In "The Human Swarm," biologist Mark W. Moffett explores the fascinating world of human societies and how they shape our lives. He delves into the similarities between human societies and those of other animals, particularly ants, and examines the unique features that allow humans to live in massive, anonymous groups. This book offers a captivating look at how societies have influenced human behavior, beliefs, and interactions throughout history.
Moffett's work challenges us to think about the societies we live in and how they impact our daily lives. From the way we identify ourselves to how we interact with strangers, our societal structures play a crucial role in shaping our experiences. By examining both animal and human societies, Moffett provides valuable insights into the nature of social organization and its importance for our species.
The Power of Societies
Societies are incredibly powerful entities that shape our world in ways we often take for granted. While we may never meet most of our fellow citizens or travel the full extent of our nations, we still feel a strong connection to our society. This connection can manifest in various ways, such as feeling pride when seeing our national flag or experiencing a rush of emotion when hearing our national anthem.
The impact of societies goes beyond just emotional connections. They influence our beliefs, behaviors, and the way we interact with others. Societies provide a framework for cooperation, protection, and shared identity. They allow us to live and work together on a scale that would be impossible without such organization.
Moffett argues that our organization into societies over thousands of years has profoundly influenced human development. By exploring what societies mean to both animals and humans, he sheds light on the startling similarities we share with other species, particularly ants, and explains how our ability to live anonymously in large groups sets us apart from most other mammals.
The Limits of Individual Recognition
For most animals, knowing your neighbors is a significant advantage. It allows for cooperation, mutual protection, and shared child-rearing responsibilities. Many vertebrates, such as wolves and certain bird species, live in societies based entirely around cooperative child-rearing. In these groups, even non-parent adults help raise the young.
Living in a society also provides benefits in terms of protection and security. With more individuals working together, there are more eyes and ears to spot potential threats and more strength to defend against them. For example, elephants form protective circles around their young when faced with predators, while horses create a defensive formation with their foals in the center when wolves approach.
However, this reliance on individual recognition also limits the size of most animal societies. Most animal groups are built around the ability to recognize and know each individual member, similar to how humans might recognize everyone in their office or classroom. This feature puts a cap on how large these societies can grow.
For instance, ape societies max out at around 200 members because their brains are not capable of recognizing individuals beyond this number. This limitation explains why we don't see massive groups of lions or other animals working together on a large scale.
Humans, on the other hand, have managed to break free from this constraint. We've developed the ability to live in far larger societies by moving beyond the need to recognize each individual member of our group personally. This shift has allowed human societies to grow to unprecedented sizes, with millions or even billions of members.
The Anonymous Societies of Ants
To understand how humans have achieved such large-scale social organization, Moffett turns to an unlikely source of comparison: ants. Despite being vastly different from humans in many ways, ants share some remarkable similarities when it comes to social organization and cooperation.
Ants, like humans, live in highly populous and anonymous societies with significant levels of sophistication. Their colonies can consist of millions of individuals, all working together without the need for individual recognition. This anonymity allows ant societies to grow to enormous sizes, much like human cities or nations.
The level of organization and division of labor in ant colonies is truly impressive. For example, leafcutter ants have a complex system of roles within their nests. The largest ants serve as soldiers, guarding the nest and performing heavy-duty work. Medium-sized ants cut leaves, while smaller ants transport them. Even smaller ants process the leaves inside the nest, and the tiniest ants tend to the fungus gardens where the colony grows its food.
This division of labor extends to infrastructure and waste management as well. Ants build intricate networks of tunnels and chambers, some reaching depths that would be equivalent to several kilometers for humans. They also have dedicated waste disposal teams and design their nests to promote air circulation, showing a level of sophistication in environmental management that rivals or even surpasses human efforts in some areas.
The key to ants' ability to maintain such large, anonymous societies lies in their use of markers, particularly chemical signals. While they can't recognize individuals, ants can instantly tell whether another ant belongs to their colony based on its scent. This system of identification allows for seamless cooperation among millions of individuals who have never met before.
Markers: The Key to Human Societies
Just as ants use chemical markers to identify members of their colony, humans have developed a complex system of markers to distinguish between members of their society and outsiders. These markers allow us to live peacefully in large, anonymous groups where we don't personally know most of the people around us.
