Wednesday 17 April 2019

Humans, Humanity, and Human Rights - Chapter 1 (E)

This project commenced with a conceptual outline, published on Saturday 1st December, 2018, at: https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2018/12/humans-humanity-and-human-rights.html
I’ve decided I’ll post each chapter in its first, raw state, and you, Dear Reader, can see if my later research (probably long after I've finished this first version, in my retirement, should I be fortunate enough to actually get to retire) led to any change. (You can also think about the points I am making.) 
I've come up with an initial structure of the book (no guarantees it won't change), and will add the links to each chapter in the latest installment as they are published. Owing to the size of each chapter, I will have to publish this using the sub-chapters. Links below, and also here.

*****

Chapter One – Introduction to Concepts, and On Early Humans

E.  Our genetic neighbours, gatherer-hunters, and being humane


To remind you, Dear Reader: I am, in this chapter, considering that era when humans first came into existence, evolving from a series of ancestors who had themselves diverged from the ancestors of modern primates – or, perhaps more accurately, we developed differently to primates, but from a common ancestor.
So, is it possible to use what we know about primates to try to gain some insight into what early humans were like?
Well, although we have good evidence of the physical changes to both lines of evolution, I don’t consider that we necessarily know all the changes that occurred.
In fact, I’m not sure how well we can say we understand our genetic neighbours now, and part of that is due to what is our, at times, flawed thinking.
To illustrate that, let’s begin by considering that, a couple of centuries ago, there was a widely accepted myth referred to as “the noble savage” [1] , where, to simplify, people living less technologically advanced lifestyles were assumed to be better people. They weren’t necessarily (people are people – largely), although they may have been more in harmony with nature (not always, whoever, as shown by some cultures use of “slash and burn” forms of agriculture [2] ).
Along a similar line, albeit possibly in response to a blind myth that “primitive” animals, including primates, were unthinking, unfeeling, selfish and savage, when humans began studying primates more objectively in the 60s and 70s [3] , there was a time when we, humans, thought that “noble savage” myth also seemed to fit our genetic neighbours, but we now know better – I could write “characters are characters – largely”, but the situation is more complex than that, and the attempts to raise chimpanzees in human environments showed that, amongst other outcomes, there are differences between us and our genetic neighbours.
More importantly, our understanding and knowledge now is deeper and more nuanced. As one example, I recall one documentary showing a chimpanzee mother mourning her dead infant. We now have an awareness of the richness of interactions within primate groups.
I will come back to that shortly, but there are a couple of other points I wish to cover.
Firstly, the undue optimism of those who made the attempts to co-raise chimpanzees. Why did they do that? Were they naïve, lacking in objectivity, blinded by an attractive (to them) thesis? Did they fail to notice early warning signs of problems? Did they not think about the limits of what they were learning? [4]
Next, I want to consider animals more broadly, and some of the things we’ve learned about the other species we share this planet with. We underrate animals, partly, I suspect, because of too simplistic science, but now science has shown us things such as:
·         same sex relationships in the animal kingdom [5] ;
·         that fish may have self-awareness, based on what is termed “the mirror test”. The media article on that [6] includes:
“The mirror tests whether a non-human animal can identify a mark on their body by looking in a mirror, while touching their body, not the mirror . . . Until now only apes, elephants, dolphins and northern hemisphere species of magpie have passed the test . . . The fish study opens a debate about whether the test is an appropriate gauge of animal awareness and whether we underestimate the ability of animals that do not pass this test”;
·         bees can perform arithmetic [7] .
Less scientifically, anyone who has had and care about a pet knows they have a personality, and are capable of kindness and less salubrious emotions, including jealousy. I consider we are better at living with our pets when we recognise [8] and work with their individuality [9] .
I’d like to go back to primates. We have, as I mentioned, an increased and more nuanced understanding of their group dynamics. On that, an interesting perspective on the political side of animal behaviour has been published by the Guardian [10] , summed up as
“decades of studying primates has convinced me that animal politics are not so different from our own – and even in the wild, leadership is about much more than being a bully”
The article reports that those who rose to the top through bullying and aggression were likely to be brought undone, and the leaders who lasted notably had empathy.
Hmm . . . maybe there is some capacity to learn from our neighbours . . . J
We can’t be simplistic about that, however: nuance is all, and stereotypes are always a problem that blinds our perceptions and restricts our thinking.
I consider that it would be quite possible, however, based particularly on the article from the 12th March, 2019 Guardian, that early humans would also have functioned best in situations that were, at the very least, empathic (a feature highlighted in that article), and quite possibly conditions that we modern humans would describe as “humane”. (As the article mentioned, although he often struts, the 45th President of the USA [POTUS45 – i.e., Trump] seems to lack the empathy and willingness to get in-between warring parties that is required to be successful in the primate world.)
What about learning from modern gatherer-hunters?
Well, I’ve already touched on this, but to repeat the point, gatherer-hunters in the modern era have had millennia of evolution and development, including, for most groups, contact with other, more technologically advanced civilisations. There is quite a bit of evidence [11] of trading in the ancient world (for instance, rock from one part of Australia has been found as tools in distant parts of Australia [12] ), so truly isolated tribes are a rarity, and - to protect those tribes from modern diseases - they are kept as close to free of contact as is possible. The other side of that is that we possibly don’t know all that accurately how well they represent early humans – most probably they don’t represent the shiny new, just-out-of-the-evolution box I’m considering, but humans who have gone through the trauma, forced and willing evolution, and change from experiencing living (are you the same as you were a few decades ago? I’m not – partly I’m wiser {I hope], but I’ve also been quite battered by life experiences, so I am probably half a dozen steps forwards on the better human scale, six steps back) that came with moving out of Africa and learning how to survive in a particular area, possibly with pressures and competition from other tribes nearby (as I write that, I am thinking of the descriptions in the “North America's Forgotten Past” / “First North Americans” [13] series of written by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear [14]. . . Also, I should point out that I don’t think primates have evolved as much as we have: our capacity to adapt [i.e., change] and to do so at a much-faster-than-evolution speed is one of the features that sets us apart from other animals [15] ).
We have descriptions of some tribes at what is generally described as “first contact” from a few centuries ago, but those are so biased by social and religious prejudice as to be close to utterly useless, in my opinion.
On the other hand, Amy Chua [Ref. 8] writes about political tribes and the influence that unacknowledged tribalism is having on humans.
It’s all a bit unclear, isn’t it?
So, what do I actually think?
Well, I’d like to propose two points.
Firstly, what I could (very) loosely lump together under “nastiness” started somewhere - whether that was carried over as we evolved, or came later. Possibly that “nastiness” started through competition between groups for resources, or as a result of individuals questing after power and dominance. In any case, after that point, we had to learn, possibly through noticing that dysfunctional groups didn’t do so well,
(1)    that nastiness was nasty, and
(2)    therefore it should be stopped.
Responding to those two lessons requires social (and political) evolution – and human rights. Those rights could perhaps be considered as a quest for “second generation” (economic, social and cultural) rights – but, as all generations of rights are “interrelated, interdependent and indivisible”, the sense of a quest for individual rights / freedom as well as group benefits equally applies.
The second point is that, for all the similarities, it is important to remember that there are differences between us and our genetic neighbours – including our capacity for more advanced thought. (I wrote about this online in a review of an article a few years ago: you can find a copy in Appendix A.) Thus, we have a greater capacity to overcome genetic predispositions more quickly than evolution would act in our neighbours (the primates) – i.e., we can learn more quickly; they also learn, but more slowly.
That, ultimately, comes with a responsibility: what are we doing with our abilities?

