The Human Zoo

by Desmond Morris

  Kodansha America, LLC 575

  Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10022, U.S.A.

  Kodansha International Ltd.

  17-14 Otowa i-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112, Japan

  Published in 1996 by Kodansha America, Inc.

  by arrangement with Random House, United Kingdom

  Originally published in 1969 by Random House, United Kingdom.

  First published in the United States in 1969 by McGraw-Hill.

  This is a Kodansha Globe book.

  Copyright © 1969, 1996 by Desmond Morris.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-56836-104-8

  LC 95-81946

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE: Tribes and Super-tribes

  CHAPTER TWO: Status and Super-status

  CHAPTER THREE: Sex and Super-sex

  CHAPTER FOUR: In-groups and Out-groups

  CHAPTER FIVE: Imprinting and Mal-imprinting

  CHAPTER SIX: The Stimulus Struggle

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Childlike Adult

  Appendix: Literature

  Bibliography

  Preface

  More than a quarter of a century has passed since The Human Zoo was first published. During that time the world population has nearly doubled—from three billion to six billion. This dramatic rise is continuing at ever-increasing speed. The result is that the Human Zoo—the city—is growing ever more crowded. Sadly this means that the problems I addressed when writing this text are even more pressing today. The message is more urgent, and for this reason I am delighted that the book is now being republished.

  During the intervening years I have had the chance to look more closely at conditions in some of the most extreme examples of the Human Zoo. When the BBC decided to make a television program based on this book, the filming brought me face-to-face with the ultimate expressions of the urban dilemma. In the slums of Bombay—the largest slums in the world—I saw how human territories could be condensed to a degree that makes even old-fashioned zoo cages seem spacious. In Tokyo this miniaturization is taken to the limit in the amazing capsule hotels, where visitors are cocooned in tiny cells that look like air-conditioned coffins with cable TV.

  In Los Angeles, I was taken deep into gangland to study how tribal rivalries have reasserted themselves. In the most extensive city on earth (now half the size of Belgium), many small tribal territories have been established, each confined to a fixed, carefully labeled locality. Here the primeval tribal nature of our species has dramatically resurfaced in the midst of the decaying center of the urban sprawl. The ancient cave paintings and rock art of prehistoric times have been replaced by modern graffiti; the tribal spears by automatic handguns; the ritual skin scarification by modern tattoos; the feathered headdresses by stylized T-shirts. All the tribal trappings and group loyalties have reappeared as the vast network of the city is carved up, once again, into clearly identifiable local communities. For some this is seen as the destruction of the city centers, but for those living there it is a matter of survival—a refusal to be turned into faceless human termites in a huge, teeming human termite-hill.

  The character of the human animal is such that we will always fight against the loss of our tribal identity. Some cities encourage this struggle. They foster imaginative local variations. Those that fail to do so will soon find that their bland, inhuman scale will be disrupted and dismantled. The plain truth is that, if this is not done constructively, it will be done destructively. There is a special message in the gangland graffiti that city planners fail to see: acres of gray concrete do not a village make.

  The dilemma of the Human Zoo is not a problem that is going to go away. The latest figures for the “doubling time” (the time it takes for a human population to double its numbers) tell a terrifying tale. Because the doubling time for western Europe is a satisfying 700 years (and a comfortable 100 years for the United States), we sometimes feel that the threat of overpopulation is fading away.

  But the picture in the rest of the world is rather different. In Africa, for example, the doubling time is a mere 24 years. Where this will put the African continent a century from now is not hard to guess. Unless special precautions are taken, we will need a new definition for the word chaos.

  When I was working on the book in the late 1960s, I had just completed a decade as a zoo curator. Studying the stresses and strains of animals confined to small cages gave me the idea for suggesting a parallel between the animal zoo and the human city. I saw the captive zoo inmates as telling metaphors for the tense citizens I encountered in everyday life.

