Monday, December 15, 2008

Monkey Wars

Religion has been a cause for a lot of division. But often it's an excuse.
Really, I think the only way there would be no wars is if there were no countries (no groups big enough to have wars).
But that's a bit difficult, no?
No countries is tricky.

But really, for whatever the distinction, religion, country, skin color, whether or not you have stars on your belly (the star-bellied sneetches who live on the beaches), as long as there are big enough groups who will back one person's ideas, you're gonna have war. If two people disagree, vehemently, and can't find any way to solve the situation, they might get into a fight. At worst, maybe they'll kill each other. But if each of them has thousands of followers, you get a war.

It seems like the two simians closest to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. The two of them, in fact, are quite similar to each other as well.

Chimpanzees, like us, are patriarchal societies. And are one of the only animals besides us who have wars, who have big groups getting together to fight one another.

But bonobos are matriarchal societies. And they have no war. They don't even really have much fighting. They are an impressively sharing species.
Oh, and they have sex. Lots of sex. With ever possible combination of bonobo they can find. Male with female, male with male, female with female, in the family, out of the family. Seems the only ones who don't get to have sex are the babies (they wait until six months old or so).

I'm not saying, I'm just saying

Who's your daddy? Maybe who's your mommy!

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