Sons of Monkeys: A New Study Of The Human Animal By A Down On His Luck Chinaman With A Zoology Degree

Sons of Monkeys

A New Study of the Human Animal from a down on his luck Chinaman with a Zoology Degree

Words by Mars Q

Published by Evol Education at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Mars Q

Edited by Peter Watts

Cover Art by Dang Thai

Everything else by Mars Q (for better or for worse)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Prologue: Will Write 4 Food

Chapter 1 Scar Tissue

Chapter 2 Birth Marks

Chapter 3 Leaving the Nest

Chapter 4 Birds of a Feather

Chapter 5 Nest Egg

Chapter 6 Birth Rights

Chapter 7 Wrinkles of Truth

Epilogue: Will Drop Pants

Dedication

Notes

Resources

References

Prologue: Will Write 4 Food

"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against…A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows might be the target of the well-read man? … our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred." – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1951)

Every indie project starts off on life support. No matter how great it might be, it’s still a proverbial fart in the wind that has to compete with everything and everyone else out there looking for a spotlight. It’s truly amazing that we have come together as global citizens to create an unprecedented number of open channels streaming with information, for better or for worse. But how do you make yourself heard when a Planet of Apes is hurling feces and screaming Notice me! It’s almost too understated to politely ask, Please read me, and it seemingly demands way too much of a commitment from a prospective consumer; narcissism is apparently most appealing when it demands no more than a click of a button and promises cleavage or a song and dance number. As a completely independent writer and scientist, I get to say whatever I want in any way I choose; I am lucky in the sense that a hundred years ago someone with my skin tone would never be given a shot at making it as an American Man of Letters unless I was writing about my foreign life in a foreign land. But this isn’t The Joy Luck Club. I’m not some Asian woman with small hands to help make your mike look bigger. This is hard-core critical thinking by an actual down on his luck sort-of Chinese guy attempting to overturn a century of dogma. However, with no real capital or financial backing, I have to make enough of a stink somewhere so people can’t help but notice and reluctantly breathe it all in. Unfortunately, it means I’ll have to become Job’s middle finger, his overdue rebuttal after God shat all over his life, and overturn two millennia of dogma just to get you to read the real message. And yet how do you start something that’s so easy to dismiss because it is in fact a book and it’s written by some nobody in a field no one cares about anymore?

Do I beg or boast? Which first? I could declare that this is our generation’s Origin of Species (or at least our Naked Ape) but such self-promotion would only have me labelled as a douche bag, even if it were true. Would an unknown Charles Darwin, first time author, even sell today? Is an academic good idea even marketable in a landscape dominated by no more than a hundred and forty characters and six second spots? Would Darwin have to try and sell his Big Idea in an eBook for $3.99 or even offer it for free just so readers might be more willing to give it a shot? Would he have to worry about whether or not his opening monologue was too long or be concerned with the reality that his prospective audience already has a finger precariously dangling above delete? Would an idea that could fundamentally change the way we look at the world be overlooked for a bag of overpriced popcorn at a forgettable movie that you’ll expel from both brain and bowel in a couple of hours? Sure, most of us know who Charles Darwin is today but how many of you have actually read his revolutionary synthesis? Will the world miss out on the next?

Where are our new Darwins, Freuds, Humes, Nietzsches, Einsteins, Teslas, Feynmans, Adam Smiths, Thomas Malthuses, Karl Marxs, Rousseaus, Voltaires, Émilie du Châtelets, Shakespeares, Twains and Thoreaus, Huxleys and Orwells…? It seems almost unbelievable today but deep thought and higher learning were once grounds for celebrity and celebration. Where are our current Giants of Science and Great Thinkers? Where’s the next Machiavelli’s The Prince or Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe? If they do exist, why are the authors taking a backseat to wannabe gangsters and porn stars or even broke? But I guess it’s always been that way in reality. Most great artists and thinkers weren’t admired in life and the vast majority were unbearable assholes with substance abuse problems. Rest easy, I’m an entirely different kind of bastard and I’m only addicted to one thing.

It’s easy to scoff at the Cyruses and Kardashians of the world or Fifty Shades of a lack of basic grammar and prose but we all pay for it; therefore, we must want it on some level. We elevate these artists and works of art to the status of modern day Rachmaninovs, Kama Sutras, and Nostradamuses, and then shamefully pretend after the fact that we didn’t listen to Vanilla Ice or follow Da Vinci’s non-existent code. Crap floats to the surface in every field, in every genre, and every market, and there’s no point in being jealous or upset because these people managed to successfully exploit our sensory biases and play us like fiddles, which wouldn’t be so bad if they actually knew how to play a viola. You can still feel sick to your stomach for having been fleeced by sheep but take solace in the fact that there are far worse charlatans out there who would leave you with a lot less than an insignificantly lighter wallet and an infectious chorus rattling in your head.

