F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Will Dabbs, MD
Leftists would have you believe that humanity is intrinsically good. If only you deprive young men of weapons, they will all sit down, weave basic hemp textiles by hand, and get along swimmingly. That’s a lie. Real people are literally nothing like that.
As a species, we lust after war. We actively seek it out. We bathe in it. That is our nature. No amount of deranged social engineering will ever change that.
As soon as humans formed communities, we began institutionally slaughtering each other. Even this deep into the Information Age, we still scrap over territory, religion, and resources. The species has been at war for 3,200 of the past 3,500 years. Our recent violent history is not an aberration. We are just finally getting good at it.
War consumes us. If you took every penny the United States spent on defense from the end of World War 2 in 1945 to the end of the Cold War in 1991, you could raze and rebuild every manmade object in North America. In 2024, we spent $880 billion on defense. That’s nearly $3,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. Now, hold that thought.
Chimpanzees are considered humanity’s closest living relatives. In direct sequence comparisons, roughly 98.8% of our DNA is structurally identical. Aside from bigger ears and a little hirsutism, chimps and people are just not so different.
I grew up watching old black-and-white Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movies on Saturday afternoons. Tarzan’s perennial sidekick was Cheeta the chimp. Cheeta was loyal, friendly, and cool. He had Tarzan’s back when he came face to face with malevolent lions, rhinos, or crocodiles.
We are quick to anthropomorphize our animals. We view dogs, cats, and monkeys as these adorable placid creatures devoid of our unfortunate sin nature. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That precious little puppy working over his squeaky toy is, in his mind at least, gnawing the very life out of some defenseless prey animal. Our buddies the chimpanzees have a dark side as well.
Back in the early 1970s, primate researchers were studying a large pack of chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania. The recognized leader of this motley mob was a formidable male they named Mike. However, like all living things, Mike eventually grew old. In the absence of his draconian leadership, Mike’s merry mob of monsters fractionated into two distinct cliques. These primatologists christened the two groups the Kasakela and the Kahama.
The schism took about eight months. The Kasakela consisted of eight adult males that these researchers named Figan, Satan, Sherry, Evered, Rodolf, Jomeo, Mike, and Humphrey, along with a dozen females and their offspring. The Kahamas retained six grown males—Hugh, Charlie, Godi, De, Goliath, and Sniff—as well as three adult females and their associated spawn.
There were really no territorial considerations. It’s a gigantic country, and they weren’t overpopulated. These two distinct tribes of chimps, all of whom shared common parentage, could easily set up shop in their own little piece of jungle heaven and never see the other again. Tragically, that’s not the way it played out.
Over the next four long years, the Kasakelas waged a campaign of extermination against the Kahamas. Kahama operators Hugh and Charlie undertook deep penetration missions into Kasakela territory sowing mayhem as well. They improvised weapons as the tactical situation demanded. Sharp stones were perennial favorites.
Chimpanzees are inexplicably territorial. Early in the war, male chimps on both sides aggressively patrolled the periphery of their respective homelands, raiding as the opportunities arose. Then, on January 7, 1974, these militant monkeys took things to the very next level.
A Kasama male named Godi was out foraging for grub when six adult Kasakela boys, along with one female named Gigi, ambushed him and beat him to death. This same combat element then attacked De, mortally wounding him. Kasama males Goliath and Hugh were also soon rendered hors de combat.
This Delta Force-grade mob of maniacs then attacked and killed Charlie, followed by a female named Madam Bee. The Kasakela chimps employed sound tactics, systematically isolating their enemies until they secured a decisive advantage. In short order, Sniff was the only surviving Kahama male. He made it about a year before a Kasakela war party terminated him as well.
These marauding simian warlords treated their women about the same way humans might. The Kasakela warriors murdered one female and set a further two to flight. Three of the more attractive young females they forcibly dragged back to Kahama territory as war booty.
With the Kahama tribe exterminated, the Kasakela seized their territory. However, neighboring chimp clans took notice that they were now spread pretty thin. In short order, the Kasakela were pushed back into their original boundaries.
No less a simian luminary than Jane Goodall documented everything. In her memoir “Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe,” she wrote, “For several years I struggled to come to terms with this new knowledge. Often when I woke in the night, horrific pictures sprang unbidden to my mind—Satan, cupping his hand below Sniff’s chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound on his face; old Rodolf, usually so benign, standing upright to hurl a four-pound rock at Godi’s prostrate body; Jomeo tearing a strip of skin from Dé’s thigh; Figan, charging and hitting, again and again, the stricken, quivering body of Goliath, one of his childhood heroes.”
Ours is an undeniably fallen world, and human beings aren’t anything special. All of creation reflects this sordid reality. At the end of the day, we’re really all just animals.