  Bearing this in mind, it is interesting that a minor rebellion has been gaining momentum since that time. An anti-zoo movement has appeared and grown stronger year by year. More and more people think it is wrong to keep wild animals in captivity. Zoo attendances have fallen to their lowest levels for many years. This is partly due to a greater awareness of the needs of the animals concerned, but I strongly suspect that it is also symbolic of a growing, if unspoken concern about the conditions of those other zoo inmates —the citizens of the Human Zoo. If we are so passionate about wanting to see the lions and elephants go free, perhaps it is because, in our hearts, we too want to escape from the cages we have built for ourselves inside our ever-swelling cities.

  There is really no need to escape—as you will see when reading this book. But there is a need to transform the urban environment into something more appropriate for its long-suffering inhabitants. If this succeeds we will then be able to retain the heady excitements of the city while still enjoying community life on a scale the human brain can comprehend.

  Oxford, England

  September 1995

  Acknowledgments

  As with its predecessor, The Naked Ape, this book is intended for a general audience and authorities have therefore not been quoted in the text. However, many original books and papers have been referred to during the assembly of this volume and it would be wrong to present it without acknowledging their valuable assistance. On pages 249-51 I have included a chapter-by-chapter appendix relating the topics discussed to the major authorities concerned. This appendix can be used to trace the detailed references given in the selected bibliography.

  I would also like to express my debt and my gratitude to the many colleagues and friends who have helped me, in discussions, correspondence and many other ways. Their contributions have varied. In some instances, they have been of direct assistance in connection with a specific point in the present text, but in other cases they have been stimulating in a more indirect way, often over a period of years, influencing my general thinking and helping me to clarify my views. With a subject as broad as The Human Zoo, it is impossible to name them all, but they include, in particular, the following: Dr Anthony Ambrose, Mr Robert Ardrey, Mr David Attenborough, Mr Kenneth Bayes, Professor Misha Black, Dr David Blest, Dr N. G. Blurton-Jones, Mr James Bomford, Dr John Bowlby, Mr Richard Carrington, Sir Hugh Casson, Dr Michael Chance, Dr Richard Coss, Dr Christopher Evans, Professor Robin Fox, Professor J. H. Fremlin, Mr Oliver Graham-Jones, Dr Fae Hall, Professor Harry Harlow, Mrs Mary Haynes, Professor Heini Hediger, Professor Robert Hinde, Dr Jan van Hooff, Dr Francis Huxley, Sir Julian Huxley, Professor Janey Ironside, Miss Devra Kleiman, Dr Adriaan Kortlandt, Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, Dr Paul Leyhausen, Mrs Caroline Loizos, Professor Konrad Lorenz, Dr Malcolm Lyall-Watson, Dr Gilbert Manley, Dr Isaac Marks, Mr Tom Maschler, Dr L. Harrison Matthews, Lady Medway, Mrs Ramona Morris, Dr Martin Moynihan, Dr John Napier, Mrs Caroline Nicolson, Mr Philip Oakes, Dr Kenneth Oakley, Mr Victor Pasmore, Sir Roland Penrose, Sir Herbert Read, Dr Fra
nces Reynolds, Dr Vernon Reynolds, Mrs Claire Russell, Dr W. M. S. Russell, Professor Arthur Smailes, Mr Peter Shepheard, Dr John Sparks, Dr Anthony Storr, Mr Frank Taylor, Dr Lionel Tiger, Professor Niko Tinbergen, Dr Nevil Tronchin-James, Mr Ronald Webster, Dr Wolfgang Wickler, Miss Pat Williams, Dr G. M. Woddis and Professor John Yudkin.

  I hasten to add that the inclusion of a name in this list does not imply that the person concerned necessarily agrees with my views as expressed in this book.

  Introduction

  When the pressures of modern living become heavy, the harassed city-dweller often refers to his teeming world as a concrete jungle. This is a colourful way of describing the pattern of life in a dense urban community, but it is also grossly inaccurate, as anyone who has studied a real jungle will confirm.

