Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

by Carl Sagan

  It’s rare that any male starts out as an alpha. Generally you have to work your way up through the ranks. But in the intervals between your challenges it would be a mistake to be too disruptive. Even for the very ambitious a talent for subordination and submission is needed. Also, it’s hard to predict who will achieve high-ranking status. Sometimes greatness is thrust upon unsuspecting animals by the course of events. Accordingly, everyone needs to be able to rise to the occasion. If you’re in a linear hierarchy, you must know how to dominate the animals below you and submit to those above. An inclination for both dominance and submission must beat within the same breast. Complex challenges make for complex animals.

  ——

  Nothing we’ve said so far indicates anything about female preference. What if she finds the alpha male arrogant, boorish, taking too much for granted? Or just plain ugly? Does she have the right to refuse? At least among hamsters, this is not an option.

  Here’s an experiment17 done on Syrian hamsters by the psychologist Patricia Brown and her colleagues: To begin, males, matched for size and body weight, were allowed to interact with one another in pairs to establish dominance. Chasing and biting were among the behaviors counted as dominant; defensive postures, evasions, raised tails, and full cowering submission were counted as subordinate traits. The dominants accounted for over ten times more aggressive acts than an equal number of subordinate animals; the subordinate animals tallied ten times more submissive acts than those judged dominant. It never took more than an hour for a pair of hamsters to decide who was dominant and who was subordinate.

  Now although these males knew how to fight, they’d never had a sexual experience. Each of them was made to wear a little leather harness attached to a tether, which, like a dog’s leash, limited how far he could roam. Next, an ovulating female was released; she could have access to the tethered males, but beyond a certain point their leashes would prevent them from following her or offering unwelcome attentions. Whatever sexual contact might be in the offing would be on her terms.

  We imagine her, steely-eyed, slowly looking the males over head to tail in their kinky leather outfits. Because the earlier dominance conflict was largely ritual, there were no injuries to betray which was the subordinate animal. Each male was in its own partitioned area, so they could not see one another and betray to the female their relative status through gestures of dominance or submission. Would she, despite the absence of signs apparent to the human observers, select the dominant male? Or would she find some other trait more attractive? The females were not hesitant or demure. In less than five minutes, every one of them presented herself for copulation to one of the males. In every case it was the dominant male. Prior familiarity was not required. Somehow she knew. There were no questions asked about his education, family, financial prospects, or the gentleness of his disposition. Every female was eager for sex with the dominant male.

  How could the female know? The answer seems to be that she could smell dominance. There is literally a chemistry between them, the odor of power. The dominant males give off some effluvium, some pheromone that subordinate males do not.18

  “I’m a celebrity. That’s what celebrities do,” offered one-time heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in explaining his scattershot propositioning of virtually every contestant at a beauty pageant. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, not known for his looks, explained a beautiful actress’s attraction to him in these words: “Power is the greatest aphrodisiac.”

  Dominant males preferentially copulate with attractive females. The females are as accommodating as they can be. They crouch down, they raise their hindquarters, they lift their tails out of the way. (We’re back to hamsters.) In Brown’s rodents-in-motorcycle-jackets experiment, during the first half hour of mating the number of “intromissions” by dominant males averaged 40; those subordinate males able to score at all (usually after the dominants were done) averaged a measly 1.6 for the half hour.

  Now suppose you grow up in a society in which such behavior is the community standard. Wouldn’t you tend to conclude that the animal who mounts and who makes repeated pelvic thrusts is the dominant partner, while the animal who crouches, who is receptive and passive, is subordinate in rank? Would it be surprising if this powerful symbol of dominance and submission were generalized in the gestural and postural vocabulary of the status-obsessed males?

  Before the invention of language, animals need clear symbols to communicate with one another. There’s a well-developed non-verbal language, which we’ve already described, including “My belly’s up and I surrender” and “I could bite you but I won’t, so let’s be friends.” It would be very natural if everyday reminders of status in the rank hierarchy were established by brief ceremonial mountings of males by males. He who mounts is dominant; he who is mounted is subordinate. No “intromission” is required. Such symbolic language is in fact widespread, and we will discuss it in greater detail in later chapters. It may have little or no overt sexual content.

  Under natural conditions, ordinary Norway rats—the same common variety whose social structure collapsed in Calhoun’s overcrowding experiments—arrange themselves into social hierarchies. A dominant might approach a submissive animal, sniff and lick its anogenital area, and mount it from the rear, holding on with the forepaws. The submissive animal might elevate its hindquarters so as to indicate its eagerness to be mounted. Male aggression in maintaining the dominance hierarchy includes banging flanks, rolling over and kicking, pinning the opponent with the forepaws, and boxing—the two animals actually stand toe-to-toe and let loose with left jabs and right uppercuts. Under normal conditions it’s rare that anyone is injured.

