When people talk about “human nature”, it is often framed as fixed and inevitable. We are competitive, violent, hierarchical and selfish. These claims are frequently justified by a loose appeal to biology, as if our DNA has already settled the argument. This description is the root of the Hobbesian view.
However, biology tells a far more interesting story. Humans share a remarkable amount of genetic material with other great apes. Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives, sharing roughly 98 to 99 percent of our DNA. That makes us closer than a dog is to a fox. Gorillas are not far behind. Yet despite these similarities, their social worlds look dramatically different.
Our cousins
Gorillas are often imagined as aggressive and dominant, but their societies are relatively stable and predictable. They typically live in small groups led by a dominant silverback male, with several females and offspring. Power is clear, hierarchy is visible and conflict within the group is limited because roles are rigidly defined. The silverback’s authority reduces internal competition by concentrating and, when needed, exerting authority through physical size and strength.
Chimpanzees, by contrast, live in far more volatile social systems. Male chimpanzees form aggressive coalitions. Status is constantly contested, violence, including lethal violence, is not uncommon. Territory is defended fiercely, power is unstable and social life is shaped by alliances, intimidation, and competition.
Bonobos offer a strikingly different model. Despite being just as closely related to humans as chimpanzees, bonobos are far less violent. Their societies are female-centred rather than male-dominated. Non-partner sexual behaviour plays a major role in social bonding and conflict resolution so tension is diffused rather than escalated. Cooperation is prioritised over conquest and violence in the wild is very rare.
Then we found the bonobos
Bonobos were not officially recognised as a distinct species until 1929 and even then it wasn’t until the 1950s that studies of their unique social structures began. These guys live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Central Africa and now, as a result, are notoriously difficult to study due the danger posed by the instability of the country.
Bonobos use intimacy as social glue. They are not peaceful because they are weak; they are peaceful because their social structures reward connection rather than domination. This matters because chimpanzees, bonobos and humans diverged from a common ancestor relatively recently in evolutionary terms. Their (our) genetic difference is tiny. What changed for us was environment, specifically moving from being hunter-gatherers to agriculture then eventually ‘civilisation’. Of course our brains have developed significantly over our ape cousins but that does not automatically define the modern way we live as inherently natural.
Our behaviour is not destiny
If great apes with nearly identical DNA can organise themselves in radically different ways, then behaviour is not destiny. It is adaptive and it responds to conditions. Humans sit somewhere between these models, but we are not locked into any single one. Like chimpanzees, humans are capable of aggression, coalition-building, and hierarchy. Like bonobos, we are capable of cooperation, empathy, play, and intimacy-driven bonding. Like gorillas, we can form stable family groups with clear roles and we see plenty of large males in our society who exert authority through size and physical strength. We even encourage and celebrate it on our rugby fields. All of these tendencies exist within us. Which ones dominate depends largely on environment.
Human pre-history
For most of human history, which is to say pre-history, people lived in small, mobile groups where cooperation was essential. Resources were shared, child-rearing was communal and status was limited and often resisted for harmony in the group – no ‘tall poppies’ were allowed to assume control. In these conditions bonobo-like traits were adaptive for survival. Excessive aggression was punished socially, hoarding was unacceptable and belonging mattered more than dominance. They were by definition genuinely egalitarian groups.
With the advent of agriculture, permanent settlements, and resource accumulation, conditions changed. Hierarchies hardened, competition intensified, warfare emerged then became more organised. Chimpanzee-like behaviours were increasingly rewarded. Control, aggression and dominance gained strategic value as we moved from foraging societies and our population numbers grew.
DNA – Did Not Alter
None of this required a change in DNA. It required a change in context. Modern humans often argue about whether we are “naturally” violent or cooperative, as if one answer must cancel out the other. The primate comparison shows that this is the wrong question; we are capable of both. Our behaviour is shaped by what our environments incentivise and reward.
Crowding, scarcity, inequality, and chronic stress tend to amplify aggression and competition. Safety, abundance, connection, and shared responsibility tend to amplify cooperation and care.
If humans behave destructively under certain conditions, it does not mean we are broken and inherently destructive. It means we are responding to pressure in our environment in predictable ways. Like grasshoppers turning into locusts, behaviour emerges from context.
With us being so similar to our cousins, except it appears our cognitive capabilities far exceed them, then we have more choices how we live than we assume. We can choose to be Gorillas or Bonobos – at The Intimate Ape Retreat we look to the bonobo as a role model.