  Under normal conditions, in their natural habitats, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair-bonds, or commit murder. Among human city-dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur. Does this, then, reveal a basic difference between the human species and other animals? At first glance it seems to do so. But this is deceptive. Other animals do behave in these ways under certain circumstances, namely when they are confined in the unnatural conditions of captivity. The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.

  The comparison we must make is not between the city-dweller and the wild animal, but between the city-dweller and the captive animal. The modern human animal is no longer living in conditions natural for his species. Trapped, not by a zoo collector, but by his own brainy brilliance, he has set himself up in a huge, restless menagerie where he is in constant danger of cracking under the strain.

  Despite the pressures, however, the benefits are great. The zoo world, like a gigantic parent, protects its inmates: food, drink, shelter, hygiene and medical care are provided; the basic problems of survival are reduced to a minimum. There is time to spare. How this time is used in a non-human zoo varies, of course, from species to species. Some animals quietly relax and doze in the sun; others find prolonged inactivity increasingly difficult to accept. If you are an inmate of a human zoo, you inevitably belong to this second category. Having an essentially exploratory, inventive brain, you will not be able to relax for very long. You will be driven on and on to more and more elaborate activities. You will investigate, organize and create and, in the end, you will have plunged yourself deeper still into an even more captive zoo world. With each new complexity, you will find yourself one step farther away from your natural tribal state, the state in which your ancestors existed for a million years.

  The story of modern man is the story of his struggle to deal with the consequences of this difficult advance. The picture is confused and confusing, partly because of its very complexity and partly because we are involved in it in a dual role, being, at the same time, both spectators and participants. Perhaps it will become clearer if we view it from the zoologist’s standpoint, and this is what I shall attempt to do in the pages that follow. In most cases I have deliberately selected examples which will be familiar to Western readers. This does not mean, however, that I intend my conclusions to relate only to Western cultures. On the contrary, there is every indication that the underlying principles apply equally to city-dwellers throughout the world.

  If I seem to be saying ‘Go back, you are heading for disaster,’ let me assure you that I am not. We have, in our relentless social progress, gloriously unleashed our powerful inventive, exploratory urges. They are a basic part of our biological inheritance. There is nothing artificial or unnatural about them. They provide us with our great strength as well as our great weaknesses. What I am trying to show is the increasing price we have to pay for indulging them and the ingenious ways in which we contrive to meet that price, no matter how steep it becomes. The stakes are rising higher all the time, the game becoming more risky, the casualties more startling, the pace more breathless. But despite the hazards it is the most exciting game the world has ever seen. It is foolish to suggest that anyone should blow a whistle and try to stop it. Nevertheless, there are different ways of playing it, and if we can understand better the true nature of the players it should be possible to make the game even more rewarding, without at the same time becoming more dangerous and, ultimately, disastrous for the whole species.

  CHAPTER ONE: Tribes and Super-tribes

  Imagine a piece of land twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. Picture it wild, inhabited by animals small and large. Now visualize a compact group of sixty human beings camping in the middle of this territory. Try to see yourself sitting there, as a member of this tiny tribe, with the landscape, your landscape, spreading out around you farther than you can see. No one apart from your tribe uses this vast space. It is your exclusive home-range, your tribal hunting ground. Every so often the men in your group set off in pursuit of prey. The women gather fruits and berries. The children play noisily around the camp site, imitating the hunting techniques of their fathers. If the tribe is successful and swells in size, a splinter group will set off to colonize a new territory. Little by little the species will spread.

  Imagine a piece of land twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. Picture it civilized, inhabited by machines and buildings. Now visualize a compact group of six million human beings camping in the middle of this territory. See yourself sitting there, with the complexity of the huge city spreading out all around you, farther than you can see.

