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The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Violence

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Because it reaches deep inside the dark soul of man, this is a book that has aroused a great deal of controversy. Michael Ghiglieri has tackled a very difficult subject - the origins of male violence. Emerging from the field of anthropology and evolutionary psychology is the argument that male violence is deeply entrenched, that it is part and parcel of being male, not largely due to social factors. This idea makes people uncomfortable because if violence is a largely immutable male characteristic, than utopian social schemes won't be able banish it, to throw it on the dust heap of history. The author is an anthropology professor who toiled as a field biologist in Africa and Asia, where he worked with chimpanzees, the most intelligent of the great apes and man's closest animal relation. This work with the great apes - once thought to be peaceful animals - has contributed to his conviction that violence - while varying by degree from individual to individual - is an immutable human trait as it is among the chimpanzees. Ghiglieri is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and believes that most traits make sense when viewed through the prism of reproduction. He argues that male violence is largely a reproductive strategy.
Ghiglieri begins by citing the ever-larger body of scientific evidence that indicates just how different men and women are and why their reproductive goals fundamentally diverge. Then, he begins to address the spectrum of male violence - warfare, genocide, warfare, murder and rape - and begins each chapter with real world examples before segueing into a recitation of his evidence as to which reproductive and biological imperatives are fulfilled by that behavior.
One of the most controversial chapters of the book is about rape. While campus feminists have repeated the mantra that "rape is about power, not about sex" so many times that it has become part of the conventional wisdom, others have long questioned this certainty from purely logical viewpoint. After all, in a rape, the victim is not simply subjugated and beaten, but sexually violated. Now, Ghiglieri explains rape in the animal world and how it fulfills a mating strategy and then methodically marshals his evidence to prove that it is a disturbing but entrenched human mating strategy as well.
In a bold move, the author has a number of prescriptions - strategies - that he advocates in order to minimize the effects of male violence. In addition to our violent traits, he cites mankind's attributes, his ability to cooperate, to channel behavior, which will allow us to cope with man's innate aggression. Ghiglieri wants us to be appropriately tough on criminals, to eliminate those who are most violent, to encourage self-defense and advocates a criminal justice system that is almost biblical in its sense of retribution. According to him, these actions would reduce the damage done my male violence as they channel the protective strategies that are innate to me.
So, to Ghiglieri, there is no font of primitive happiness, no ideal society that so many anthropologists have sought. Man simply has a dark, aggressive side that is programmed into his DNA and so while it may be challenged, it can never be eliminated. With its disturbing anecdotal examples of male violence and its conviction that male aggression is an immutable reality, "The Dark Side of Man" is a disturbing book, but instead of looking away from some dark questions, it addresses them head-on. While the outlook for the world will forever be grim if man's baser instincts are hard-wired into us, it is probably better to be realistic about them so that we can develop effective countermeasures.

Ghiglieri convincingly points out the parallels in human behavior found in primatology, focusing on the capacity for our closest genetic relatives, the chimps, to literally murder, rape, and go to war. Although I find the third part of his book, which is focused on finding appropriate responses to man's inherent biological capacity for violence to be rather polemical tripe, his anthropological look at what is often considered as merely a problem of socialization and environment is refreshing. His assertion that lex talionis, "eye for an eye" justice is an antidote for violent behavior within American society might better be encapsulated within another book. There are drawbacks to this approach that Ghiglieri doesn't examine, and might better be addressed by someone experienced in criminal psychology. Also, when comparing the American criminal justice system to systems in France and Saudi Arabia, it is best to entertain many hypotheses for the ostensive differences in recidivism, crime rates, and quality of life- surely the data is not so clear cut to always suggest a cause and effect relationship between the harshness of punishment and the subsequent levels of crime. And this isn't even to mention the prickly possibilities for human rights abuse, though certainly it is troubling to see criminals released back to society only to claim more victims. So in short, while it is no coincidence that men are the vast majority of violent offenders, and that the differing abilities of men to sire an infinite amount of offspring, in comparison to women being limited has left its traces on human psychology, facile answers aren't to be found. Calling to public opinion on the death penalty, as well as police departments, only demonstrates that indignation is a protective response to maintain reciprocal altruism in society- not that this means the death penalty will be effective in the age of megalopolises. Thus I don't see Ghiglieri's pronouncements on social policy to be as convincing as his empirical evidence to suggest that violence predates civilization and its taint- M. Mead be damned.

Violence is right up there with sex as a subject of universal and apparently unslakable interest. And if the two are linked, how much more fascinating-and here's a whole book that purports to be about sex and violence, with chapter titles like "Rape", "Murder", "War", and "Genocide".