The post Human Nature and the Gombe Chimpanzee War appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
Leftists would have you believe that humanity is intrinsically good. If only you deprive young men of weapons, they will all sit down, weave basic hemp textiles by hand, and get along swimmingly. That’s a lie. Real people are literally nothing like that.
As a species, we lust after war. We actively seek it out. We bathe in it. That is our nature. No amount of deranged social engineering will ever change that.
As soon as humans formed communities, we began institutionally slaughtering each other. Even this deep into the Information Age, we still scrap over territory, religion, and resources. The species has been at war for 3,200 of the past 3,500 years. Our recent violent history is not an aberration. We are just finally getting good at it.
War consumes us. If you took every penny the United States spent on defense from the end of World War 2 in 1945 to the end of the Cold War in 1991, you could raze and rebuild every manmade object in North America. In 2024, we spent $880 billion on defense. That’s nearly $3,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. Now, hold that thought.
Human Analogs
Chimpanzees are considered humanity’s closest living relatives. In direct sequence comparisons, roughly 98.8% of our DNA is structurally identical. Aside from bigger ears and a little hirsutism, chimps and people are just not so different.
I grew up watching old black-and-white Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movies on Saturday afternoons. Tarzan’s perennial sidekick was Cheeta the chimp. Cheeta was loyal, friendly, and cool. He had Tarzan’s back when he came face to face with malevolent lions, rhinos, or crocodiles.
We are quick to anthropomorphize our animals. We view dogs, cats, and monkeys as these adorable placid creatures devoid of our unfortunate sin nature. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That precious little puppy working over his squeaky toy is, in his mind at least, gnawing the very life out of some defenseless prey animal. Our buddies the chimpanzees have a dark side as well.
This Present Darkness
Back in the early 1970s, primate researchers were studying a large pack of chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania. The recognized leader of this motley mob was a formidable male they named Mike. However, like all living things, Mike eventually grew old. In the absence of his draconian leadership, Mike’s merry mob of monsters fractionated into two distinct cliques. These primatologists christened the two groups the Kasakela and the Kahama.
The schism took about eight months. The Kasakela consisted of eight adult males that these researchers named Figan, Satan, Sherry, Evered, Rodolf, Jomeo, Mike, and Humphrey, along with a dozen females and their offspring. The Kahamas retained six grown males—Hugh, Charlie, Godi, De, Goliath, and Sniff—as well as three adult females and their associated spawn.
There were really no territorial considerations. It’s a gigantic country, and they weren’t overpopulated. These two distinct tribes of chimps, all of whom shared common parentage, could easily set up shop in their own little piece of jungle heaven and never see the other again. Tragically, that’s not the way it played out.
Over the next four long years, the Kasakelas waged a campaign of extermination against the Kahamas. Kahama operators Hugh and Charlie undertook deep penetration missions into Kasakela territory sowing mayhem as well. They improvised weapons as the tactical situation demanded. Sharp stones were perennial favorites.
War of the Gombe Chimpanzee
Chimpanzees are inexplicably territorial. Early in the war, male chimps on both sides aggressively patrolled the periphery of their respective homelands, raiding as the opportunities arose. Then, on January 7, 1974, these militant monkeys took things to the very next level.
A Kasama male named Godi was out foraging for grub when six adult Kasakela boys, along with one female named Gigi, ambushed him and beat him to death. This same combat element then attacked De, mortally wounding him. Kasama males Goliath and Hugh were also soon rendered hors de combat.
This Delta Force-grade mob of maniacs then attacked and killed Charlie, followed by a female named Madam Bee. The Kasakela chimps employed sound tactics, systematically isolating their enemies until they secured a decisive advantage. In short order, Sniff was the only surviving Kahama male. He made it about a year before a Kasakela war party terminated him as well.
These marauding simian warlords treated their women about the same way humans might. The Kasakela warriors murdered one female and set a further two to flight. Three of the more attractive young females they forcibly dragged back to Kahama territory as war booty.
With the Kahama tribe exterminated, the Kasakela seized their territory. However, neighboring chimp clans took notice that they were now spread pretty thin. In short order, the Kasakela were pushed back into their original boundaries.
No less a simian luminary than Jane Goodall documented everything. In her memoir “Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe,” she wrote, “For several years I struggled to come to terms with this new knowledge. Often when I woke in the night, horrific pictures sprang unbidden to my mind—Satan, cupping his hand below Sniff’s chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound on his face; old Rodolf, usually so benign, standing upright to hurl a four-pound rock at Godi’s prostrate body; Jomeo tearing a strip of skin from Dé’s thigh; Figan, charging and hitting, again and again, the stricken, quivering body of Goliath, one of his childhood heroes.”
Ours is an undeniably fallen world, and human beings aren’t anything special. All of creation reflects this sordid reality. At the end of the day, we’re really all just animals.
The post Human Nature and the Gombe Chimpanzee War appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