Who is our new champion of science? Do we even have any or has science completely lost its audience? We love our physicists so long as they’re accompanied by a bubbly bleached blonde with full C-cups or if they come totting enough baggage to warrant pathos. Nevertheless, we’ll only pay attention so long as the science is limited to casual name drops and a glossary-level depth of discussion. Yes, biologists have physics envy; they get the vast majority of the now dim limelight since most of their work occurs in realms of near make-believe and math; it’s confusing but liberating and lends itself well to imagination. Biology, on the other hand, demands that we comb through literal blood, feces, sweat, and semen to get at the truth, and it’s a truth you can’t float away with in a comic book; it’s happening now on ground level where our collective apathy is palpable and dream crushing. The X-gene can’t be passed on by men morons, at least not in this part of the multiverse.

Having said that, at least physics gets to have their Carl Sagans and Stephen Hawkings, people easy to admire for their contributions to educational outreach or self-deprecating wit; we get Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, people you’ve probably never heard of but well deserving of equal praise, well, maybe not the Ringo of the duo. Then again, if we measure success based on money and mass influence, in reality we’re left with… Richard Dawkins? But he sucks! It’s no wonder that biology has been reduced to fake documentaries and imagined cockfights. You know we have a problem when the Discovery Channel has given up on promoting reality in favour of reality TV. What a fucking shame. This is the science of life people! You’re a living creature; biology is the science of living things; science is about the pursuit of defendable truths, defendable meaning evidence-based, and evidence or proof are to be taken in the most objective forms available. At the end of the day, biology is without question the most objective lens we have to examine the world of the living; it evaluates all organic beings from ‘A’ amoeba to ‘Z’ zebra, past and present, the exact same way. Yet no one gives a damn! We can’t really blame them either; those still doing research are asking really boring questions and the science isn’t even being done properly. Why? Because there’s more money in make-believe and med school rejects have to do something. Richard Dawkins really does suck by the way; at least David Suzuki tries to use his niche celebrity to make the world a better place.

Is it science’s fault for not being sexy enough? Can it no longer just stand on its own merits? Do we have to dress it up and then take it off in order to compete for your attention? In short, yes. Unfortunately, I don’t even think I can do that in book form alone. Print media is all but dead and the written word itself is dying. We killed it. Even if the publishing industry did not foolishly overvalue its role in the printing process, even if they had actually tried to adapt instead of hyperinflating costs to cater to a minor market of the wealthy and already established, the book as a platform for information delivery is simply too slow and demands too much from an audience increasingly unable and/or unwilling to perform the task of decoding script, reconstituting prose into meaning, and then back-checking for comprehension. We’re mentally obese; we’re the fat kid on the sofa groaning every time he has to get up to go to the bathroom (and it’s most certainly a he). A book is mentally taxing; it’s laboured data consumption to those now accustomed to having information thrown at them in far more stimulating forms. Hell, even I would rather tell you my ideas in a conversation than write out each word. Nevertheless, it’s still a consumable product until my brand is worth something to you. We all need to eat.

Perhaps more important, to someone who can’t write or can barely read, a physical book is a constant reminder of our inadequacies; incomprehensible words just sitting there starring at you. You can’t swipe it away with a fingertip or switch to a form of media you might have a greater chance of understanding. And god forbid anyone has to go through the laborious process of now clicking on an offending word so it can whisk you away to a dictionary where you’ll suffer the private embarrassment of having still failed to comprehend. It’s more important that you feel good about yourself than learn anything; at least that’s the message we’re sending to kids these days given the fact that their illiteracy disturbs no one but the teachers in the room who have to then hide the evidence or risk getting blamed. We might as well go back to doodling on cave walls. Seriously. They have all the self-esteem in the world but very little to be proud of. It’s damn near impossible to misunderstand a tweet or vine; at least it’s excusable (because someone was driving or needed more letters and time) and thankfully erasable. You used to actually have to burn the offensive use of words. That’s a lot of work and makes people think you’re crazy. Watching people act the fool is far more appealing than being exposed as one.

Knowing all this, why am I asking you to perform an arduous and seemingly unpleasant task? Why should you sit here and read over a hundred and fifty thousand words, a real book without Bambi eyes or gratuitous depictions of sex and violence? Okay, I’m not going to lie, Chapter 7 is a real page turner; I talk about lesbian sex, playing with yourself, even bestiality… Oh yeah! The bottom line is that this is a good fucking book.

While a part of me wants to share with you who I am so you can better understand why I need this and why I write, it would feel like begging or making excuses. Life has thrown me a fair share of lemons but this is my lemonade; yes, a lot of it is sour but the truth tends to bite; hopefully it’s cut with enough sweetener to make it worthwhile. At this stage, the details of my life would only taint this with a bitterness that truly hasn’t infected my work as a scientist; I’ll save them for an interview or performance art at some point. Although times are tough, the charity of my family, the comfort of friends, and the most beautiful secretary in the world keep me afloat; I wish she grew on trees. My #firstworldproblems (gah I want to stab myself for using that) shouldn’t distract from my mission to change the way we look at the world forever.

