Are Humans Inherently Violent?

1530 Words7 Pages
Humans are creatures of circumstance. However, there are those respected voices in the anthropological world such as Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson that contend we are not. Instead, we are slaves to our biological makeup. According to their essay, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, it is difficult to escape our evolutionary past and we are, as a result, forced to act according to our inherent nature. Both Peterson and Wrangham believe that war and human violence exist because of inherited behavioral tendencies. These tendencies are the result of sexual selection where aggressive males typically dominant less-aggressive males, preventing them from mating and passing on their traits. Sure, we can see evidence of this in the Guido tribes of the northeastern United States, but due to rampant steroid use the chances for reproductive success are slim. Nonetheless, Wrangham and Peterson appear to suffer from monomania, as their argument for an inherent tendency towards violence seems to focus primarily on sexual selection as the driving force behind keeping the aggressive "gene" in our blood. While they conclude that pride is an integral factor in perpetuating violence, primarily among males, it does not prove that humans and chimps are biologically prone to violence. Robert W. Sussman, a professor of Physical Anthropology at Duke University, rebuts Wrangham and Peterson's contention—specifically in regards to their theory on sexual selection—saying that women choosing a dominant or aggressive male as a mate is due to the type of society rather than an innate inclination. Furthermore, Sussman points out that the decision to mate with a dominant male could also be a mistake, stemming from an irrational need to follow social conventions and obtain a male who would be considered a "good reproducer". Sussman uses the passive, docile, and promiscuous
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