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Anthropomorphism is the animal behaviorist’s
greatest taboo, and yet a necessary tool of the trade. As in all
sciences, we peck away at a great truth from the outside, always
relying on reproducible results while knowing that no trial is ever
the same. As scientists attempting to create a controlled environment
we are one complex system attempting to overcome an equally complex
system. But one need not grow discouraged as they experience this
intricate stalemate. Rather, in the face of one’s inability
to surmount and contain the lives and minds of their subject’s,
one can choose to recognize that their affiliation is more potent
than their domination. It is the old ‘if you can’t beat
‘em, join ‘em’ minus the sense of defeat. We recognize
that the similarities of other species’ behavior to our own
are often what stirs our fascination. Yet in the same breath we
attempt to study other creatures and even our own species by placing
ourselves above them in a god-like omniscient role. It seems more
logical to utilize our similarities to understand what drives them
and how they perceive our shared world.
With this disclaimer established, I admit that my social interaction
this summer was populated primarily by monkeys. It is thus not so
strange then that I began to not only concern myself with how human-like
they could be, but also how well I fit into their shoes, or rather
lack thereof. A consideration of my circumstance sets the scene
for my conscious flow expounded here. The life of a student of the
sciences is focused on the research; we leave our families and close
childhood friends to live and work at a university. Each summer
we compete to get the best ‘experience’, again leaving
our homes as well as whatever friendships were forged at school
despite busy, motivated schedules. No matter how we value family
and friends, a somewhat arbitrary quest for knowledge overcomes.
As I watched, intrigued by the friendships, kinships and alliances
within our capuchin colonies, it dawned on me that I was quite the
hypocrite. How could I claim to be interested in social relations
in primates when I had abandoned my own to study them? Even as I
made local friends it became more apparent that my interactions
would never compare to the complex and dynamic web of bonds that
are the substance of a monkey’s life. Many times as we sat
observing a grooming session a lab member would comment on how amazing
it must feel to have one’s closest acquaintances gather around
and gently care for the finest details of one’s physical self.
And to groom and be groomed in a communal ring, how rewarding and
peaceful that must be. Simultaneously my neck and shoulders ached
from typing papers and driving alone the many miles to Atlanta,
each one taking me further from the trusted hands that could relieve
me. It is recognized by animal behaviorists, zoo-keepers, care-techs,
psychologists, and finally even bio-meds and those that fund research
facilities that the worst fate of a social animal is to be isolated.
What then was I doing to myself?
Such self-analysis burgeoned into a grander inquiry, that of how
well we as humans fit within the primate family. This may not seem
to be ground-shaking question; after all we are always searching
for what distinguishes us from the other great apes and that elusive
missing link. Yet I venture to claim that it is a different way
to ponder the same animal, so to speak.
For me, the term primate comes with connotations about intelligence,
but moreover of complex social interaction, kinship, infant nurture
and grooming. Very few primates do not live in substantial groups
with hierarchies and alliances. I know of none for whom grooming
is not an important ritual. Yet by example of my own life, which
is not so uncommon in the developed and developing world, these
behaviors fall to the wayside. We spend our lives amongst strangers,
always avoiding contact. Families are broken apart by jobs, lifestyles,
and personalities and touch within them often ceases at an early
age (perhaps there is even some causation in this correlation?).
Has natural selection favored humans for which these simian qualities
are unnecessary in the five million years since we broke from the
chimpanzee and bonobo? Doubtful, in fact I would wager that these
behaviors were important in the flourishing and advancement of our
species. But that argument is beyond the depth of this brief commentary
and is unnecessary. The only evidence needed comes anecdotally and
from within; we recognize the sedated ecstasy of being groomed,
miss the comfort and joy of being apart of a family, and form cohorts
when we intend to be communal and egalitarian. Although we forget
and are wary of touch, hugs, massages, and the simple acts of brushing
another’s hair or eyelash off the cheek are potent interactions.
Why if we desire and are soothed by such behaviors do we create
a society that denies them? Although I could postulate explanations
for our contradictory behavior relating to social evolution and
speciesism, the important point remain that anthropomorphizing was
the catalyst for my self and societal inquiry.
By projecting ourselves into the ‘subjects’, we can
begin to also see them within ourselves. This ‘animamorphizing’
unveils within us the advanced yet repressed primate that needs
a social niche complete with ritualized physical contact. Thousands
of regimented trials and statistical analysis can inform our understanding
of primate cognition, but it can never teach us what it is to be
a primate; how to be human.
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