  Now compare these two pictures. In the second scene there are a hundred thousand individuals for every one in the first scene. The space has remained the same. Speaking in evolutionary terms, this dramatic change has been almost instantaneous; it has taken a mere few thousand years to convert scene one into scene two. The human animal appears to have adapted brilliantly to his extraordinary new condition, but he has not had time to change biologically, to evolve into a new, genetically civilized species. This civilizing process has been accomplished entirely by learning and conditioning. Biologically he is still the simple tribal animal depicted in scene one. He lived like that, not for a few centuries, but for a million hard years. During that period he did change biologically. He evolved spectacularly. The pressures of survival were great and they moulded him.

  So much has happened in the past few thousand years, the urban years, the crowded years of civilized man, that we find it hard to grasp the idea that this is no more than a minute part of the human story. It is so familiar to us that we vaguely imagine we grew into it gradually and that, as a result, we are biologically fully equipped to deal with all the new social hazards. If we force ourselves to be coolly objective about it, we are bound to admit that this is not so. It is only our incredible plasticity, our ingenious adaptability, that makes it seem so. The simple tribal hunter is doing his best to wear his new trappings lightly and proudly; but they are complex, cumbersome garments and he keeps tripping over them. However, before we examine the way he trips and so frequently loses his balance, we must first see how he contrived to stitch together his fabulous cloak of civilization.

  We must begin by lowering the temperature until we are back in the grip of the Ice Age, say, twenty thousand years ago. Our early hunting ancestors had already succeeded in spreading throughout much of the Old World and were soon to trek across from eastern Asia to the New World. To have achieved such a shattering expansion must have meant that their simple hunting way of life was already more than a match for their carnivorous rivals. But this is not so surprising when one stops to think that our Ice Age ancestors’ brains were already as big and highly developed as ours are today. Skeletally, there is little to choose between us. The modern man, physically speaking, had already arrived on the scene. In fact, if it were possible, with the aid of a time machine, to take the newborn child of an Ice Age hunter into your home and rear it as
your own, it is doubtful if anyone would detect the deception.

  In Europe the climate was hostile, but our ancestors fought it well. With the simplest of technologies they were able to slay huge game animals. Happily they have left us a testimony of their hunting skills, not only in the accidental remnants that we can scratch up from the floors of their caves, but also in the staggering murals painted on their walls. The shaggy mammoths, woolly rhinos, bison and reindeer portrayed there leave no doubt as to the nature of the climate. As one emerges from the darkness of the caves today and steps out into the baked countryside, it is difficult to imagine it inhabited by these heavy-furred creatures. The contrast between the temperature then and now comes vividly to mind.

  As the last glaciation came towards its end, the ice began to retreat northwards at a rate of fifty yards a year and the cold-country animals moved north with it. Rich forests took the place of the cold tundra landscape. The great Ice Age ended about ten thousand years ago and heralded a new epoch in human development.

  The breakthrough was to come at the point where Africa, Asia and Europe meet. There, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, there was a small change in human feeding behaviour that was to alter the whole course of man’s progress. It was trivial enough and simple enough in itself, but its impact was to be enormous. Today we take it for granted: we call it farming.

  Previously all human tribes had filled their bellies in one of two ways: the men had hunted for animal foods and the women had gathered plant foods. The diet was balanced by the sharing of the spoils. Virtually all the active adult members of the tribe were food-getters. There was comparatively little food-storing. They merely went out and collected what they wanted when they wanted it. This was less hazardous than it sounds because, of course, the whole world population of our species was then minute, compared with the massive numbers of today. However, although these early hunter/gatherers were highly successful and spread to cover a large part of the globe, their tribal units remained small and simple. During the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, men had become increasingly adapted, both physically and mentally, both structurally and behaviourally, to this hunting way of life. The new step they took, the step to farming and food-production, swept them over an unexpected threshold and threw them so rapidly into an unfamiliar form of social existence, that there was no time for them to evolve new, genetically-controlled qualities to go with it. From now on, their adaptability and behavioural plasticity, their ability to learn and adjust to novel and more complex ways, were going to be tested to the full. Urbanization and the intricacies of town-living were only one more step away.