An
unbiased observer from another planet reflecting on human behavior from a perch
close enough to capture the broad strokes of human conduct, but far enough away
not to sweat the details of our separate behaviors would conclude that we are
rats. Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian
co-founder of classical ethology (the evolutionary study of animal behavior),
concluded this in his classic 1966 account of aggression in animals including
humans called On Aggression. The extraterrestrial would surmise this based
upon the observations that both rats and humans are “social and peaceful beings
within their clans, but veritable devils towards all fellow-members of their
species not belonging to their own communities.”[1] Our
Martian would have more optimism about the future of rats than humans, says
Lorenz, since rats stop reproducing when a state-of overcrowding is reached. We do not.
The
comparison of rats to humans is a provocation, one assumes. Presumably the unflattering parallel was
contrived to collar us and press us into remedial action on those aspects of our social behavior considered by Lorenz to be malfunctioning. At the
same time, objective scientist as Lorenz saw himself as being, there had to be
something more than invidious comparison at work in the twinning of rat and
man. There must be some ethological meat
on these insalubrious bones. Brown rats,
like men, rely on the transmission of experience to other members of the
community. That is, rats learn, rats
have culture. Additionally, and most
significantly rats, oftentimes models of cordiality towards their neighbors can
“change into horrible brutes as soon as the encounter members of any other
society of their own species”.[2] On
these counts – rats as startling comparison, rats as cultured, rats as murderers – rats can stand in for humans in speculations about nationalism,
war, and other dangerous aspects of human behavior. Rats have the additional advantage of not
directly objecting to being experimented upon.
Lorenz
provided an edifying, if somewhat chilling, account of rat group-on-group violence,
much of which seemingly was worked out in experimental arenas. The work is mainly from F Steiniger and
summarized by Lorenz. Steiniger found that
when rats were introduced into an enclosure, aggression grew incrementally
after a period of wariness. Once pair
formation between male and female rats occurred violence escalated and within a
couple of weeks a mated couple typically killed all other residents. Death often came to a rat in the form of peritoneal
sepsis – a rat dies of multitude of suppurating cuts. That being said, a skilled rat can deftly
inflict a nip on the carotid artery. Exhaustion and nervous-overstimulation
leading to adrenal gland disruption were another leading cause of death among
beleaguered rats.
Most groups of rats are constituted of genetically related families – rat mothers, rat
fathers, rat grandparents, rat siblings and rat cousins all getting along with
mutual accord. Tender and considerate
are rats to members of their family group.
Larger animals will, for example, “good humouredly allow smaller one to
take pieces of food away from them.”[3] In matters of reproduction they’ll generously
step aside and let “half- and three-quarter grown animals…take precedence of
the adults.” An intruder is not treated so solicitously and they are routed
rapidly and killed by bites. Since rats
identify family members by smell, the experimenter can manipulate the odor of
an animal and turn a beloved family member into a threatening intruder. Grandpa had never been so bewildered. In one such experiment Lorenz assured the
reader, though with a note of apology to the biologist who one supposes will
want to view the spectacle to its ghastly end, that the experimental animal was
spared his fate and removed into protective custody.
The
behavior of rats is seemingly a special case and this is what invites the
comparison with the humans. The ferocity
of rat intra-group aggression prompted Lorenz to puzzle over its evolutionary
origins. What species-preserving
function has caused its evolution, he asked.
Formulating evolutionary questions in this manner is frowned upon in contemporary
evolutionary biology as it invokes a group selection rather than an individual or
gene centered perspective, the last of which might be helpful considering the
kin-basis of rat families. Nevertheless,
attacks between neighbors where all is risked for modest return should be
regarded as unusual; Lorenz’s major conclusion, in fact, of On Aggression was that most aggressive encounters
between species do not result in the maiming or death of combatants. So the functional basis of rat conflicts call
for a robust explanation. Since a
traditional Darwin explanation eluded Lorenz who assumed, erroneously in the
view of most evolutionists, that Darwinian explanations can only be applied “where
the causes which induce selection derive from the extra-specific environment.”[4] By this I take him to mean that natural
selection provides an explanation of inter-specific encounters – predation and
so forth, or when an animal’s struggle for existence is assessed in the context
of a changing environment. Rather than exclusively
invoking natural selection Lorenz obliquely speculated that rat-clan gang
fights are the outcome of sexual selection where there is “grave danger that members
of a species may in demented competition drive each other into the most stupid
blind alley of evolution.”[5] But Lorenz is equivocal here, conceding that
unknown external factors may still at work.
“It is quite possible”, he concluded, that “group hate between rat-clans
is really a diabolical invention which serves no good purpose.”[6]
On
viewing human and rats Lorenz’s extraterrestrial may find these species indistinguishable
because aspects of their social behavior are so head-scratchingly difficult to
fathom. Group hatred between rat-clans and
the human appetite for war seem inexplicable viewed functionally. Lorenz does not, however, conclude from his
frustrated attempt to subject rat and human aggressive behavior to the rules
governing that of most other animals that those two errant species are somehow
outside of nature. But he comes
close. His use of heightened and subjective
language is interesting in this discussion.
For example, he recorded that when a stranger is detected among the rat
gang the information is transmitted in the house rat “by a sharp, shrill,
satanic cry.”[7] In describing the fate of the stranger Lorenz
reports that “Only rarely does one see an animal in such desperation and panic,
so conscious of the inevitability of a terrible death, as a rat which is about
to be slain by rats”. This talk of satanic cries, panic and desperation is accompanied
by reference to hatred, brutishness and so on.
Female rats are described as being “murder specialists”! Intra-specific aggression of this sort is described
as constituting “evil” – not a word, one assumes, to lightly throw around.
The
use of this charged language prepares us for an account of human aggressive behavior
that is contiguous with the rest of nature, but at the same time that appears
pathological and hard to fathom. Lorenz’s
task with respect to human behavior was to assess it ethologically using the
tools of his trade, but also to illustrate its profound aberrance in a manner
that could still be remedied by drawing upon those same tools. I’ll discuss these correctives in a future
post. For now though, we might pause to
reflect upon this strangest of kinships – man meet thy cousin.
No comments:
Post a Comment