A few years ago, my wife and I were reminiscing about our youth in the Marines. She was quite amazed at the variety of pranks Marines would sometimes get up to, especially the way we treated each other. In our everyday interactions, we would often engage in language that most people would consider malicious insults, or pranks that would be considered assault in most circumstances. At one point, she asked me, “Why do you guys always behave so badly?” I quickly replied, “For the same reason that monkeys poke each other in the eyes.”
In case this still doesn’t make sense to you, let me explain further.
Recently, I Games Primates Play: A Secret Study of Human Evolution and EconomicsThis book looks at the social behavior of different primates and shows how that behavior is also reflected in human institutions and norms. One common behavior among primates is showing loyalty and building alliances through the infliction of minor harm.
For example, some monkeys take turns deliberately exposing their weak spots to the other monkey so that the other monkey can poke, prod, or grab them. The routine is then repeated in reverse. The effective signal here is, “If I had wanted, I could have inflicted a devastating injury on you, but I didn’t. And I allowed you to inflict a devastating injury on me, but you didn’t either. We learned that we can trust each other because we both had great opportunities to inflict serious injury and didn’t.” The book included, among other illustrations, a photograph of the monkeys taking turns poking each other in the eye as part of this routine.
Similar cultural norms have always been in effect in the Marines. The unspoken rule was, “You can insult me in the most extreme way imaginable and I won’t be offended. In fact, I’ll laugh with you, and you’ll laugh with me if I do the same to you.” Similarly, norms regarding the rowdy side of Marine culture sent the same signals. As Max Uriarte once put it: Terminal Lance Person:
The phenomenon surrounding Marine birthdays is like no other. When you say it’s your birthday, someone’s birthday, or even your mother’s birthday, you literally suffered physical assaultBirthdays are dangerous days for Marines. You have to be quiet on that day and hope that no one remembers you tomorrow, otherwise you will descend into a world of anger and blind rage. In a way, this angry storm of fists and punches is how Marines show their love for their comrades.
It reminds me of my 21st birthday. October 112007 – Iraq. I swear I was pretty beaten up, but I’m sure it was ultimately out of love.
In the Marines, this goofiness is taken to a more extreme extent than it would be among normal (civilized?) people, but the same idea applies. When you get to know someone and they enter the “casual acquaintance” realm, the social norm is to be polite, overlook their flaws, pretend not to notice their embarrassing gaffes, etc. But when you move into friendship, things change. Rather than teasing, mocking, or pretending not to notice, friends will play around with each other and point out embarrassing gaffes. And often, this behavior signals to the other person that the relationship has moved from casual acquaintance to true friendship.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt that way at times, and at first I would try to “make fun of them in a friendly way,” only for them to get really angry and realize that maybe we weren’t as close as we thought we were. (I’m sure I’m not the only one, right?) And this is why it was relatively extreme in the military. In the Marines, people had to stick together in an extreme, life-or-death, high-pressure environment. That kind of solidarity required that people couldn’t build walls around each other, so daily life depended heavily on showing that all walls were removed. So no matter how badly you insulted me, or I insulted you, we’d still be laughing about it together later that night over a beer in the barracks.
And there’s the other side of the coin: these kinds of signals don’t really mean much without at least the possibility of some kind of cost. When we try to demonstrate our friendship with behavior that’s indistinguishable from the polite, safe behavior of acquaintances, we send invisible signals. The signals can be misinterpreted, and jokes or actions can be made that really upset people. But without that risk, the signals wouldn’t be sent.
Throughout my life, I have witnessed many top-down pressures, both formal and informal, to replace these somewhat hostile signals of friendship with a kinder, gentler society. Games played by primates Even if true, kinder, gentler social interactions may not be a real substitute for building social cohesion, because these ideas are deeply ingrained in our evolved psychology.
If the Monkey Committee were to decide that poking monkeys’ eyes was an unnecessary act of hostility and to prevent the monkeys from engaging in such behavior, the social cohesion of the group would not be enhanced in the end; it would lead to the breakdown of the social order on which the group depends. And it is entirely possible that contemporary efforts to move social environments toward “kinder, gentler” places, where mild hostility is prohibited, could backfire; rather than strengthening social bonds, they may only weaken the structures that keep them strong.