If I do manage to cause enough ripples to rock the boat, the criticisms levied against me will no doubt unimaginatively fixate on the fact that I don’t have a PhD or even a Masters. I do have two worthless Bachelor degrees if that means anything to you, one in science for Zoology (with distinction I might add) and one in education (with a teaching award despite skipping class all the time). I’m also published in several peer reviewed actual science journals, which is more than a bunch of Intelligent Design scientists can say. As a side note, these qualifications were good enough for the public school board to allow me to teach a semester’s worth of English and ESL fucking Drama, while a Creationist taught Biology. Life’s a bitch that way.

Whether my shortcomings (and there are plenty) are grounds to accept or reject my ideas is out of my control. All I can say is that I was trained to be a world class scientist and I’ve trained myself to be a writer and critical thinker. These are the only practical skills I currently possess. It all depends on you if I actually get to Write for Food1; we all survive because someone out there sees the value in who we are and what we can do. If I have to literary nip slip and panty flash my way to give this a fighting chance, then that’s what I’m prepared to do but I’ll always tell you the truth no matter what for whatever that’s worth to you. $3.99. $5.99. It’s your choice. After I’ve had my fill, I’ll give it away for free. And if there isn’t a place for real science and meaningful dialogue, if we are truly handing it all over to these spoiled, talentless brats who would be daytime strippers in a meritocracy, then that’s fine; grease up that pole and let’s be open about everyone slipping and sliding towards extinction. It’ll be fun and that’s apparently what’s really important. Hell, I’ll join you. But if you want to bring balance back to the arena of consumption, if you see value in the truth, then support it, even if you don’t like the conclusion.

This actually could be the next Origin of Species or it’ll be misconstrued as the next Mein Kampf; it’s not but those things are out of my control. This is my one shot. This is my loaded gun. If you choose to follow where I’m aiming it, to borrow a phrase from my favourite character of all time, you’ll get to watch me blow a fucking kneecap off the world (Ellis and Robertson 1998). All it will cost you is a few cups of coffee and a few days of your time. Oops. I almost forgot to tell you what all the fuss is about… I’ll be arguing that humans make up a number of different species and as my former professor and mentor once quipped, This is the greatest threat to human health. I couldn’t agree more. Oh and it turns out that other than the kids wearing yarmulkes, Jesus probably didn’t love all the children of the world. He thought you were dogs at the dinner table. Don’t worry, he’s prepared to offer you crumbs for your faith. Don’t get mad. I’m just passing on his message. Read it yourself if you don’t believe me. But you probably won’t. Mars 7:27. It has a nice ring to it.

"Wherever we look we see that great scientific advances are due to outside interference which is made to prevail in the face of the most basic and most rational methodological rules…" – Paul Feyerabend, philosopher (1975)

Chapter 1 Scar Tissue

"We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay." – Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975)

Scar City, born and raised. Although police sirens are known as our unofficial anthem, I wouldn’t really call this a ghetto per se given the far more horrible places in the world to live and yet the wisest of us still stay on our toes. Take too much of one colour in our rich palette, mix it with another in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they’ll paint you a picture you’ll never soon forget. Case in point, although I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a brick of weed so big it barely fit into a car trunk, I can sadly tell the tale of a former happy, go-lucky schoolmate who ended up in prison after stabbing and paralysing the douche bag brother of the first girl I ever felt up over stolen drugs. Seriously. But that’s Scar City for you. If you’re lucky, you get to leave it with a few fond memories, a healthy dose of fear and an ego that’s been bruised just enough to know when it’s time to walk away, if you can still walk.

Mark Twain once wrote, Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. In the shadows of the concrete jungle, the sights, sounds, and smells are a constant reminder that the world comes to me. Scar City belongs to a larger conglomerate of suburbs and inner cities located in and around a downtown core, one that would actually appear on a given map of the world, a StarCity if you will. Like most major metropolises of the twenty-first century, ours is full of big business and big bustlines; international cartels of the plastic pretty and well-to-do consume our finest overpriced cuisine and couture, fill our art galleries and film fests, and glow in our nightclubs and yoga studios. To a biologist, however, StarCity is more like a zoo or circus; sure there’s lots of diversity and the odd pairing every now and then but the behaviour of its inhabitants may simply be a by-product of their conditions of confinement rather than free choice. StarCity is a show, an attraction. And while entertainment does serve its purposes, the real drama occurs in the shadows of corporate headquarters where the freaks, geeks, and sword swallowers of tomorrow are born today and the masses live out their clandestine lives as the purchasers of fast food, baby formula, and over the counter meds.