Alas for the devotees of Real Crime, this book looks at the subject more clinically, but that makes it more interesting, really. If you actually look at the way men behave in certain extreme circumstances, rather than sneaking sidelong glances and then looking away, and talk straightforwardly about what you see, you can come to some surprising and useful conclusions.

I should say that the conclusions are surprising to academic theorists of criminal behavior, but not so surprising to the average person. The average person has always felt that rape is about sex rather than domination, and that if you want to discourage mugging, just let a few victims shoot a few muggers. The average person thinks that war, too, is mostly about ganging up to try and take something that belongs to someone else, and getting into a fight. But this is a book that comes to such commonsense conclusions in a way that should also pass muster with the theoreticians.

However, a book that talks about extremely antisocial behavior as being linked to one particular sex is going to have tough sledding these days. Furthermore, if it embraces the insights and results of human evolutionary psychology it is going to alienate religious fundamentalists as well as swatches of others of the "blank slate" school of human mental development.

Still with me? Well, the book is quite good, and to this reader at least, offered the surprising insights of a couple of paragraphs back. Perhaps too many years of hearing about the Patriarchy and its strategies of domination has kept me from thinking straight about why men do what they do, from flakking junk bonds to building bridges to robbing banks. Mostly, deep down, they do what they do to get women. Not to oppress them, or dominate them, or enslave them in the kitchen, but to have sex with them. Ghiglieri is an anthropologist, and his field studies (of chimps in particular) have given him a detachment that he applies to his own species. He starts with ideological biases, of course, but apparently also an intellectual honesty that lets the data speak to him and change his mind.

He paints a grim picture, but rather than throw up his hands at the intractability of violent behavior, Ghighieri believes that we have the intelligence and, as important, certain countervailing behaviors-the instincts for cooperating and for monitoring cheating-to enable us to contain and channel the always latent violence in our natures. Society foils our impulses in this direction right now (in particular the criminal justice system does), but need not.

So I recommend this book. It's a good read, with statistics but also with stories, and its conclusions do not get out too far ahead of its numbers. (Stats on human behavior, of course, are almost always shaky!). And it will teach you some things you didn't know about chimpanzees, too.

I highly recommend this objective, scientifically-grounded look at male violence. The book is filled with fascinating examples, anticdotes and statistics to support the author's hypothesis which often conflicts with society's traditional view of violence. Additionally, Dr. Ghiglieri's writing style is clear, concise and entertaining.

This book is a must read for anyone with a curious mind and desire to be part of a better future.

You will probably find that most other reviews of this book say something along the lines of "Interesting arguments, but..." or "Compelling stories, but..." We have grown accustomed to living well and find it almost incomprehensible that man at his basest nature is evil. We therefore try to caveat the common sense conclusions and compelling stories found in Dark Side of Man and say to ourself that things really can't be all that bad. People live better for a variety of reasons - God, parents, friends, a conscious decision to make society a better place. Dr. Ghiglieri shows what may happen to us when resources become scarce and we are forced to address our primary concern - survival. Don't let the politically correct naysayers dissuade you from reading this book. The book is not nearly as fatalistic as some may have you believe. The last chapter shows that we can all live better, be better. We of course are not apes. We can make decisions after all.

Overall, I think this book is very worthwhile because it does help put human violence into some perspective in nature. "Dark Side" features a reasonably convincing argument that some fundamental kinds of violence persist because they served survival needs in our evolutionary past. That is, violence toward each other is not something that humans invented or which we lapse into solely because we weren't spanked enough as children. Orangutans commit rape, male porpoises gang up on females to block her escape and inseminate her, chimps conduct territorial raids and even wage war. Reading this book, you get the feeling that you can make a little more sense out of the latest headlines about "senseless" violence.

The imbalance of this view comes in because the theme of the book focuses on the roots of violent behavior, and ignores both the equally compelling evidence for altruistic behavior in nature and the evidence of human capacity to regulate their own behavior in various ways, rather than responding in a stereotyped way to impulses.

Another weakness is that the book relates animal and human violence in an overly simplistic way at times, such as equating Orangutan rape with human rape. The motives, opportunities, and circumstances of human violence appear far more varied than among animals in these kinds of crimes. It's easy to believe that the thinking and feeling patterns that lead to violent behavior are much more elaborate and have many more variables than in the animals examined by the author. The comparison of the violent acts of the different species can only go so far.

People who really like this may also enjoy the similar but more comprehensive and more scholarly (i.e. more difficult to read) "Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson.

