Freedom Expanded: Book 1 the Biology

624 Freedom Expanded: Book 1 The Biology Part 8:4G The fragility of the love-indoctrination, mate selection process In Parts 8:4B and 8:4D it was explained that love-indoctrination is an extremely difficult process to develop, but not impossible. Its difficulty was illustrated by the fact that while chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans have been able to develop a high degree of love- indoctrinated selflessness and the equivalent (or thereabouts) level of consciousness of that of a two-year-old human, where they have self-awareness and can recognise, appreciate and favour selfless behaviour, not one of these species has been able to completely bring an end to the ‘animal condition’ because they still live in a male-dominated, patriarchal world where males aggressively compete for mating opportunities. It was also stressed that even the bonobos who have been able to develop love-indoctrination to the point of bringing to an end male competition for mating opportunities and the male dominated world that results from it, have not yet completed the process because they still need to use sex as an appeasement device to contain residual aggression. So although the development of love-indoctrination assisted by mate selection meant the impasse to developing the fully integrated state had been finally completely breached, that didn’t mean the fully integrated state would automatically develop. Rather, the technology was in place for it to be developed but the process was still a difficult one to complete. What follows are some powerful illustrations that show just how difficult and fragile the development of integration through love-indoctrination and mate selection is. To provide background to these illustrations I first need to introduce the work of the legendary and visionary palaeontologist Louis Leakey (1903-1972). The son of British missionaries in Kenya (where he was born), Leakey so believed ‘that knowledge of the past would help us to understand and possibly control the future’ (Disclosing the Past, Mary Leakey, 1984) that in 1959, against prevailing views, he began the search for fossil evidence of the emergence of humans in Africa. This search, which was to prove stunningly successful, wasn’t Leakey’s only incredibly inspired initiative, he also handpicked three women to study the great apes in their natural habitat—Jane Goodall, who began her field study of chimpanzees in Tanzania in1960 ; Dian Fossey, who began her field study of gorillas in Rwanda in1967 ; and Birute Galdikas, who began her field study of orangutans in South East Asia in 1971. As part of his plan to only study the African apes Leakey originally wanted Galdikas to study bonobos but because of the difficulties involved in living in the Congo she ended up studying the orangutans in Borneo instead. So impressed by, and thankful for, Leakey’s initiatives in palaeontology and primatology—the former of which his wife Mary, son Richard and his wife Meave, and granddaughter Louise have carried on—that I dedicated my 1991 book Beyond The Human Condition to him (alongside Sir Laurens van der Post and Sir James Darling). With Dian Fossey Leakey ‘struck gold’, for she fearlessly acknowledged the truth in what she was observing about the crucial role nurturing was playing in producing the exceptional gentleness and cooperativeness of gorillas. Fossey was a remarkably strong-willed woman and the universally practiced denial-complying variety of mechanistic science held little sway over her. It seems entirely appropriate that after she was murdered at her research station in Rwanda in 1985 she was buried alongside her gentle gorilla friend Digit, who had given his life defending his group from poachers. Part 8:4G The fragility of the love-indoctrination, mate selection process 625 Without the relief from unbearable self-confrontation that comes from being able to understand the human condition, few, if any, have been able to cope with the honesty of Fossey’s studies and, as a result, she has been misrepresented as merely a fanatical gorilla conservationist—such as in the 1988 film of her life,Gorillas in the Mist. However, Fossey’s wonderful treatise on gorilla behaviour—the 1983 book Gorillas in the Mist upon which the film was based—shows just how courageous a scientist she was. As mentioned in Part 8:4F, and prior to that in Part 5:1, when illustrating the strength of character that had to be developed to curtail male aggression and the centred, security of self needed to be an effective, love-indoctrinating mother, Fossey, in Gorillas in the Mist, wrote about how ‘Old Goat’ was ‘an exemplary parent’ and that, as a result, her son ‘Tiger’ was ‘a contented and well adjusted individual’. While gorillas have not been able to develop as much love-indoctrination as bonobos, seemingly because they have lacked ideal nursery conditions, denial-free, honest studies of their behaviour, in particular Fossey’s, have revealed the strong relationship between nurturing and integrativeness that is the love-indoctrination process. The following extracts from Gorillas in the Mist reveal more about