This city isn’t old enough to boast classic architecture or monuments that weren’t blatantly inspired by dicks and tits. And you would be hard-pressed to come up with an endemic feature that couldn’t be substituted or replaced in some other hub of the world. We do have one thing though, one reason to visit: there is more human biodiversity in this fair city than any other place on the planet. It’s a hominid hotspot and an astute biologist could make a career just by observing and recording the dynamic interaction of its inhabitants, foreign and domestic, legal and illegal, well, if they knew what to look for. So come for the people, stay for the food, leave for greener pastures and less traffic. Although I wrote some of this while living in the zoo, the Greater StarCity Area (GSA) is my lab and Scar City will always be my home, whether I like it or not.

There are many field stations throughout this region where you can observe humans without disturbing their natural rhythms; all you need is a brand name beverage and a smart phone to blend in. No matter where you are, one set of people noticeably dominates the landscape, much like a massive herd of wildebeest on the Serengeti with smaller groups of zebra, gazelle, and buffalo roaming in between. We have a Chinatown, a Greektown, a Little Italy, a Little India, a Little Korea, a Little Jamaica, Jewtown (relax), and a bunch of smaller urbanized areas where you’ll find representatives of Somalia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Portugal, Brazil, Tibet, Trinidad, Guyana and I’m sure I’ve missed a few others. Oh and don’t worry, there are still plenty of isolated Vanilla villes and hills and it’s all strawberries once you drive a couple of shakes or so out of the city. While the demographics of these locales have noticeably diversified in recent years, there remains a distinct monopoly on the most valued scent marking posts and watering holes. This is most palpable during a World Cup where every victory or tie leads to a murderously annoying traffic jam somewhere in the city, complete with flags I’d just love to burn (at the time). But while the persistence of these diverse communities is a testament to the cohesion of the people, they are simply holding on in the face of negative birth rates and encroachment from suburbs that aren’t quite as lily white as we remember.

Once upon a time in the jungles of Indo-China, a bunch of hungry, short people with almond-shaped brown eyes and straight, dark brown hair had sex with a bunch of other hungry, short people with almond-shaped brown eyes and straight, dark brown hair, which produced even more hungry, short people with almond-shaped, okay fine, slanted brown eyes and straight black hair. Those people had A LOT more sex and produced more and more of more or less the same looking people, all the while thumbing their noses up and, for the most part, no longer making legitimate babies with their similar looking neighbours who likewise did the same. Even in lands abroad, as long as they were not killed or short on fellow hungry, short people, travellers with slanted brown eyes and straight black hair continued on in this breeding tradition. Eventually, I was born and to this day I shockingly have slanted brown eyes with straight black hair and though I’m no longer short, I’m still hungry. And yes, our hair and eye colour comes in such stunningly diverse forms.

Although my genetic story would appear fairly simple, my non-genetic tale has consisted of a mosaic of experiences that would be entirely foreign to the vast majority of my genetic brethren. If I had lived in, say, rural China my whole life, there would be little doubt that I would grow up to think Chinese, dress Chinese, eat Chinese, speak Chinese, breathe Chinese, marry Chinese and eventually make Chinese, while giving the stink eye to everyone not Chinese. But my journey began in Scar City, once more of a melting pot than an advertised tossed salad of Multiculturalism. Yes, that was a joke. The neighbourhood I grew up in was pretty much an even mix of Whites and Blacks with a dash of ethnic families for extra seasoning. It was also a place where people comfortably referred to one another as Crayola crayons so please take no offence when I colour outside the box. While the Interwebs allow us to now find our perfect match based on dozens of compatible lies, even with a state of the art Commodore 64 and a BMX, my available pool of playmates was still limited to the park and the sketchy neighbourhood next to us; there was no Asian Avenue or Facebook to keep us linked in, just Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? and Digger (best game ever). All I really looked for in a friend was whether or not you were willing to play hockey when it was twenty below or shoot hoops until sundown. I didn’t care if you were white, black, yellow, brown, red or even purple. I was actually more thrown off by the ESL and smell of mothballs coming from the handful of fellow hungry, short people with slanted brown eyes and straight black hair than ever being one of the only Yellow kids in school. And to tell you the truth, I spent most of my childhood not even sure I was Chinese. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was well on my way to having an identity crisis.

High school sucked and I would’ve had a lot more fond memories if I were given a replay button. Sure, we all swam in the same tank but most of the fish moved in separate circles and the distinct schools of black, white, yellow, and brown was very confusing to me. Panicked, I resorted to instinct and simply started to chase tail. Let me tell you, whoever came up with the whole Rare Male Effect obviously never grew up yellow with an appetite for vanilla waifers. Talk about getting chased out of town! Male-male competition and honestly female-choice pretty much forced this chink into exile where the yellow stock welcomed me with sceptical fins.