Human markers come in many forms, both obvious and subtle. Some are easily visible, such as carrying a passport, waving a national flag, or wearing a sports team's jersey. Others are related to cultural practices, like eating habits or gestures. For example, the Indian custom of eating with one's hands or the Italian habit of using expressive hand gestures while speaking serve as cultural markers.
Even seemingly small details can act as markers. Research has shown that Americans can often guess whether a person is a fellow American or an Australian based simply on how they wave or walk. These subtle cues help us quickly categorize people as members of our in-group or as outsiders.
The use of markers has evolved for a simple reason: they help us make quick judgments that can protect our safety and well-being. By allowing us to rapidly categorize individuals as part of our society or not, markers help us navigate social interactions and potential threats in large, anonymous groups.
Interestingly, humans are not alone in using markers to identify group membership. Other animals, such as elephants, have been observed distinguishing between different human groups based on visual cues like clothing. This ability to recognize and respond to markers appears to be a fundamental aspect of social living across species.
The Power of Markers in Human Psychology
The impact of markers on human psychology is profound and begins at a surprisingly early age. Research has shown that even infants as young as three months old display preferences for faces of the same race as their parents. By one year of age, children are already making assumptions about people's preferences based on shared language or ethnicity.
This early development of marker recognition suggests that our ability to categorize people based on group membership is hardwired into our brains. It's a skill that likely evolved to help our ancestors quickly identify potential allies or threats in a world where encountering strangers could be dangerous.
However, this innate tendency to categorize people also has some less positive consequences. It can lead to biases and prejudices, even when we're not consciously aware of them. For example, studies have shown that people tend to have more accurate memories of faces from their own racial group compared to those from other groups. This bias can have serious real-world implications, such as in eyewitness testimonies in criminal cases.
Markers also influence our empathy and emotional responses to others. Research has found that people often show less neurobiological activity associated with empathy when watching someone of a different race experience pain compared to someone of their own race. This unconscious bias in empathy highlights how deeply ingrained our responses to group markers can be.
The power of markers extends beyond just identification and categorization. They can also carry strong emotional and symbolic meaning. Consider how certain symbols, like national flags or religious icons, can evoke powerful feelings of pride, loyalty, or even anger in people. These emotional responses to markers play a significant role in shaping group identity and social cohesion.
Hunter-Gatherer Societies: More Similar Than Different
While our modern societies may seem vastly different from those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, Moffett argues that there are more similarities than we might expect, particularly when it comes to social organization and identity.
Hunter-gatherer societies, despite their nomadic lifestyle and reliance on nature for sustenance, lived in clearly defined social groups called band societies. These bands typically consisted of a few unrelated, three-generational families that traveled together, setting up temporary camps as they moved in search of food and water.
However, it's important to note that while the immediate band was an important unit, hunter-gatherers identified with a wider society beyond just their band. When asked about their identity, they would typically state the name of their larger society, not just their individual band. This sense of belonging to a larger group is remarkably similar to how we identify with nations or ethnic groups today.
Like modern societies, hunter-gatherer groups had clear markers that distinguished them from outsiders. These could be physical items like distinctive clothing or tools, or cultural practices like specific rituals or ways of speaking. For example, different Native American tribes could be identified by the unique beadwork patterns on their moccasins.
The strong sense of societal identity among hunter-gatherers is evident in how they viewed themselves in relation to other groups. Many societies referred to themselves using words that translate to "real people" or "human," implying that outsiders were somehow less than fully human. This attitude of viewing one's own group as superior is a trait that persists in modern societies as well.
The Superiority Complex of Societies
One consistent feature across human societies, both ancient and modern, is the collective belief in their own superiority. This trait is so common that it appears to be an inherent characteristic of human social groups.
Many societies throughout history have referred to themselves using terms that translate to "the real people" or simply "humans," implying that outsiders are somehow less than human. This naming convention is not limited to ancient or isolated cultures; even the words "Dutch" and "Deutsch" (German) come from words in their respective languages meaning "human."
