SPIEGEL: Mr. de Waal, if you were a member of the group of chimpanzees here beneath your observation tower, would you be the alpha male?
Chimpanzees have clear hierarchies -- not unlike humans.
SPIEGEL: Let’s assume you had the necessary strength.
De Waal: I would still run into all kinds of problems with the pecking order. It’s like working for a company, where there are intrigues and where you have to do favors for friends and form networks. When it comes to social interaction, the chimpanzees appear to be just as intelligent as we are.
SPIEGEL: And who manages to fight his way to the top among the chimpanzees? The cleverest one? The biggest one?
De Waal: Not necessarily. We have two leaders in our group here, for example. One is a very relaxed, large male chimpanzee, which makes him popular with the females. The other one is a little guy who is extremely tenacious and uses dirty tricks when he fights, but he is detested by the females.
SPIEGEL: How do the leaders show their subjects that they're in charge?
De Waal: By putting on a big show. There is a male chimpanzee in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains who likes to make a huge to-do about throwing boulders into a dry riverbed. Each time he does it a large audience gathers and shows their deference. The chimpanzees bow and chatter, both typical submissive behaviors.
SPIEGEL: So they're perfect subjects?
De Waal: Not at all! There's plenty of intrigue going on beneath the surface. To help each other acquire power, chimpanzees form alliances based on giving and taking. It's the same thing with people. For example, unless US President George W. Bush doesn't give (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, his biggest supporter, something significant soon, Blair will probably eventually withdraw his support for Bush.
SPIEGEL: You mean that the power game Blair and Bush are playing is essentially ape behavior?
De Waal: I'm convinced that that's the case. In people it starts already in childhood. If you put a group of two-year-olds in a room together, they quickly figure out who's the boss -- using fists, if necessary.
SPIEGEL: You claim in your book that a clear chain of command is superior to democratic decision-making. But couldn't such argumentation be used to justify a dictatorship?
De Waal: Hierarchies are unavoidable, but they're not the same as despotism. It's interesting that those human endeavors that depend most heavily on cooperation, armies or large companies, for example, have the most strongly developed hierarchies.
Just like chimpanzees, humans feel most tied to those who help them.
De Waal: No, armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don't even do it because they're inherently aggressive. Many American GIs in Iraq are poor kids who are only waging war because a couple of guys in Washington decided to send them to war. The guys in Washington, for their part, do it for territorial reasons. That brings us back to the chimpanzees, which also exhibit territorial behavior.
SPIEGEL: Primatologist Jane Goodall has said: "If chimpanzees had guns and knives and knew what to do with them, they would use them the way people do." Apes tear out their enemies' fingernails, crush their testicles and rip out their windpipes.
De Waal: Oh yes, they can be very brutal. Wild groups of chimpanzees attack their enemies like gangs. What they completely lack, precisely because of their strong territorial behavior, is a friendly relationship with their neighbors.
SPIEGEL: This, of course, is different in human beings. We trade with our neighbors, travel through their territory and help each other when disaster strikes.
De Waal: Exactly. And because of such traits, we cannot use the chimpanzee alone to explain why we are the way we are. For example, we can learn nothing from chimpanzees about our ability to make peace with other groups or nations. For that it's worth taking a closer look at the bonobo…
SPIEGEL: …which is just as closely related to us as the chimpanzee.
De Waal: Yes. In fact, with its relatively small head and its frequently upright way of walking, it even bears a closer resemblance to us. Most importantly, however, the bonobos are remarkably peaceful in their interactions with one another.
SPIEGEL: What makes them such pacifists?
De Waal: Wild bonobos live in a habitat that is more bountiful. Unlike chimpanzees, they have more than enough to eat, so that female bonobos can travel in groups. They form coalitions, help each other and defend themselves to avoid being dominated by the males.
SPIEGEL: A matriarchy?
De Waal: Yes, but not one in which individual females are dominant. Instead, the entire group is dominant, with the older female bonobos generally in charge within that group.
SPIEGEL: Is it this female dominance that makes the bonobos so gentle by nature?
De Waal: Female bonobos at least appear to be good at keeping the peace. After all, it isn't especially worthwhile to them to constantly fight over their rank within the hierarchy, because rank has little impact on reproductive success. Although high-ranking female bonobos have better access to food for their young, this advantage is minimal compared to the benefits high-ranking male chimpanzees enjoy. For them, dominance translates directly into more offspring -- which explains their frequently brutal competition.
SPIEGEL: Does this mean that armchair psychologists got it right after all, that men are from Mars and women, the peacemakers, are from Venus?
De Waal: Wait a minute. I said that female bonobos keep the peace. The males are better at making peace.
SPIEGEL: What do you mean?
De Waal: Females avoid conflict. They are afraid of violence. The males, on the other hand, are less averse to strife. But once conflict breaks out, the males are much better at reconciling. In a study done in Finland, children who had quarreled were asked how much longer they intended to be angry at one another. The boys proudly said: "Oh, at least one or two days." The girls said…
SPIEGEL: Let's take a guess: "forever?"
De Waal: (laughs) Exactly.
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