The more we learn about the great apes, the less we find to differentiate ourselves from them. All the things we thought made us unique—language, tool-making, complex social bonds, individuality, play—none of them are exclusive to man. It wasn’t always this way. At least, we didn’t think so. In the medieval period, scholars wrote of the ‘great chain of being’, with angels at the top, then humans, and then the rest: apes, dogs, birds, reptiles, and creep crawlies at the bottom. This fed directly into the enlightenment idea of societal progress (with western civilization at the top)and, thus, the destruction of so-called ‘primitive’ indigenous cultures.
The Sulking Ape
The Sulking Ape
The Sulking Ape
The more we learn about the great apes, the less we find to differentiate ourselves from them. All the things we thought made us unique—language, tool-making, complex social bonds, individuality, play—none of them are exclusive to man. It wasn’t always this way. At least, we didn’t think so. In the medieval period, scholars wrote of the ‘great chain of being’, with angels at the top, then humans, and then the rest: apes, dogs, birds, reptiles, and creep crawlies at the bottom. This fed directly into the enlightenment idea of societal progress (with western civilization at the top)and, thus, the destruction of so-called ‘primitive’ indigenous cultures.