See, prior to high school, no one ever told me that I was missing some of the necessary credentials of a certified Chinese person. For instance, I only speak English and I was raised to be a devout Baptist of all things. I did receive several elements of a typical Chinese upbringing, however, like impossibly demanding parents more comfortable giving out beatings than hugs, bowl haircuts, incredible pressure to not just be one of the best but perfect (or I was a failure), and a tumultuous relationship with the wooden cooking spoon, which fed me glorious meals one moment and beat me the next. I’m not going to lie; on more than one occasion before the age of twelve I had a knife pulled on me…by my mom. But despite these shared experiences, I had a sneaking suspicion that all was not well in the Land of Yellow when my name was noticeably absent from the various Chinatowns in the school yearbook; you know, the C’s, the L’s, and the W’s… the Chen’s, Chan’s, Chung’s, Lee’s, Leung’s, Lyn’s, Wong’s and Wu’s of the world… Me? Nope. I was next to the Polish kids. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe that’s why only Polish girls showed me any love. Something was bewwie wong.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t really know who I was. People I used to consider fobs started labelling me as whitewashed, banana, burnt banana, duck egg, and even chigger, though not maliciously for the most part. Come on, I like Bruce Lee and Chinese food! So what if I hate bubble tea and karaoke... I was definitely on the receiving end of some mixed messages. To textbooks, the government, and the other kids of the world, I was a Mongoloid, Asian (what the hell is an Asian?2), or yellow in whatever covert language they were speaking. But despite my best efforts, I just didn’t measure up on the Chinese scale. How can one play the ass end of the New Year lion and not be Chinese? It must have been my enormously average penis.

My preferences in music, women, sports, and a significant language barrier have always kept me at a distance from those who were supposed to be My People. There was the boobtastic blonde Ms. Guscott, an ebony princess named Raisha, the pastor’s daughter Katherine, my first love Anastasia, my second Michelle, and Katerina, perhaps my last. I remember all the major rejections from my third grade teacher to the present. An additional shout out goes to Danielle Christoforou who used to help tie my laces and freed me from velcro in Gr. 1. Even though the cliques have long dissolved, to this day I still get treated like an outsider, perhaps even worse than Others, because it’s apparently a grave sin that I haven’t reached an acceptable level of Chineseness. Restaurants in particular have historically been the bane of my existence. Despite using chopsticks like a pro, the minute I open my mouth, the plates and forks crash onto the table. And then there’s the ultimate heartbreaker: fortune cookies. If you don’t already know, getting fortune cookies after spending a decent wad of cash on a meal is like a slap in the testicles when you’re well aware of the other tasty alternatives. Ironically, whenever I was out with my girlfriend, it felt like every fellow Yellow fellow was giving me a mental high-five because an attractive White woman on the arm of a Chinese man is the equivalent to winning some sort of lottery. The looks from the Chinese women however…

At any rate, there’s simply no escaping the fact that I’m an Asian chameleon, and I can’t walk through StarCity without someone eventually exposing my bluff by ching-chonging or tagaloging away until they notice my look of bewilderment and I in turn their look of disappointment. At the same time, I can’t leave StarCity without some ignorant rube inquiring how I’ve managed to acquire this strange ability to remain accent-free. Lately, I’ve just been pretending that I understand what everyone is saying. It seems to be working.

In many ways, my identity struggles mirror the experiences of those with mixed ancestry. I never understood why someone 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 Black was considered black and not something else. One would hope in this day and age that we were past the whole One-Drop Rule, but the majority of people, even Black people, still consider anyone with even the slightest amount of African ancestry to be Black first and foremost (but don’t you dare tell them that we’re all technically from Africa). As a result, Barrack Obama is the first Black president and, by the same token, Tiger Woods is the best Black golfer, especially now… I’m admittedly not a math genius, but according to my calculations, Tiger Woods is about 1/4 Black, 1/8 White, and 5/8 Asian, that is if we absorb the 1/8 Native American into the fold, which is completely legitimate if it benefits the popular vote under the Charter of Minority Identity Rights. This makes him Oriental more than anything. Plus he’s a Buddhist. We’ll happily take him. That’s right bro. Sampson wouldn’t cut his hair, right? Get back on that ho train! Either way, two plus two never equals four in the world of racial mathematics and as it turns out, it makes no difference whether it’s for genetic or non-genetic reasons, being mixed in this world is liable to have you feeling pretty mixed up, especially when you are rarely the sole architect of your identity.

No organism exists as an island unto itself. Humans, like all social creatures, have the added complexity of not only establishing the SELF in a world of OTHERS, but also extending the Self to include other members of the group. For example, in certain hymenopterans (i.e. ants, bees, and wasps), termites and naked mole rats, GROUP IDENTITY is so strong that it more or less produces a "Superorganism" where each individual operates more like a specialized cell than an independent entity:

"In the broadest sense, the term superorganism is appropriate for any insect colony that is eusocial, or truly social, and that means combining three traits: first, its adult members are divided into reproductive castes and partially or wholly nonreproductive workers; second, the adults of two or more generations coexist in the same nests; and third, nonreproductive or less reproductive workers care for the young. For those who prefer a stricter definition, the term superorganism may be applied only to colonies of an advanced state of eusociality, in which interindividual conflict for reproductive privilege is diminished and the worker caste is selected to maximize colony efficiency in intercolony competition." – The Superorganism (Hölldobler and Wilson 2009)

