For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals. The reason is that bonobos are regarded as peace-loving, love-making animals. At the Bonobo Conservation Institute they describe bonobos as "hippie" chimps who "make love, not war." Supposedly bonobos are bisexual apes who engage in incessant and indiscriminate sexual activity as an alternative to power struggles and male wars of domination. I'm surprised the Democratic Party hasn't changed its symbol from the donkey to the bonobo.
Well, maybe the liberals should put their bonobsession on hold for a while...
The July 30 issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on the work of the German anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, who is considered the world's leading authority on bonobos in the wild. The key term here is "in the wild." Most of the research on bonobos to date has been done by the Dutch anthropologist Frans de Waal. Studying bonobos in cages, de Waal discovered that bonobos seem to have sex a lot: oral sex, anal sex, all kinds of sex. In de Waal's famous portrait, the bonobo emerges as a creature much more interested in sex than in work or power or anything else. In other words, de Waal's bonobos bore a startling similarity to the Dutch.
Hohmann's work shows that de Waal got it mostly wrong. Yes, bonobos act a bit weird in captivity, but what would you do if you were stuck in a cage? What else is there to do except look for unoccupied orifices? Just as people in prisons engage in all kinds of strange behavior, so too bonobos that are locked up behave in unnatural ways. "Unnatural" here means anti-Darwinian. Hohman's suspicions about de Waal's work were aroused by his recognition that the peace-loving promiscuous bonobo would not make sense under Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin posits a struggle for existence and throughout nature this means a struggle for survival, reproduction and power. So how could bonobos be different?
Turns out they aren't. Observe bonobos in the wild for long periods of time, and they don't act much different from other kinds of apes. De Waal's famous contrast between the bonobo and the chimpanzee turns out to be largely illusory. Bonobos too have power struggles. There is patriarchy among bonobos, just as with other apes. "It was so easy for Frans to charm everyone," Hohmann says. "He had the big stories. We don't have the big stories." What Hohmann is leaving out here is the human tendency to distort evidence to suit our prejudices. Libertines and other social liberals loved Margaret Mead's now-discredited accounts of promiscuity in Samoa because they made the Samoans into libertines. Once the Samoans were shown not to conform to the liberal expectation, bonobos were fashioned into the new Samoans.
Now the liberals have to look for another mascot. Who will it be: the Andalusian ant? The New Zealand platypus? Perhaps these fellows should stick with the donkey.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 4)
16. A caged bonobos out of boredom searching for orifices to probe is very similar the some of the white middle class, out of their boredom..searching for some strange orifice to probe!!
scott at 1:13PM on Aug 3rd 2007
17. For a non-liberal, Dinesh certainly is quite interested in all of the kinky details of simian sex life.
And since he claims that bonobos are in fact patriarchal and war-like, perhaps they should be made the symbol of the Republican Party.
Except that would be an insult to the intelligence of apes.
emelpe at 1:14PM on Aug 3rd 2007
18. for those that like dinesh's work..one may find this site quite interesting...
google mensnewsdaily.com!!
scott at 1:19PM on Aug 3rd 2007
19. Dinesh you do realize that everyone on both sides thinks no knows that you are an imbecile. I assure you even conservatives are laughing at you. Colbert ate you for breakfast.
T at 2:03PM on Aug 3rd 2007
20. A reiteration:
I'm a little confused about the direction of the barb. Haven't the last few sex scandals involved Republicans? Newt cheated on his wife, Foley tried humping a former male intern, Jeff Gannon, a gay male escort in the White House press corps. Karl Rove? Ooops! he's still not out of the closet. Seems Republicans are the ones, lately at least, who act like bonobos witha all the random sex, oral sex, and anal sex
T at 2:03PM on Aug 3rd 2007
21. Oh, good grief. You just cannot help yourself. As a moderate who is also a former primate keeper, any idiot knows that apes in cages are drastically different from animals in the wild. I resent the implication that liberals are all cheap sluts. Congrats, Dinesh, you little ho. You sold yourself cheap once again.
web jones at 2:05PM on Aug 3rd 2007
22. "For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals."
