The Human Animal

This book, from zoologist Desmond Morris, was recommended to me in August of last year in some frankly bizarre circumstances. Long story short, I was talked to by an insanely sane stranger on a bus, he told me I should read this book, and in stumbling across it in a bookshop's bargain bin last week and reading the whole of it in three days I have kept my promise; and I am thoroughly glad that I did.

   It's an immensely eye-opening book, trying as it does to compose a rough examination of humanity from the perspective of zoology - and by dissecting human behaviour and lifestyle into animal explanations, some extraordinary insights into the nature, history, character, behaviour and needs of man are revealed.

   The book was written alongside Desmond Morris's 6-part BBC documentary series on the same topic (yeh, they had TV in 1994) and so the book's 6 chapters focus on the central themes of each episode of that. There are far too many fascinating observations and "oh wow so that's why X is X"-provocations in each section for me to be able to give any sort of overview that does justice to the sheer interestingness of the vast panorama of humanity that is exposed, but here's a vague guide as to the chapters' themes:

1. Body language - how basic gestures and movements are rooted in tribal-social origins of humans, and despite enormous various in ethnic culture and spoken language, these communicative foundations are generally much the same across the world.
2. Evolutionary origins - how humans grew distinct from other apes, and through the winning combination of bipedal stance, dexterous hands, and advanced intelligence, we were able to dominate the hunting-grounds and flourish.
3. Urbanisation - how as thriving human communities grew, we became more distanced from the wilderness that had birthed our species, and as societies coalesced into larger organisations such as towns and cities, while allowing for progress to accelerate this also forced territorial aspects of our animal nature into conflict.
4. Reproduction - how (left free from constraints of social convention) human sexual pairings all follow a remarkably similar pattern, and how physical and psychological developments in intimate relationships have given human sex a higher and less brutish place in our species' way of life (a certain degree of detachment advised if reading this chapter - the biological descriptions are as fundamental to understanding the topic as they are graphic).
5. Childcare - how human births and babies differ developmentally to other animals, being far more vulnerable and thus dependent on parental affection, which are ensured by strong emotional bonding; essential for proper mental and physical wellbeing in our life cycle.
6. Recreation - how the cognitive surplus of humans leaves us with a glut of spare time; being able to satisfy our basic survival needs easily, we can divert our vast intellect into other pursuits that benefit or entertain the community - from this springs science, art, literature, music, technology, philosophy and basically all culture: the root of which is our ability to think in abstraction, to see something as something else and create meaning from it, fueled by our insatiable curiosity to understand life.

   This book is a veritable treasure-trove of glimpses into why humans are as they are, with many uncoverings of evolutionary psychology and biology that throw up radical prompts to rethink much of the philosophical-as-religious way we perceive humanity today. One of my main itches reading it was how we should respond to the news that we are animals, or how we should act knowing that our evolution has already determined particularities into our bodies and minds. Part of me wants to carefully draw out all the links between what Morris's explanations of human development implies is good alongside similar implications from liberal christian ethics and anthropology and sociology and in doing so weave a consistent impenetrable scientific-philosophical picture of how humanity should be. But part of me knows that this would have feeble legs to stand on - what has evolved is simply what survives best. Having ascended by evolutionary means to a plateau from which we can rationally assess the world we're in, the arguments we rely upon to justify aspects of our lives are seldom grounded only in our animal natures, and I'm not sure whether they should be either. It's a headscratcher, to be sure.

   Nonetheless, this is a fascinating read, and for anyone interested in the origins of human biology, psychology, sociology and anthropology, plus all the philosophical quandaries unearthed by this exposition, I would (as that eccentric guy on the 52 did to me) wholeheartedly recommend you read this book.