Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

1268 Pages·2017·16.61 MB·English

by  Robert M. Sapolsky

ALSO BY ROBERT M. SAPOLSKY
Monkeyluv and Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals
A Primate’s Memoir
The Trouble with Testosterone and Other Essays on the Biology of the
Human Predicament
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: A Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases,
and Coping
Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death

PENGUIN PRESS
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Copyright © 2017 by Robert M. Sapolsky
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Illustration credits appear here.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sapolsky, Robert M., author.
Title: Behave: the biology of humans at our best and worst / Robert M. Sapolsky.
Description: New York: Penguin Press, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016056755 (print) | LCCN 2017006806 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594205071
(hardback) | ISBN 9780735222786 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Neurophysiology. | Neurobiology. | Animal behavior. | BISAC: SCIENCE / Life
Sciences / Biology / General. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology. | SCIENCE / Life Sciences /
Neuroscience.
Classification: LCC QP351 .S27 2017 (print) | LCC QP351 (ebook) | DDC 612.8–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056755
Interior Illustrations by Tanya Maiboroda here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Version_1
To Mel Konner, who taught me.
To John Newton, who inspired me.
To Lisa, who saved me.
Contents
Also by Robert M. Sapolsky
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
One THE BEHAVIOR
Two ONE SECOND BEFORE
Three SECONDS TO MINUTES BEFORE
Four HOURS TO DAYS BEFORE
Five DAYS TO MONTHS BEFORE
Six ADOLESCENCE; OR, DUDE, WHERE’S MY FRONTAL CORTEX?
Seven BACK TO THE CRIB, BACK TO THE WOMB
Eight BACK TO WHEN YOU WERE JUST A FERTILIZED EGG
Nine CENTURIES TO MILLENNIA BEFORE
Ten THE EVOLUTION OF BEHAVIOR
Eleven US VERSUS THEM
Twelve HIERARCHY, OBEDIENCE, AND RESISTANCE
Thirteen MORALITY AND DOING THE RIGHT THING, ONCE YOU’VE
FIGURED OUT WHAT THAT IS
Fourteen FEELING SOMEONE’S PAIN, UNDERSTANDING SOMEONE’S
PAIN, ALLEVIATING SOMEONE’S PAIN
Fifteen METAPHORS WE KILL BY
Sixteen BIOLOGY, THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, AND (OH, WHY
NOT?) FREE WILL
Seventeen WAR AND PEACE
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: Neuroscience 101
Appendix 2: The Basics of Endocrinology
Appendix 3: Protein Basics
Glossary of Abbreviations
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index
About the Author
Introduction
T
he fantasy always runs like this: A team of us has fought our way into
his secret bunker. Okay, it’s a fantasy, let’s go whole hog. I’ve single-
handedly neutralized his elite guard and have burst into his bunker, my
Browning machine gun at the ready. He lunges for his Luger; I knock it out
of his hand. He lunges for the cyanide pill he keeps to commit suicide rather
than be captured. I knock that out of his hand as well. He snarls in rage,
attacks with otherworldly strength. We grapple; I manage to gain the upper
hand and pin him down and handcuff him. “Adolf Hitler,” I announce, “I
arrest you for crimes against humanity.”
And this is where the medal-of-honor version of the fantasy ends and the
imagery darkens. What would I do with Hitler? The viscera become so raw
that I switch to passive voice in my mind, to get some distance. What should
be done with Hitler? It’s easy to imagine, once I allow myself. Sever his
spine at the neck, leave him paralyzed but with sensation. Take out his eyes
with a blunt instrument. Puncture his eardrums, rip out his tongue. Keep him
alive, tube-fed, on a respirator. Immobile, unable to speak, to see, to hear,
only able to feel. Then inject him with something that will give him a cancer
that festers and pustulates in every corner of his body, that will grow and
grow until every one of his cells shrieks with agony, till every moment feels
like an infinity spent in the fires of hell. That’s what should be done with
Hitler. That’s what I would want done to Hitler. That’s what I would do to
Hitler.
—
I’ve had versions of this fantasy since I was a kid. Still do at times. And when
I really immerse myself in it, my heart rate quickens, I flush, my fists clench.
All those plans for Hitler, the most evil person in history, the soul most
deserving of punishment.
But there is a big problem. I don’t believe in souls or evil, think that the
word “wicked” is most pertinent to a musical, and doubt that punishment
should be relevant to criminal justice. But there’s a problem with that, in turn
—I sure feel like some people should be put to death, yet I oppose the death
penalty. I’ve enjoyed plenty of violent, schlocky movies, despite being in
favor of strict gun control. And I sure had fun when, at some kid’s birthday
party and against various unformed principles in my mind, I played laser tag,
shooting at strangers from hiding places (fun, that is, until some pimply kid
zapped me, like, a million times and then snickered at me, which made me
feel insecure and unmanly). Yet at the same time, I know most of the lyrics to
“Down by the Riverside” (“ain’t gonna study war no more”) plus when
you’re supposed to clap your hands.
In other words, I have a confused array of feelings and thoughts about
violence, aggression, and competition. Just like most humans.
To preach from an obvious soapbox, our species has problems with
violence. We have the means to create thousands of mushroom clouds;
shower heads and subway ventilation systems have carried poison gas, letters
have carried anthrax, passenger planes have become weapons; mass rapes can
constitute a military strategy; bombs go off in markets, schoolchildren with
guns massacre other children; there are neighborhoods where everyone from
pizza delivery guys to firefighters fears for their safety. And there are the
subtler versions of violence—say, a childhood of growing up abused, or the
effects on a minority people when the symbols of the majority shout
domination and menace. We are always shadowed by the threat of other
humans harming us.
If that were solely the way things are, violence would be an easy problem
to approach intellectually. AIDS—unambiguously bad news—eradicate.
Alzheimer’s disease—same thing. Schizophrenia, cancer, malnutrition, flesh-
eating bacteria, global warming, comets hitting earth—ditto.
The problem, though, is that violence doesn’t go on that list. Sometimes
we have no problem with it at all.
This is a central point of this book—we don’t hate violence. We hate and
fear the wrong kind of violence, violence in the wrong context. Because
violence in the right context is different. We pay good money to watch it in a