Page 279 - The Social Animal

Human Aggression 261

and shrewdest male is not only number one in the dominance hier-
archy among his fellows, but also becomes number-one lovemaker in
the group. For example, in one observation, the number-one or
“alpha” male in a particular rookery of 185 females and 120 males was
responsible for half the observed copulations. In smaller rookeries of
40 or fewer females, the alpha male is typically responsible for 100
percent of the copulations.
With these data in mind, some observers urge caution in at-
tempting to control aggression in humans, suggesting that, as in
some lower animals, aggression may be necessary for survival. This
reasoning is based in part on the assumption that the same mecha-
nism that drives one man to kill his neighbor drives another to “con-
quer” outer space, “sink his teeth” into a difficult mathematical
equation, “attack” a logical problem, or “master” the universe.
But, as I argued earlier, this reasoning is based on an exaggerated
definition of aggression. To equate high achievement and advance-
ment with hostility and aggression is to confuse the issue. A problem
or skill can be mastered without harming other people or even with-
out attempting to conquer them. This is a difficult distinction for us
to grasp because the Western mind—and perhaps the American mind
in particular—has been trained to equate success with victory, to
equate doing well with beating someone. M. F. Ashley Montagu 22
feels that an oversimplification and a misinterpretation of Darwin’s
theory have provided the average person with the mistaken idea that
conflict is necessarily the law of life. Ashley Montagu states that it was
convenient, during the Industrial Revolution, for the wealthy indus-
trialists, who were exploiting the workers, to justify their exploitation
by talking about life being a struggle and its being natural for the
fittest (and only the fittest) to survive. The danger is that this kind of
reasoning becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and can lead us to ignore
or play down the survival value of nonaggressive and noncompetitive
behavior. For example, more than one hundred years ago, the Russian
scientist and social reformer Peter Kropotkin concluded that coop-
23
erative behavior and mutual aid have great survival value for many
forms of life.There is ample evidence to support this conclusion.The
cooperative behavior of certain social insects, such as termites, ants,
and bees, is well known. Perhaps not so well known is a form of be-
havior in the chimpanzee that can only be described as altruistic. It
goes something like this: Two chimpanzees are in adjoining cages.