Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA12560 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 28 Mar 2001 18:52:05 +0100 Subject: review in SciAm of The Ape and the Sushi Master Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:48:26 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010328174833.AAA10160@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Do Animals Have Culture?
Review by Meredith F. Small
http://www.sciam.com/2001/0401issue/0401reviews1.html
(An eminent primatologist challenges long-held convictions about what
makes humans distinct.)
Science, and the tried-and-true scientific method, is supposed to be free
of bias. But as primatologist Frans de Waal explains in _The Ape and the
Sushi Master_, science, like all human endeavors, is warped by cultural
ideology. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the field of animal
behavior and particularly in discussions of whether animals have culture.
"We cannot discuss animal culture without seriously reflecting on our own
culture and the possible blind spots it creates," de Waal writes.
He approaches this conundrum by taking us with him on a journey around
the world, to watch primates and to talk with other scientists, engaging
the reader in a conversation about where our biases come from and how
they have influenced the history of animal behavior.
De Waal is the director of the Living Links Center for the study of ape
and human behavior at Emory University; he has written extensively about
his findings in both scientific journals and the popular press. But
unlike his previous popular books on chimpanzee politics and
reconciliation in primates, this time de Waal is not so much presenting a
theory and providing data as stepping back from the entire field of
animal behavior to take a broader look.
The Ape and the Sushi Master is a philosopher's tale--and one that could
have a major impact on the future study of animal behavior. It questions
the very way behaviorists go about their work and in the process
undermines some comfortably held theories. In the West, for example,
behaviorists embrace the idea that individuals act exclusively in
self-serving ways in order to pass on their genes. But de Waal, a
Dutch-born zoologist who has lived in the U.S. for two decades and has
traveled extensively, has enough cultural distance to see that this view
is intimately connected to the Western, especially American, ideology of
individualism. Natural selection, he points out, can also produce
cooperative behaviors, acts of kindness, and gentle creatures. And de
Waal has the experience--27 years of observing apes in captivity--to
question the accepted notion that only humans learn. The book's title
refers to the way sushi-making skills are passed down from master to
apprentice: like the apprentice, young apes also watch their elders and
imitate their behavior.
De Waal begins by laying out the reasons that we Westerners have such an
uncomfortable relationship with animals, especially primates. By
historical and religious tradition, Europeans and Americans embrace the
idea that humans are different from--better than--all other animals,
establishing a dualism between us and them. "Whenever their abilities are
said to approach ours, the reaction is often furious," de Waal points out.
This kind of dualism also means that Western scientists fear
anthropomorphism and revere a disconnection from their subjects; we
assume one must maintain separation to gather valid data. But de Waal
feels that similarities, especially those among closely related species
such as apes and humans, are profound and useful. Therefore, he finds
that anthropomorphism is "not only inevitable, it is a powerful tool."
Eastern cultures fare better in their observations of animals because
they don't buy the Western dualism of humans versus animals. "It can
hardly be coincidental," de Waal reasons, "that the push for cultural
studies on animals initially came ... from primatologists untrained in
the sharp dualisms of the West." Long ago the Japanese, for example, were
not afraid of topics that Western scientists are just now taking
seriously: "Thus, the Japanese did not hesitate to give each animal a
name or to assume that each had a different identity and personality.
Neither did they feel a need to avoid topics such as animal mental life
and culture."
The issue of culture, in particular, as de Waal explains, has had a much
more rocky history in the West. For decades, anthropologists and others
have come up with various traits that separate humans from chimpanzees in
an effort to define what is uniquely human. But chimpanzees keep nudging
into our territory: tool use, complex social relationships, empathy and
sympathy, sophisticated communication--they seem to have bits of it all.
And now it seems they have culture, the last bastion of separation.
In a recent analysis of seven long-term chimpanzee sites, researchers
were able to identify 39 behaviors that were learned from others. If
culture can be defined as behavior that is socially transmitted,
chimpanzees, and other animals, are cultural beings, de Waal argues.
"What is the least common denominator of all things called cultural?" he
asks. "In my view, this can only be the nongenetic spreading of habits
and information. The rest is nothing else than embellishment." Cultural
anthropologists might not like it, but the chimps are playing on our side
now.
De Waal ends with a section on how we see ourselves. And we emerge as an
unpleasantly self-important species. We pretend that a struggle for
social power, which is a common behavior pattern among other primates, is
"self-esteem" and therefore that it is found only in humans. We assume
that humans are the only ones whose behavior is influenced by learning
and experience and that we are the only ones who are altruistic, caring
beings--such kindness exhibited by other animals is misguided pathology.
De Waal takes a different tack: "Instead of being tied to how we are
unlike any animal, human identity should be built around how we are
animals that have taken certain capacities a significant step farther. We
and other animals are both similar and different, and the former is the
only sensible framework within which to flesh out the latter."
Sensible, yes, but ideology dies hard. As de Waal so convincingly
explains, we would have to navigate an identity crisis on the way to
enlightenment, and this might be too scary for those invested in the
supremacy of humankind. But for those ready for some self-scrutiny, and a
less biased view of culture and learning in our fellow creatures, this
book will be a revelation. In a sense, de Waal is our animal-behavior
sushi master; look over his shoulder and learn what the animals tell us
about ourselves.
Meredith Small is a writer and professor of anthropology at Cornell
University.
Scientific American is paid a percentage of each sale by Amazon.com.
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