While we haven’t exactly fulfilled the broadest definition of EUSOCIALITY, the stricter one ironically emphasizes the key basis for sociality in general; that is, to increase the chances of survival and success beyond what one could expect as a lone individual. Although the case for this gets flimsier every year, unlike eusocial insects, it might be argued that we have an additional brain caste. Still, the actions of our leaders aren’t all that different from the role of a queen, as both imprint a specific order on top of the usual self-organization exhibited by all social organisms. An anarchist would probably agree. The true strangeness of human society, however, resides in the fact that we’ve seemingly reversed the eusocial equation by enlisting the reproductive caste to care for the nonreproductive and less reproductive factions of society, which just so happen to wield the greatest power. As a result, while there are no outright interindividual conflicts for reproductive privilege – well, not anymore – the elite members of society will always be on the relative decline and risk losing control unless certain measures are put in place. It’s a catch-22 of increased individual value but decreased strength in numbers and the ensuing conflict has resulted in a truly spectacular amount of human diversification. Something we’ll try to dissect in the coming chapters.

Despite its fundamental benefits, group living comes with a set of costs, such as increased local competition for food, water, and shelter – or, in our case, the all-encompassing resource unit known as money –, the localization of disease, relative status within the social unit, and a heightened risk of exploitation through misinformation (i.e. the herd or group effect). Therefore, the continuation of any given social group, or society, is based on the premise that it CONTINUES to be an adaptive strategy; otherwise the costs start to greatly exceed the benefits. While it may prove impossible to strongly select against sociality once a certain threshold has been passed, the negative aspects of group living predictably tend to mount with increasing membership, constantly threatening to splinter an oversized group as individual value starts to plummet. In The Devil’s Advocate (1952), Taylor Caldwell fittingly wrote,

"You see, when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry. The leaders stigmatize the enemy with every vice they can think of, every evil and human depravity. They stimulate their people’s natural fear of all other men by channelling it into a defined fear of just certain men, or nations. Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis, temporarily, on men’s fear of their immediate neighbours. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide."

With some of our potential social units today numbering in the millions and even billions, Caldwell’s statement clearly demonstrates the two necessary factors involved in the maintenance of a given society, namely the dual forces of opposition – to remain adaptive – and cohesion – to identify its members.

By opposition, I am referring to any source of perceived struggle shared by all members of the group against enemies both real and illusory, which is necessary for group living to remain an adaptive strategy. I would argue that a huge, six billion members and counting Human social group does not exist and cannot exist for the simple fact that we no longer have any natural, visible, or common enemies to contend with on a regular basis outside of other groups of people. The question is, when does our banding together to maximize colony efficiency during intercolony conflict become something a little more sinister? You might notice that the only time you even hear the term human being tossed around as a primary or ALPHA IDENTITY is when a natural disaster strikes and many are actually caused by over-industrious men instead of some invisible hand (i.e. hurricanes and global warming; flooding, erosion, desertification and poor land management; antibiotic resistant bacteria and medicinal misuse, flu pandemics and poor farming practices, chronic persistent hunger and economic imperialism, etc.). Sure, we’ll send some humanitarian relief to places like Japan, China, Pakistan, Darfur, or New Orleans, but group response times seem to vary greatly depending on who’s been hit with misfortune and what they can offer us in the near future. When was the last time you were asked to save an adorable Khoi-San baby from the Black South African farmer intent on murdering its family and stealing their land?

More significantly, natural disasters and disease rarely affects everyone equally; hence, they don’t serve as a significant enough reason for such a huge entity to persist for more than a staged moment, especially outside the hot zone. Out of sight, out of mind. Ironically, a truly global pandemic, like AIDS, should be grounds for a worldwide defence as we speak, except for the handful of populations that are immune to it I suppose, but I guess it has yet to strike a wide enough portion of the global community to have that kind of effect. Plus not being able to actually see an HIV-virus without a high-powered microscope makes it a hard enemy to remember fighting against. It might just take an alien invasion to give us enough reason to be human again, but not an illegal one – that usually does the opposite.

All organisms, even non-social ones, transmit and receive information, whether intentional or not, and are therefore capable of learning from or reacting to their environment, albeit with varying degrees of complexity. Social creatures, however, routinely broadcast and gather information from those specifically identified as members of the same group. We often refer to the acquisition of information in this way as SOCIAL LEARNING, and this occurs in classrooms as diverse as beehives, burrows, boardrooms, and back alleys. Therefore, by cohesion, I am broadly referring to the emergent systems that unite or define the group and are handed down to us either genetically or non-genetically (i.e. culturally, conditionally, environmentally, etc.), and more realistically through an interaction of both.