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noble_savage&oldid=884303755 (although I am referring to this more in the concept that link describes as “sentimentalism”, or “nature’s gentleman”),   https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-myth-of-the-noble-savage-55316,   and   https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Noble_savage&oldid=1986043.
[4] I mentioned that I have a degree. Well, whatever it is J , it has allowed me to work in the field of wastewater treatment (that’s only on the nose when something’s wrong), and something I teach younger engineers (oops) is that, with new treatment processes, what is unknown is probably largely the “bad” aspects; I also teach them to look at a range of limits associated with such processes.
[8] On that, one of the reasons I refuse to say things like “I like kids” is because, in my experience, those who do reduce children to a generic cipher, rather than recognising the individual strengths and weaknesses that need to be nurtured or tended to in the wide and rich variety of humanity that is constituted in “small humans”.
[9] There has been some work on pets and personality (for instance, https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/171101d.aspx,   https://www.dogstardaily.com/training/puppy-personality-development,   and   https://www.backyardchickencoops.com.au/blogs/learning-centre/pet-chicken-behaviour-personality-pecking-order), but what particularly interests me on that is the development of personality in rescued battery hens –see https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/little-miss-sunshine-rescued-battery-hen-intelligent/, for example. The rescued battery hens will need some extra care, naturally (see http://www.henrescue.org/battery-hen-care), but can become excellent pets – such as in this instance: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-battery-hens-rescued-slaughter-14110899.





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