Chimpanzee intelligence tests are often conducted in laboratories rather than in the wild or in sanctuaries like this one.
PATRICK MEINHARDT/AFP via Getty Images
Arrogant monkey
Christine Webb Abacus, UK; Avery, USA
IN THE BEGINNING, God created man in his own image, giving him power over every living thing that moves on the earth. Most people do not turn to the Bible to understand the world and our place in it, yet this view of humans as superior to nature and non-human life remains suspiciously persistent.
characteristics that are said to distinguish people and justifying our dominance – including the ability to reason, use tools, feel pain, act morally – do not seem to be uniquely human. Chimpanzees, crows, and other animals are highly intelligent, have complex social networks, and use tools; fish and crustaceans feel pain; bees are cultural creatures; Even plants can have feelings similar to ours.
A concept that wise man is the highest in the natural hierarchy, can best be explained by a “human superiority complex,” primatologist Christine Webb argues in her work. The Arrogant Monkey: A New Look at Humanity. In this deeply felt, investigative yet rigorous work, based on a seminar she taught at Harvard University, Webb sets out to disrupt this perceived exclusivity. In doing so, she shows that it is rooted in religious tradition, among other distinctly human concepts, and shows how it distorts scientific understanding and accelerates environmental crisis.
The belief that humans are special “contradicts Darwinian notions of continuity between species,” which emphasize differences “that are a matter of degree rather than Kind“Webb writes. However, she argues that this is the hidden agenda behind the research.
This is evident in our interest in other primates and “charismatic” mammals considered “like us,” she writes, while we overlook plants, fish and much of life on Earth. This is also seen in the way we hold animals to unequal or arbitrary standards. Take comparisons of intelligence between humans and other apes, most of which pit chimpanzees in captivity against autonomous Western humans, despite laboratory limitations affecting chimpanzee behavior, development, and functioning.
Concerned about the ethics of captivity, as well as the potential limitations of the study's findings, Webb only works with monkeys in the wild and in sanctuaries. These intimate, often profound encounters confirm her belief that more non-human beings are likely to possess some kind of consciousness or “intelligent life.”
Webb expects critics to dismiss it as anthropomorphism, “the cardinal scientific sin.” She counters that stubborn resistance to observing similarities between humans and other species can unnecessarily complicate the scientific process and undermine conclusions. The insistence on certainty about animal cognition or experience is also a double standard, Webb argues: can we really ever be certain about any consciousness other than our own?
Breaking this down isn't just necessary to understanding the world in all its splendor and diversity, Webb writes, it's the first step toward a “radically more humble approach.” Only by accepting ourselves as animals, no better than others, and as part of nature, can we resist the destructive capitalist forces causing outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, mass extinctions, climate crisis and ecological crisis.
Webb proposes expanding “good science” to include Indigenous ideas and knowledge that all life is unique, compelling, and intertwined. She acknowledges the problem, declaring human exceptionalism “the most powerful unspoken belief of our time,” but argues that the process of unlearning it can awaken a connection to nature and inspire awe—even advocacy for animal and environmental protection. IN Arrogant monkeyshe highlights this “stubborn ideology” and its harm, and models the humility, curiosity, and compassion that can destroy it.
Elle Hunt writer from Norwich, UK.
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