  Even among lobsters the aggressive posture is to stand upright—indeed, on their toes (or at least the tips of their claws). The submissive posture is flat on the ground, legs somewhat akimbo. The idea is to show that you can’t (quickly) do any harm, even if you want to. Many gestures in a similar spirit can be found among humans. Police confronting possibly armed suspects will order them to raise their hands (so it’s clear they’re weaponless); or clasp their hands behind their necks (ditto); or lean at a high inclination angle against a wall (so their hands must support them); or lie prone. Submissive words are well and good (“I didn’t mean nothin’, honest”), but a police officer putting his or her life on the line requires a firmer postural guarantee.

  In almost all higher mammals copulation occurs with the male entering the female’s vagina from behind. The female crouches down to assist the male in mounting her. She may make special motions to aid his entry, and those motions, like the bump and grind, become part of the symbolic language of enticement. The reason for the crouch is partly to present a favorable geometry for entry, but it also indicates that she has no intention of going anywhere. She’s not about to run away. Something similar can be seen in many other species. A male beetle come a-courting taps on the female’s carapace—in different beetle species, drumming with his feet, his antennae, his mouthparts, or his genitals—and she is instantly immobilized.19 The strange attractiveness to men of grotesquely deformed small feet (in China for nearly a millennium), and of very high heels (throughout the modern West), as well as traditional, constraining women’s clothing20 and the fetish of female helplessness in general, may be a human manifestation of the same symbolism.

  In many species the alpha male systematically threatens any other male attempting to mate with any female in the group, especially when conception is possible. Because of clandestine impregnations by subordinate males—kleptogamy—in which the females are often willing partners, the alpha does not always succeed; but he’s highly motivated to try. This is true within female dominance hierarchies as well. In domestic fowl, for example, the alpha female tends to attack any female that so much as walks up to an adult male during the breeding season. In gelada baboons, in which there is a female dominance hierarchy, high-ranking females do not, on average, mate more frequently during ovulation tha
n do the lower-ranking females; but the lower-ranking females rarely give birth. Something about their inferior status diminishes their fertility. Perhaps they are advertising ovulation when in fact no egg is released, or maybe they have many spontaneous abortions. But whatever it is, their low status prevents them from having babies. In marmosets, subordinate females tend to suppress their ovulations, but when they are freed from the female dominance hierarchy, they quickly become pregnant.21 Thus, genes contributing to high status in the female hierarchy—large stature, say, or superior social skills—get preferentially passed on to the next generation. This tends to stabilize a hereditary aristocracy.

  In cattle and many other animals, the alpha male may try to gather around him a harem of females and chase away the other males, but his success is often limited. When the breeding time has passed, the males return to their solitary ways and the females (and young) resume their own social grouping. Among deer this is called a hind group and entails its own dominance hierarchy. Commonly, the leader of such communities is determined not by bluff, threat, or fighting ability, but by age: The oldest fertile female leads. (The same convention is adopted among all-female herds of African elephants; even when composed of hundreds of elephants, the social structure is extremely stable.) These groups seem to be organized around protection. When attacked, they form a diamond- or spindle-shaped pattern, with the alpha female in front and the beta bringing up the rear. If the pursuers are gaining, the beta female may valorously stop short and engage the leading predator. As the rest of the group makes its escape, the alpha and beta may then exchange sentry duty.

  In skirmishes the advantages of the dominance hierarchy are clear. Even female mammals who evince little enthusiasm for individual dominance nevertheless arrange themselves into battle hierarchies in times of trouble. So dominance hierarchies have at least two functions, extremely useful both for individuals and for the group: They reduce dangerous and divisive fighting within the group (promoting what we might call political stability); and they are optimized for inter-group and interspecies conflict (providing what we might call military preparedness).

  A third purported advantage of dominance hierarchies is that they preferentially propagate the genes of the alphas, those who are physically or behaviorally fit. We might imagine a common conditional strategy for everyone in the group that would go something like: “If I’m big and strong, I intimidate; if I’m small and weak, I retreat.” This benefits everyone one way or another, and the sole focus is on the “I.”

  Being human, we naturally feel some whiff of resentment when we imagine ourselves dropped into such a dominance hierarchy with its craven submissiveness and manifest cruelties. Being human, we might also imagine the pleasures of a well-run social machine in which everybody knows his place, in which nobody gets out of line and causes trouble, in which deference and respect to superiors is routinely shown. Depending on whether we come from a more democratic or a more authoritarian upbringing, schooling, or society, we might feel that the benefits of the dominance hierarchy outweigh any affront to freedom and dignity, or vice versa. But this discussion isn’t yet about us. Humans are not red deer or hamsters or hamadryas baboons. For these species the cost-benefit analysis has been made. For them, law-and-order is the higher good. That there are innate individual rights and liberties of hamsters, needing institutional protection, is not a self-evident truth.

