The other day I was facilitating a typical conflict management workshop and it was ok, but later I thought that we were missing something: we still fail to understand how and why humans deal with conflict in a very different way than other primates.
Why don’t we use violence or sex as our main conflict management tools, like our hairy cousins? What does violence against tyrants has to do with our species? Why do we have a lot less intragroup or reactive violence but are able to organice armies to fight against other tribes? Are we in fact domesticated animals? What does it have to do with our body shape and our culture?
Dr. Wrangham’s presentation explores how, and why, humans differ from other species, focusing on our use of moralistic aggression to enforce norms.
If you are interested in this issue, and especifically how it affects leadership of human groups, here’s some more food for thought:
Richard Wrangham: «La bondad del ser humano se la debemos al asesinato»
¿Somos más listos que los chimpancés? The cognitive tradeoff hypothesis.
