I'll go out on a limb and speculate that the part of the origin of human beings was when groups of missing link species discovered general "peace" like the group of non-human primates discussed here, replacing the chimp/ape fighting shennanigans described in the article. This gave them a leap in adaptive advantage over groups that still practiced the monkeyshines described in the article.... CB
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I really can't speculate much because I don't have models to play with. But from a purely philosophical position, one of Cassirer's interesting speculations was that the symbolic or mythopoetic world is suffused with emotive dynamics, and its interworkings follow an ordering similar to the evocations in drama or poetry or music. Levi-Strauss made a related inference in some sections of the The Savage Mind (I think). Piaget also touches on some of this in various places. These are pretty much my heros in giving constructive comprehension to the human mind.
Using them as a clue might lead to the idea that symbolic combat, ritual, pretend, dance, and so forth become the favored mode of expression for the raw and unadorned rushes of primate hormones---and their social construction. These symbolic actions take the place of `real' actions in stylized and ritualistic performances. Whether these qualify as `peaceful' or not, at least they don't result in deaths and maiming.
Because I am not a believer in human progress at any deep level, I think we still perform best when we symbolically kill our enemies with ridicule, vitriol, and derision.
But my seething distain for the US public (jackoff assholes) and their (completely fucked up) government are so overwhelming, that I find it very difficult to express these rushes of violent hatred in any form at all. One needs control, wit, and grace under pressure---qualities I lack, in order to deliver the elegant and crushing ridicule the US so richly deserve. Nevermind.
``With the rise of class exploiting society, humans have gone backwards to acting more like chimp/ape ancestors with their fighting and aggression...''
I think this is more complex and difficult to grasp and understand. I think the `backward' feel comes from the impoverishment of broad categories (that should constitute a communal holding) of more sophisticated cultural means. In other words, the general impoverishment might be the consequence of a `division of labor', so that most people are not expected to perform at full capacity in many cultural areas, particularly the arts---where the sophistication of expression has been commodified and turned over to some specialist class like artists, or the comedia dell'arte.
I think you can see this impoverishment reflected in the reduced and almost schematic English we speak, where vast domains of metaphor and analogy have been dropped from common speech. We tend to speak in `stick figures' or barren and truncated phrases.`Fuck you' seems to be the limit for ridicule---maybe augmented with bared teeth and the finger. Wouldn't it be a hoot to find a baboon tribe that gave each other the finger?
Analyzing the bourgeoisie is tough going in this realm. Their real medium of expression is the cool and calculated manipulation of public institutions to do their dirty work of bludgeoning the unruly masses into a zombie like conformity, and they are very good at it.
You mentioned names as a pivotal point. Sure. Consider the kind of names that are used in Native American traditions. These commonly call on animals, and some key event that took place while the person was very young. I had a NA friend who used to laugh at some of these names. One of his buddies was known as Two Dogs. Well, guess why? When I remember him, I realize I never asked his Indian name. In fact I didn't know it. He was a half breed, part Puerto Rican, so he may not have been given an Indian name. I don't know.
Notice that primate anthropologists always give names to the animals they observe. Often (judging from PBS specials) the names don't quite fit the character of their charges---since they betray the bourgeois sensibility of the anthropologist---who tend to lack a sense of the heroic.
It would be interesting to try to fit the names of Greek gods to a troop of baboons in such a way that the names fit the characters. Obviously Zeus would be an alpha male, and Athena the top female. Maybe Apollo for one of the smarter and more cagey bachelors, maybe Odysseus for a leading figure who left the troop and came back after a long sojourn---to find his family in ruin---and conspired with his oldest son to set things right.
It's interesting to me that Greek mythology is essentially an extended family in one squabble after another, very much of the sort that you can get many people to relate about their own extended families. The arrogant aloof father, the lyric mother, the weird brothers and errant sisters, the strange cousins, and bizarre uncles and homely aunts. Kinship becomes mythology, where the names become archetypes, and the archetypes become categories of being in proto-philosophy drama---and pretty soon we are `civilized.'
I return to the stunning example of the role of `history', or `fortune' as the Medieval mind named it---in the Baboon example. Whatever happened in the ancient past of humanity, obviously fortune played some part.
Well, too much wine.
CG