More often than I care to admit, I’m struck by the absurd realization that human beings are civilized versions of chimpanzees. I’ll be sitting at an outdoor restaurant eating with my family, talking about things, and watching water fountain jets set to popular music, when a couple of women will walk by holding stiff-sided shopping bags. Then a thought will appear in my head, unabetted and unwanted: that shaved primate just bought a new pair of designer jeans. I’ll look around as if expecting to see someone else having the same thought at the same moment, but thankfully, no one ever does.
Then, a waiter will walk past, carrying a basket of freshly baked bread, and set it down in the middle of a neighboring table. I’ll continue to watch for a few more moments as every pair of eyes at the table dart to the bread. Just for a moment, you can see the primate flash across the faces of a few of them—that desire to grab, to get, to gorge—but none of them, at least this time, give into it. They’ve learned to suppress their simpler urges, which is no surprise. They are at a restaurant, after all, and we rightly kick the people who don’t learn to push down their primate urges out of our civilized-great-ape game—or at least that’s what a functioning society does.
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