  ——

  To play the hierarchy game, at the very least you must be able to remember who’s who, to recognize rank, and to make the appropriate responses, dominant or submissive as circumstances dictate. The ranks are not fixed in time, so you must be able to reassess and revise facts of central importance. Dominance hierarchies bring benefits, but require thinking and flexibility. It’s not enough to have inherited nucleic acid instructions on how to threaten and how to submit. You must be able to apply those behaviors appropriately to a changing array of acquaintances, allies, rivals, lovers—whose dominance status is situational and whose identity and current circumstances cannot possibly be encoded in the nucleic acids. As is also true for hunting and escape strategies or learning from parents, hierarchies require brains. Nevertheless, the instructions in the genes are often vastly more in control than whatever wisdom resides in the brain.

  Early on, animals may not have been very adept at distinguishing individuals, contenting themselves with “If he gives off my favorite sex attractant, he’s my guy.” In interaction with predator and prey, or in the sexual adventuring of males who are not obliged to care for the offspring, there’s no high premium on the niceties of individual recognition. Then you can get away with “They all smell the same to me” or “They’re all the same in the dark.” Then you can stereotype and there are few adaptive penalties you must pay. But as evolutionary time passes, finer distinctions must be made. It might be useful to know who the father of your child is so you can encourage him to play a role in raising and protecting it. It might be useful to know the exact position of all the other males in the dominance hierarchy if you wish to avoid daily conflicts about rank, or if you wish to advance up the ladder.

  One of the many surprises in modern primate research is how readily the human observer—even if wholly insensitive to olfactory cues—can distinguish and recognize all the baboons in the troop, all the chimps in the band. If you spend a little time with them, they no longer all “look alike.” It takes some motivation and a little thought, but it’s well within our powers. Without such individual recognition, the greater part of the social life of higher animals, as of humans, remains hidden from us. With humans—because of language, dress, and behavioral eccentricities—individual recognition is much easier. Still, the temptation to divide humans and other species into a small number of stereotyped categories, rather than recognizing differences and judging individuals one at a time, remains deep within us.

  Racism, sexism, and a toxic mix of xenophobias still powerfully influence action and inaction. But one of the proudest achievements of our own age is the developing global consensus—despite many false starts—that we’re at last ready to leave behind this vestige of long ago. Many ancient voices speak within us. We are capable of muting some, once they no longer serve our best interests, and amplifying others as our need for them increases. This is cause for hope.

  As for the larger issue of dominance and submission, the jury is still out. True, all but the pomp and costume of monarchy have, in the last few centuries, been swept off the world stage, and attempts at democracy seem fitfully to be breaking out planetwide. But the call of the alpha male and the compliant assent of the omegas remain the daily litany of human social and political organization.

  ON IMPERMANENCE

  As for Man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

  Psalm 103, verses 15,16, King James translation

  * Alpha also dominates gamma and those below gamma; beta dominates delta and those below delta, and so on Since more animals submit than dominate, it might with greater justice be called a submission hierarchy than a dominance hierarchy But we humans are transfixed by dominance and often, at least in the West and setting religion aside, a little repelled by submission Vast libraries are written on “leadership” and virtually nothing on “followership”

  * The very recent history of human warfare provides a contrast: The alphas—generally old men—sequester themselves in safety, often where the young women are, and dispatch the subordinates—generally young men—out to fight and die. In no other species have alpha males gotten away with such cushy arrangements for themselves. It does require at least implicit cooperation between the alphas of rival groups, but this can often be arranged Apart from the social insects, no other species has been clever enough to invent war It is an institution optimally configured to benefit the alphas

  Chapter 12

  THE RAPE OF CAENIS

&
nbsp; Not the immortal gods can flee,

  nor the men who live only a day.

  Who has you within him

  is mad.

  SOPHOCLES,

  Antigone1

  Over the Earth he flies

  and the loud-echoing salt-sea.

  He bewitches and maddens the heart

  of the victim he swoops upon.

  He bewitches the race of the mountain-huntin

  lions and beasts of the sea,

  and all the creatures that Earth feeds,

  and the blazing sun sees—

  and man, too—

  over all you hold kingly power,

  Love, you are the only ruler

  over all these.

  EURIPIDES,

  Hippolytus2

  One of the myths of ancient Greece tells of Caenis, “loveliest of the maids of Thessaly,” who, while walking alone on an isolated shore, was spied by Poseidon—god of the sea, elder brother of the king of the gods, and sometime rapist. Mad with lust, the god attacked her on the spot. Afterwards, he took pity, and asked what he might give in reparation. Manhood, was her answer. She wished to be transformed into a man—not just any kind of man, but one extravagantly male, a warrior and “invulnerable.” Then she would never again be subjected to such a humiliation. Poseidon agreed. The metamorphosis was completed. Caenis became Caeneus.

  Time passed. Caeneus fathered a child. With his sharp and expertly wielded sword he killed many. But the swords and spears of his adversaries could not penetrate his body. The metaphor here is not hard to fathom. Eventually Caeneus became so full of himself that he scorned the gods. He erected his spear in the marketplace and made the people worship it and sacrifice to it. He insisted, on pain of death, that they worship no other gods. The symbolism is again lucid.