This is an 'in your face' look at male violence from an author who has clearly had direct experience of human male violence eg in Vietnam and Africa.

The first section is 'Roots' in which he explains how violence is a male reproductive strategy ie it is a trait that can lead to more offspring for males. He discusses sex differences, which he exaggerates a little, but he particularly recognizes the massive significance both of males staying in their birth groups and the unnatural enforcement of female monogamy.

The second section covers rape, murder, war and genocide. Though there is an argument as to whether rape is about power or sex the answer seems to be sex - but with men getting turned on by the humiliation of females in all sexual situations and not only in rape. It seems that domination of females is part and parcel of male sexuality and so, rather than arguing between sex and power as the true motive for rape, we are now faced with the fact that male power, aggression, domination, sadism IS sex. Andrea Dworkin and Co. were right after all though the clue was always there when men talk about their sexploits as 'conquests' or the conquering of countries as rape. Sex/reproduction is the motive but the male sexual emotions are those of domination and power.

As so often happens in these type of books we get a little bit about how women prefer violent men as mates. And as also happens in this argument, the evidence provided for this female preference is a female character in a novel written by a male!!! Ghiglieri is right, though, in recognizing how a woman might need a violent man as a mate to protect her from outside male violence. It's a Hobson's choice for women, though - just like female gorillas and their infanticidal mates.

In the chapter on war the author importantly recognizes how female exogamy and male relatedness is rare in nature and opens up a Pandora's Box of male violence. It 'sets the stage for exotic adaptations in the macho male sexual selection arms race' - male bonding, war, nepotism, sexism, xenophobia, infanticide, murder.....'Instincts are coded in the male psyche that they must win against other males'. The author does point out that many men do avoid killing and avoid many of the extremes but he does not explore this enough in my opinion.

The last section is meant to provide some answers but I found it far from doing so. Punishment seems to be an important answer. Ghigieri also brings in the human moral instincts but again, this has come rather late in the story and is not explored enough. The family gets some of the blame - as if the natural dark side of man turns out to be the fault of single mothers after all!!

Though the author accepts the lack of monogamy, especially in human males, as a major force behind the dark side of man he does not explore how greater equality between males could reduce polygyny (whether literal or in the form of serial monogamy or marriage plus adultery/mistresses). He does not explore how men only accepting their fair share of female fertility could improve all this violent competition, and perhaps men could concentrate more on parenting behavior than mating competition. This requires looking at sex as less positive for males - as it obviously is often very negative for females - rather than again blindly overlooking the obvious if devastating conclusion that sex itself is the root of all evil. Ahhh!!!

Are men ever going to be able to see that sex is not about long-term happiness and see it for what it really is? Or are the genetic puppet-masters just far too powerful? Sexual rejection, as a very real experience for males who therefore potentially face personal genetic extinction, gives sex a very powerful hold over men and driving force behind pretty much everything they do.

We cannot deny that there are some very powerful truths in this book. There are also other sides that have not been explored including the fact that those other humans - ie females - are gradually undermining male domination and may change the picture with time. The natural female had to go undercover when she became men's property and had to concentrate on survival rather than challenging the bonded male kin-groups and the subsequent excesses of male behavior. Who knows what her emergence from the shadow of the human male may bring.

Many will find this book disturbing, but I loved it. The best thing about this book is that Ghiglieri went right to the core issues and questions about violence -- deals with it all from rape to genocide -- nothing left out. While I do not think he has the full and final word on the subject, anyone who is serious about dealing with violence MUST read this book or they are automatically out of the loop and cannot be taken seriously. This means all anthropologists, sociologists, anyone in public adminstration, crime control (i.e, all justice/police/law enforcement departments), the Department of Defense and ESPECIALLY everyone who works in the State Department. Without exposure to the real roots of human violence, how can anyone deal with it? Note to the PC crowd: you just had your idealistic notions about human nature thoroughly and justifiably trashed. What say you now?

Ghiglieri's remarkable book provides a road map into the understanding of male human behavior. Merging the scientific disciplines of biology, psychology, sociology and anthropology, this outstanding book compiles a statistical and scientific foundation for America's next generation of thinkers. From the issue of gun control to problems with interracial relationships, Ghiglieri's considerations and conclusions reach the heart of virtually every contemporary social issue of concern to anyone who cares about the future of our society. It is a MUST read for every serious-minded American. Michael W. Worley

Explains a lot of the behaviors that humans repeatedly resort to, all based on the survival pressures of our geologic past. Supports the idea of evolution, but not in a way that would please everyone.