Jesse Schill
Cultural Anthropology
Primate Behavior
Which Hu-monkey are We?
In my opinion, the bonobo is the best model for human behavior. Bonobo females tend to rule
over the males whereas human males and chimpanzees both tend to dominate over females. However,
bonobo’s express their emotion much less drastically than chimpanzees, and in most civilizations
humans are quite like this as we learn it’s not okay to throw fits like the chimpanzees do by throwing
rocks and having screaming fits and stuff. So maybe bonobo’s are just the equivalence of civilized
humans, and chimpanzees best reflect true human nature and behavior before it becomes civilized.
“The Antiquity of Empathy” talks about how humans are instinctually war-prone violent monstrous
apes, but then goes on to explain how humans also have developed empathy and other caring
emotions. I believe the chimpanzees act the way we humans most often would want to but we have
been taught by society and our parents that it isn’t acceptable to behave that way. In psychological
terms, chimpanzees seem to have stronger id impulses and bonobo’s appear to have more of a
developed superego. Sigmund Freud believed that sexual frustration and early sexual traumas are the
primary key to neurosis and other disorders. He believed that humans need sex in order to remain
mentally healthy. Bonobo’s are extremely sexual creatures and seem to be pretty much the exact same
way as Freud believed humans were. Also, bonobo’s kind of connect food with sex, and I think to a
certain extent humans do this too. When we go out on a date with a partner, most often it involves
going to a restaurant or consuming some type of food.