This sense of superiority often extends to how societies view their own characteristics. Whatever traits a society possesses, its members tend to view them positively. For example, Americans often take pride in their culture of individualism, while Chinese people might boast about their communal values. Each society frames its particular attributes as virtues, regardless of how they might be perceived by outsiders.
The flip side of this self-aggrandizement is the tendency to view outsiders as inferior. This hierarchical view of humanity, with one's own group at the top and others arranged below, has been recognized by thinkers throughout history, including the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
At its most extreme, this view can lead to the dehumanization of outsiders, treating them as less than human. Historical examples of this include the treatment of Romani people in Europe or the rhetoric used to justify the Rwandan genocide. By categorizing certain groups as subhuman, societies can justify discriminatory or even violent actions against them.
However, it's important to note that this sense of superiority isn't always expressed through hostility or violence. Often, it manifests as a milder form of ethnocentrism – the belief that one's own culture or society is the standard by which others should be judged. This can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts in cross-cultural interactions, but it can also serve as a source of pride and social cohesion within a group.
The Unique Human Ability to Assimilate Outsiders
Despite our innate tendencies to favor our own group and view outsiders with suspicion, human societies have developed a remarkable ability to assimilate newcomers. This capacity sets us apart from most other species and has been crucial to the growth and development of human civilizations.
For many animals, integrating outsiders into an established group is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, are notoriously xenophobic and struggle to accept new members into their communities. The process of introducing a captive chimp to a new group is long, difficult, and often violent.
In contrast, human societies have become relatively adept at accepting and integrating newcomers, albeit with certain conditions. This ability has allowed human groups to grow, diversify, and adapt in ways that would be impossible for more rigid social structures.
The process of assimilation typically requires several key elements:
Usefulness: Newcomers often need to find a way to be useful to the society they're joining. Throughout history, immigrants with needed skills or qualifications have often been more readily accepted. For example, ancient Rome granted citizenship to teachers and doctors to address shortages in these professions.
Identity Adaptation: Immigrants often have to accept a certain loss of their original identity. A person from a specific tribe or ethnic group might find themselves categorized more broadly in their new society, based on nationality or race rather than their specific cultural background.
Flexibility from Insiders: Successful integration also requires some flexibility from the existing members of the society. This might involve adapting to new cultural influences or redefining social categories to include newcomers.
Demonstration of Loyalty: In times of social stress, immigrants often feel pressure to prominently display their loyalty to their new society. This can involve adopting local customs, learning the language, or displaying patriotic symbols.
While the process of assimilation is far from perfect and can involve significant challenges and hardships for immigrants, the fact that human societies can integrate outsiders at all is a remarkable achievement. It has allowed for the exchange of ideas, skills, and cultures that has driven much of human progress throughout history.
However, it's important to note that the lives of integrated immigrants can remain precarious, particularly during times of social stress or conflict. The pressure to continually prove one's belonging and loyalty can be a significant burden for many immigrants and their descendants.
The Impermanence of Societies
While societies play a crucial role in human life, it's important to understand that no individual society is permanent. Throughout history, societies have risen, flourished, and eventually declined or transformed into something new.
Archaeologist Joyce Marcus has shown that state societies in ancient times typically had a lifespan of between 200 and 500 years. These societies would generally follow a pattern of growth through conquest and expansion, followed by a period of stability, and eventually a process of fragmentation or collapse.
However, the end of a society is rarely as sudden or complete as it might appear from a distance. For example, the fall of the Mayan civilization is often portrayed as a rapid and catastrophic collapse. In reality, it was more of a gradual fragmentation. When Spanish explorers arrived in Mexico in the 16th century, not long after the fall of the last major Mayan kingdom, they found numerous smaller Mayan societies that had emerged from the remnants of the larger civilization.
This pattern of societal change and fragmentation is not limited to ancient history. We can see similar processes at work in more recent times, such as the dissolution of the Soviet Union or the breakup of Yugoslavia. In each case, a large, complex society fractured into multiple smaller societies, often along pre-existing ethnic or cultural lines.
While individual societies may be impermanent, the human need for social organization persists. When one society falls, others typically emerge to take its place. This constant process of societal change and renewal has been a defining feature of human history.