I'm not quite sure what is more bizarre: the above sentence itself or the fact that the author of the above sentence is actually considered by some to be a person of any seriousness whatsoever.
In any event, this is further proof that the reason right-wingers have no talent for comedy is that they ARE comedy.
Richter at 2:34PM on Aug 3rd 2007
23. The implication here being of course liberals are insatiable in their sex and promiscuous. I wish I got it as much as Dinesh thinks I did.
I have known quite a few conservative friends over the years who have been far more promiscuous than this liberal. Plenty who have preached one thing and went out and did another..you know, like that Senator David Vitter???
David S. at 3:11PM on Aug 3rd 2007
24. emelpe writes: "For a non-liberal, Dinesh certainly is quite interested in all of the kinky details of simian sex life."
Actually, emelpe, this latest expectoration from the Ayatollah D'Souza is not really about "simian sex life" at all. Instead, it is merely the latest manifestation of Dinesh's obsessive fascination with men who have sex with men. If you read his blog regularly, you know that most of his posts are devoted to either pimping for his books or wrestling with his sexuality in a manner so public and obvious one could almost feel sorry for him -- were it not for the fact that his denial expresses itself in ways that are harmful to other gay men.
Richter at 3:19PM on Aug 3rd 2007
25. It seems the liberals don't quite get the point of this blog, it ain't about sex, it's about trumpeting some "unnatural" act as proof to justify a position that you "progressives" (LOL) take, only to find out that you are wrong. Once the truth is know, you back pedal faster than you can recite the definition of IS.
Big Dawg at 4:58PM on Aug 3rd 2007
26. Well, I see all the liberals have jumped on this one spouting that Dinesh is obsessed with the "sex lives of liberals" and of course, Republicans are guilty of more sex scandals etc etc. Liberal blog responses are like 6 year old. They ignore the point and are the intellectual equivelant of " I know you are but what am I?
I saw a television show within the past 6 months that "captured" the Bonobo experience and the voice over narrator stressed the exact points Dinesh was making. That the Bonobo, sexually prosmiscious, socialist, anti-patriarchy, and peaceful problem solvers, may in fact have something to teach us mere mortals.
It's not about the Bonobos, it is about liberals skewing scientific and natural data to fit their orthodoxy. Similar if you will, to the 3 million homeless or the half million women whose husbands beat them to pulp every Superbowl Sunday.
John Gleason at 6:23PM on Aug 3rd 2007
27. Big Dawg and John Gleason --
Right on. I completely agree. Someone needs to give some of these people a lesson in basic argument. Either that or reading comprehension. They keep falling into these fallacy traps either because they're too lazy to address the actual point or they're intentionally misreading it. Either way, it just comes across as very unintelligent.
It's crazy how "big news" such as the original perception of bonobos is spread when it seems to support a particular theory (liberal or conservative or otherwise) ... but then when that information needs to be modified or retracted, the updated story suddenly gets little to no attention at all.
eM at 6:54PM on Aug 3rd 2007
28. Sir, it is idiots like you who contribute to the stereotype that conservatives are brainless morons. You write some of the most ridiculous crap I've ever seen. Please go away and stop making conservative people look bad.
Cecilia at 7:07PM on Aug 3rd 2007
29. You've got to laugh at anyone thinking that certain sexual behaviors are still linked with one's political affiliation. The idea of free-love, liberal hippies cornering the market on sexual profligacy was debunked long ago--like in the '70s.
Many readers of today's blog won't even know or remember that there WAS an association.
Fred at 7:12PM on Aug 3rd 2007
30. This is for the typical ignoramus [NUMB-SKULLS] whining about DD's blog: who's simply reporting the results and open for discussion. The findings of: sex obsessed/starved Euro anthros' with "Nothing Better to Do" but focus on the FREE For ALL SEX habits of tree swinging animals" For crying out loud! BLOG OUT will ya!
Mo at 7:47PM on Aug 3rd 2007