In some cases, the expression of specific genes will maintain unity despite the presence of similar creatures nearby (i.e. genes predisposing for particular calling song frequencies and pulse rates in frogs, birds, or insects); in other situations, socially learned systems will be more important, as in the case of various birds (i.e. songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds), ocean mammals, bats, and possibly elephants. More often than not, however, both genetic and non-genetic systems are inextricably linked, and it is only the limitations of language that force us to distinguish between the two. Case in point, a human will fail to acquire complete vocal language if, like songbirds, they are not exposed to speech during a crucial sensory phase; they are then unable to form an auditory memory to later imitate. On the other hand, a mutation to a specific region of DNA, such as the FOXP2 gene, could render it inactive and similarly lead to a state of mutism (Fisher and Scharff 2009; MacDougall-Shackleton 2009). As far as we can tell, baring disease or misfortune, all humans have inherited the physiological means to emit, process and interpret information within functionally comparable ranges. As a result, possessing the genetics of a Chinese person would never stop me from physically being able to communicate in a language that is foreign to me; understanding it, however, is a whole other experience-based story. Bottom line: Nature is far too dynamic for a true genetic and non-genetic dichotomy to exist. So for the sake of simplicity, let’s refer to the information exchanged between social organisms as being part of a general social system from here on out.

Since it is possible to identify different societies, each must logically possess a characteristic information profile or signature. Depending on the organism, the information exchanged can be auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, chemical, and even electrical in nature. Various monkeys, for instance, are able to identify fellow members of their troops based on a behavioural repertoire of signature smells (i.e. pheromones, urine, feces, etc.), sounds, markings, facial features and so forth. Similarly, wolves, hyenas, lions, elephants, orcas, prairie dogs, meerkats, banded mongooses, naked mole rats, termites, ants, honey bees, etc., learn how to identify members of their packs, prides, families, pods, mobs, towns, dens, colonies, nests, and hives. Social systems allow communal organisms to recognize members of the "INGROUP or in-crowd. Each member of the ingroup appears bonded by a mutually compatible perception of the available data in their environment, one that explicitly states, We’re on the same team."

As a likely member of a given nation or ethnic group, you are typically connected to other individuals through a combination of language(s), symbols (i.e. emblems, flags, clothing), anthems, ideologies, diet, facial features, hair type, skin colour, and multiple idiosyncratic behaviours and mannerisms. While our social systems tend to be overtly audiovisual in nature, apparently the nose still knows as well (and I wouldn’t rule out taste): The expression of major histocompatibility (MHC) genes play a key role in the body’s immune system. Studies have shown that women are capable of literally sniffing out a preferred mate, one with versions of MHC genes different from their own, just by smelling t-shirts that have been worn two nights in a row, well, unless they’re on birth control (i.e. Wedekind and Penn 2000). Ah, but there are additional wrinkles in our dirty laundry. Women tend to select men with MHC copies that are the same as their fathers but not their mothers and least prefer those with zero or only one match (Jacobs et al. 2002).3 So it’s apparently good to be slightly different but not too different. Then again, this might only apply to social groups with low genetic diversity to begin with, like Mormons in Utah for example (Jacob et al. 2002). Who’s your daddy now?

Nevertheless, anybody that has ever sweated it out in an ethnically diverse gym or during an episode of compulsive humping can also vouch for the characteristic odours of other people with scary accuracy. And while we no longer piss on fence posts as warnings or to give shout outs to our peeps, the sheer gaudiness of our most acknowledged social signals is likely unique in the animal world; though if you compared chimps hooting and hollering before the hunt to the pre-game warm up of a hockey or rugby team, the only difference might be that the chimp doesn’t believe wearing a specific number will make a difference in its performance.

Chink. Zipper head. Gook. Nip. Slope. Fence Hopper. Wetback. Spic. Wop. Wog. Paddy. Nigger. Coon. Monkey. Alligator bait. Beaner, Coolie. Paki. Pak Rats. Binder. Gas Huffer. Savage. Gin. Prairie Nigger. Abo. Dune Coon. Raghead. Towel-Head. Kike. Jesus Killer. Oven Baked. Fag. Dyke. A Scottish pal and I once tried to come up with the ultimate ethnic slur for White people; it proved more difficult than we anticipated. Existing ones like Caker or Cracker just didn’t cut it, I mean, who doesn’t like cake and crackers? We needed something that really described the White condition as historical revisionists and oblivious overseers. After reading Alfred Crosby’s fascinating work Ecological Imperialism (1986), and not that piece of shit Pulitzer Prize winning rip-off, I was convinced that Weeds might work; it did accurately describe the displacement of native organisms by Whitey and his merry band of dandelions, sheep, rabbits, rats, and smallpox as they spread throughout New Worlds. But you know what? Weeds get a bad rap, some are quite nutritious, and yesterday’s weeds eventually become tomorrow’s natives. We needed something better. My sister eventually submitted the following gem: she called White people Potatoes. Hmm the potato… taken from America along with its people to assist in cultivation, a monoculture crop fed to the local poor, short-sighted over-reliance leads to deadly famine, and finally repackaged in the form of oily goodness for the modern day working class. It seemed to meet all the criteria, but it lacked a certain derisive quality. After much thought, I came up with a solution: How about Taters? The Scotsman gave it a try, Fucking Taters. It worked! We could even call the little ones Tater Tots. We thought we had struck Yukon Gold, but sadly it failed to catch on. Fucking Taters.

