing to pay its respects to the alpha male crouches down and elevates its anogenital region toward the leader, moving its tail out of the way. It sometimes gives a little bump and grind. It may whimper and, grinning over its shoulder, approach the alpha, raised rump first. The subordinate’s need to pay respect in this manner is so great that it may even present to an alpha who’s fast asleep.

The alpha (if awake) moves forward, grasps the submissive animal from behind, closely embraces it, and not infrequently makes a few pelvic thrusts. Since this is the invariable posture and motion of chimp copulation, there can be no mistaking the symbolic significance of the exchange: The subordinate animal asks please to be fucked, and the dominant animal, perhaps a little reluctantly, complies.

In most cases these actions are only symbolic. There is no intromission and no orgasm. They fake it. You wish to pay respect to a high-ranking male, but Nature has not equipped you with appropriate spoken language. Still, there are many postures and gestures in your everyday life that have a meaning readily apprehended by everyone. If females must comply with nearly every proferred sexual invitation, the sex act itself is a vivid, powerful, and unambiguous symbol of submission. Indeed, presenting is a mark of deference and respect among all the apes and monkeys, and among many other mammals as well.

The anger of a high-ranking male is fearsome. His arousal is obvious to any bystander, because all the hair on his body is standing on end. He may charge, intimidate, and tear branches from trees. If you’re not prepared to meet him in single combat, you might want to appease him, to keep him happy. You closely monitor the slightest raising of a single one of his hairs. Not only are you perpetually compliant (“I’m yours whenever you want me”), but just for your own comfort you need frequent reassurance that he’s not angry with you. When he is angry, he exaggerates his size and ferocity and displays the weapons that he will bring to bear if the adversary does not submit. He uses his displays to keep more junior males in line, and they use theirs to advance within the hierarchy. Displays may serve as a response to a challenge, or just as a general reminder to the community at large that here’s someone not to be trifled with. Of course, it’s not all bluff; if it were, it wouldn’t work. There must be a credible threat of violence. A kind of menace maintenance is required. If push comes to shove there may be serious fighting. But much more often the display has a ritual and ceremonial character. (Almost always the alpha wins, and if, on occasion, he loses, that doesn’t usually mean that the hierarchy has been inverted; for that to happen, a consistent pattern of defeat is needed.)

The lesson being communicated is deterrence, pure and simple: “Cross me and you’ll have to deal with this stature, these muscles, these teeth (note my canines), this rage.” Chimpanzee strategy is encapsulated in the earliest comprehensive account we have of human military affairs, the sixth-century B.C. work The Art of War

, by Sun Tzu: “The supreme act of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”³ Deterrence is old. And so is its prerequisite, imagination.

So law and order are maintained, and the status of the leadership preserved through the threat (and, if necessary, the reality) of violence; but also through patronage delivered to constituents, and through the widespread craving to have a hero to admire, who can tell you what to do—especially when there’s a threat from outside the group. Violence and intimidation alone would not suffice—although there may be those who enjoy being chastised and bullied, who perhaps look on it as a form of affection.