Old Goat’s nurturing of Tiger. Not only that, they also reveal the extreme fragility of the love-indoctrination process, showing how any disruption to it would result in a regression back to the competitive, each-for-his-own, opportunistic, divisive, ‘animal condition’ existence. Again, the underlinings have been added for emphasis: ‘Like human mothers, gorilla mothers show a great variation in the treatment of their offspring. The contrasts were particularly marked between [the gorilla mothers] Old Goat and Flossie. Flossie was very casual in the handling, grooming, and support of both of her infants, whereas Old Goat was an exemplary parent’ (p.174 of 282). The effect of Old Goat’s ‘exemplary parenting’ of Tiger is apparent in the following extract: ‘Like Digit, Tiger also was taking his place in Group 4’s growing cohesiveness. By the age of five, Tiger was surrounded by playmates his own age, a loving mother, and a protective group leader. He was a contented and well-adjusted individual whose zest for living was almost contagious for the other animals of his group. His sense of well-being was often expressed by a characteristic facial “grimace”’ (pp.186-187). The ‘growing cohesiveness’ (developing integration) brought about by ‘loving mother[s], and a protective group leader’ is love-indoctrination. Incidentally, with regard to the ‘protective group leader[s]’, namely the male silverback gorillas, their large size is not only due to having to compete for dominance but also reflects that while bonobos depend on the safety of trees for the secure, threat-free environment, gorillas evidently selected for physical size and great strength, particularly in the males, to protect their groups from external, predatory threats—as the anthropologist Adolph H. Schultz noted, the adult male gorilla ‘is a remarkably peaceful creature, using its incredible strength merely in self-defence’ (The Life of Primates, 1969, p.34 of 281). Fossey’s account of the love-indoctrinated Tiger later in life illustrates how nurtured love is necessary to produce the integrated group. It describes how the secure, integrative, loving Tiger tried to maintain integration or love in the presence of an aggressive, divisive gorilla after the group’s integrative silverback leader, Uncle Bert, was shot by poachers: ‘The newly orphaned Kweli, deprived of his mother, Macho, and his father, Uncle Bert, and bearing a bullet wound himself, came to rely only on Tiger for grooming the wound, cuddling, and sharing warmth in nightly nests. Wearing concerned facial expressions, Tiger stayed near the three-year-old, responding to his cries with comforting belch vocalizations. As Group 4’s new young leader, Tiger regulated the animals’ feeding 626 Freedom Expanded: Book 1 The Biology and travel pace whenever Kweli fell behind. Despondency alone seemed to pose the most critical threat to Kweli’s survival during August 1978. Beetsme…was a significant menace to what remained of Group 4’s solidarity. The immigrant, approximately two years older than Tiger and finding himself the oldest male within the group led by a younger animal, quickly developed an unruly desire to dominate. Although still sexually immature, Beetsme took advantage of his age and size to begin severely tormenting old Flossie three days after Uncle Bert’s death. Beetsme’s aggression was particularly threatening to Uncle Bert’s last offspring, Frito [son of Flossie]. By killing Frito, Beetsme would be destroying an infant sired by a competitor, and Flossie would again become fertile. Neither young Tiger nor the aging female was any match against Beetsme. Twenty-two days after Uncle Bert’s killing, Beetsme succeeded in killing fifty- four-day-old Frito even with the unfailing efforts of Tiger and the other Group 4 members to defend the mother and infant…Frito’s death provided more evidence, however indirect, of the devastation poachers create by killing the leader of a gorilla group. Two days after Frito’s death Flossie was observed soliciting copulations from Beetsme, not for sexual or even reproductive reasons—she had not yet returned to cyclicity and Beetsme still was sexually immature. Undoubtedly her invitations were conciliatory measures aimed at reducing his continuing physical harassment. I found myself strongly disliking Beetsme as I watched his discord destroy what remained of all that Uncle Bert had succeeded in creating and defending over the past ten years…I also became increasingly concerned about Kweli, who had been, only a few months previously, Group 4’s most vivacious and frolicsome infant. The three-year-old’s lethargy and depression were increasing daily even though Tiger tried to be both mother and father to the orphan. Three months following his gunshot wound and the loss of both parents, Kweli gave up the will to survive…It was difficult to think of Beetsme as an integral member of Group 4 because of his continual abuse of the others in futile efforts to establish domination, particularly over the indomitable Tiger…Tiger helped maintain cohesiveness by “mothering” Titus and subduing Beetsme’s rowdiness.

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