♫ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell me which thing is not like the others by the time I finish this song. ♪ I’m probably one of the few people in this part of the world that never watched Sesame Street growing up, which probably explains a lot, and yet I can still discriminate with the best of them. In fact, I have a score to settle with all those liberal propagandists who’ve been incredibly busy undermining humanity’s greatest attribute: our power of DISCRIMINATION.

Look, I understand this was a natural reaction to the fallout of slavery, eugenics, the holocaust, and the civil rights movement, but I will not stand idly by and watch one of our greatest strengths fall victim to a smear campaign launched by more despotic idealism. I think I speak for everyone when I say, I don’t want to live in a world where we discriminate against discrimination. Our powers of discrimination should not be second-guessed and we should not lose faith in what led us to greatness. Listen, without this skill, this gift of seeing the subtle differences between like and more like, how would we have ever risen to prominence? Never forget that the same skills that made it possible to discriminate Sunnis from Shiites and Jews from Aryans also allowed us to separate the edible mushroom from the poisonous from the hallucinogenic, harmless milk and king snakes from the deadly coral, the poison-tipped arrow that kills the hunted from the one that also kills the hunter, the wild mustang from the workhorse, the seeds of agriculture from those sown of wild oats, the precious diamond from the cubic zirconium and even ladies from lady boys. Without our incredible powers of audiovisual discrimination we would still be scraping out a meagre existence, naked, wet and cold, the constant victims of nature clawed and toothier, leaving us red all over. Cheesy coffee shop relativism should never be a substitute for vigorous discrimination, the very basis of EVERYTHING we do well.

I mean without discrimination we would never be able to form STEREOTYPES. Can you imagine a world without stereotypes?! Our brains would overload with so much information that we would never be able to make appropriate or quick enough responses to anything. Stereotyping allows us to package information into manageable bundles or units and thus form general patterns based on our ability to partition data. For instance, if a worker approaches a soldier ant on sentinel duty, they will both scan one another for the chemical signature that is stereotypical for their nest to determine whether to ignore, flee, guard or attack. How is this any different from what I can do audiovisually? Why do I know that the person driving the clunky Honda Accord or Acura Integra with unnecessary NEW tinted windows is likely a brown dude? Why do I know that the supped up Civic probably belongs to a rice eater? The massive 4x4 flatbed truck? White guy. The SUV nervously driving all over the road about to kill someone? Woman. Probably White woman. Beat up, rusted piece of shit barely holding it together? Anyone, but I’ll go with someone dark-skinned if I had to guess. Am I a bad person because I’ve made these connections? Or am I simply bad because I’ve written them down? Our instincts tell us that since we can’t audiovisually discriminate ants from different colonies then the differences must be minor and that there’s something inherently wrong with our discriminating ways. But we have absolutely no reason to assume that the chemosensory landscape of an ant is any less discrete than the world we perceive and I’m sure the nest currently under attack by its neighbours would agree. Without the ability to form stereotypes, sociality would NOT exist! And the fundamental basis of stereotype formation is our ability to perceive similarities and differences, or simply our powers of discrimination.

Asians have epicanthic eye folds and black hair; they eat a lot of rice, are good at math, and can fix your computer. They can’t drive for shit (well, the old ones at least). Black people have curly hair, love rap music and fried food, and can kick your ass in most sports that involve bursts of speed and strength (and the skinny ones from east Africa will destroy you in a marathon). Muslim women wear a hijab, pray to Mecca, avoid alcohol, and are probably bald down there…on their wedding night. Brown people love curry, fine tea, vegetarian food, and apparently randomly breaking into dance, while working up a sweat that smells like day-old curry. White men are more likely to go bald, drink you under the table, become serial killers, pedophiles and rapists, and die of some inbred-related disease. Stereotypes are comforting. They give us a sense of order amidst a potentially volatile information landscape. But is there a basis for them? Do they form a part of an objective reality or are they merely illusions we’ve been duped into believing?

I’ll be the first to admit that stereotypes aren’t perfect. The first thing that automatically comes to mind is the exception to the rule. Obviously, not all White men are serial killers, right? Not all Brown people smell, some Black people suck at sports, and believe it or not I stink at math and I can’t fix your computer so stop asking me. Also, what happens when the information changes? Once upon a time, there used to be this glorious stereotype that all Asians knew kung fu; don’t pick on the skinny kid ‘cause you might wind up on your ass in spectacular choreographed fashion. But over time, I’m sad to admit, this stereotype is slipping away and it is no longer part of a general pattern or never was in the first place. Sure, we LIKE martial arts but few of