In today's globalized world, some people speculate about the possibility of a single, unified human society without borders. However, all of human experience suggests that we need not just a society of our own, but also other societies against which to define ourselves. The existence of "the other" seems to be a fundamental aspect of how we construct our social identities.
Even in extremely small-scale settings, humans tend to form distinct societies. Moffett gives the example of the tiny Pacific island of Futuna, which for centuries was home to two perpetually conflicting chiefdoms. Despite their proximity and shared environment, these two societies maintained their distinct identities, never merging into a single group.
This human tendency to form and maintain distinct societies suggests that dreams of a single, cosmopolitan world society may be unrealistic. Even in the face of global challenges or potential extraterrestrial threats (as once speculated by former US President Ronald Reagan), it's likely that distinct human societies would persist, much as aboriginal societies survived the arrival of European colonizers.
The Enduring Nature of Human Societies
While individual societies may come and go, the concept of society itself appears to be an enduring and necessary part of the human experience. Throughout our history as a species, humans have consistently organized themselves into distinct social groups, each with its own identity, customs, and markers.
This persistence of societies speaks to their fundamental importance in human life. Societies provide a framework for cooperation, a sense of belonging, and a way of understanding our place in the world. They allow us to live and work together on a scale that would be impossible for individuals or small groups alone.
The enduring nature of societies also highlights their adaptability. As circumstances change, societies evolve, split, merge, or transform. New societies emerge to fill the voids left by those that decline. This constant process of social evolution has been a driving force in human history, allowing our species to adapt to a wide range of environments and challenges.
However, the persistence of distinct societies also means that the dream of a single, unified human society may remain just that – a dream. Our deep-seated need for group identity and the distinction between "us" and "them" seems to be an integral part of human nature.
This doesn't mean that greater cooperation and understanding between different societies is impossible. In fact, our ability to form larger and more complex social structures over time suggests that we can continue to expand our circles of cooperation and empathy. But this process is likely to involve the creation of new, larger social identities rather than the complete dissolution of all societal boundaries.
Understanding the nature and importance of societies can help us navigate the complexities of our increasingly interconnected world. By recognizing both the benefits and limitations of our social structures, we can work towards building more inclusive and cooperative societies while respecting the diversity of human social organization.
Conclusion
"The Human Swarm" offers a fascinating exploration of human societies, drawing insights from both the animal kingdom and human history. Mark W. Moffett's work challenges us to think deeply about the social structures that shape our lives and the world around us.
Key takeaways from the book include:
- The power of societies in shaping human behavior and beliefs
- The similarities between human societies and those of other social animals, particularly ants
- The importance of markers in allowing humans to live in large, anonymous groups
- The innate human tendency to categorize people based on group membership
- The persistence of distinct societies throughout human history
- The unique human ability to assimilate outsiders into our societies
- The impermanence of individual societies contrasted with the enduring nature of social organization itself
By understanding these aspects of human social organization, we can gain valuable insights into our own behavior, the functioning of our societies, and the challenges we face in an increasingly globalized world.
Moffett's work reminds us that while our modern societies may seem far removed from our evolutionary past, many of the same social instincts and patterns continue to shape our lives today. Recognizing these deep-seated aspects of our nature can help us build more effective and harmonious social structures, while also understanding the limitations and challenges inherent in human social organization.
As we look to the future, the insights provided by "The Human Swarm" can help us navigate the complex social landscape of our globalizing world. By understanding the fundamental nature of human societies, we can work towards fostering cooperation and understanding between different groups while respecting the diversity and complexity of human social organization.
Ultimately, Moffett's book leaves us with a deeper appreciation for the remarkable achievement that human societies represent. Our ability to live and work together in large, anonymous groups has allowed our species to achieve incredible things. At the same time, the book reminds us of the ongoing challenges we face in balancing our need for group identity with the realities of our interconnected world.
As we continue to grapple with global challenges and strive for greater cooperation between different societies, the insights provided by "The Human Swarm" offer valuable guidance. By understanding the deep roots of our social nature, we can work towards building a future that harnesses the power of human cooperation while respecting the diversity of our social identities.