The Naked Ape (28 page)

Facial expressions are particularly important, as we have already seen in earlier chapters, as basic forms of visual communication in our species. They have evolved in a complex form in only a few groups of mammals—the higher primates, the horses, the dogs and the cats. It is no accident that five of the top ten favourites belong to these groups. Changes in facial expression indicate changes in mood and this provides a valuable link between the animal and ourselves, even though the correct significance of the expressions is not always precisely understood.

As regards manipulative ability, the panda and the elephant are unique cases. The former has evolved an elongated wrist bone with which it can grasp the thin bamboo sticks on which it feeds. A structure of this kind is found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. It gives the flat-footed panda the ability to hold small objects and bring them up to its mouth while sitting in a vertical posture. Anthropomorphically this scores heavily in its favour. The elephant is also capable of ‘manipulating’ small objects with its trunk, another unique structure, and taking them up to its mouth.

The vertical posture so characteristic of our species gives any other animal that can adopt this position an immediate anthropomorphic advantage. The primates in the top ten list, the bears and the panda all sit up vertically on frequent occasions. Sometimes they may even stand vertically or go so far as to take a few faltering steps in this position, all of which helps them to score valuable points. The giraffe, by virtue of its unique body proportions, is, in a sense, permanently vertical. The dog, which achieves such a high anthropomorphic score for its social behaviour, has always been something of a postural disappointment. It is uncompromisingly horizontal. Refusing to accept defeat on this point, our ingenuity went to work and soon solved the problem, we taught the dog to sit up and beg. In our urge to anthropomorphise the poor creature, we went further still. Being tailless ourselves, we started docking its tail. Being flat-faced ourselves, we employed selective breeding to reduce the bone structure in the snout region. As a result, many dog breeds are now abnormally flatfaced. Our anthropomorphic desires are so demanding that they have to be satisfied, even at the expense of the animals’ dental efficiency. But then we must recall that this approach to animals is a purely selfish one. We are not seeing animals as animals, but merely as reflections of ourselves, and if the mirror distorts too badly we either bend it into shape or discard it.

So far we have been considering the animal loves of children of all ages between four and fourteen. If we now split up the responses to these favourite animals, separating them into age groups, some remarkably consistent trends emerge: For certain of the animals there is a steady decrease in preference with the increasing age of the children. For others there is a steady rise.

The unexpected discovery here is that these trends show a marked relationship with one particular feature of the preferred animals, namely their body size. The younger children prefer the bigger animals and the older children prefer the smaller ones. To illustrate this we can take the figures for the two largest of the top ten forms, the elephant and the giraffe, and two of the smallest, the bushbaby and the dog. The elephant, with an overall average rating of 6 per cent, starts out at 15 per cent with the four-year-olds and then falls smoothly to 3 per cent with the fourteen year olds. The giraffe shows a similar drop in popularity from 10 per cent to 1 per cent. The bushbaby, on the other hand, starts at only 4.5 per cent with the four-year-olds and then rises gradually to 11 per cent with the fourteen-year-olds. The dog rises from 0.5 to 6.5 per cent. The medium-sized animals amongst the top ten favourites do not show these marked trends.

We can sum up the findings so far by formulating two principles. The first law of animal appeal states that ‘The popularity of an animal is directly correlated with the number of anthropomorphic features it possesses.’ The second law of animal appeal states that ‘The age of a child is inversely correlated with the size of the animal it most prefers.’

How can we explain the second law? Remembering that the preference is based on a symbolic equation, the simplest explanation is that the smaller children are viewing the animals as parent-substitutes and the older children are looking upon them as childsubstitutes. It is not enough that the animal must remind us of our own species, it must remind us of a special category within it. When the child is very young, its parents are all important protective figures. They dominate the child’s awareness. They are large, friendly animals, and large friendly animals are therefore easily identified with parental figures. As the child grows it starts to assert itself, to compete with its parents. It sees itself in control of the situation, but it is difficult to control an elephant or a giraffe. The preferred animal has to shrink down to a manageable size. The child, in a strangely precocious way, becomes the parent itself. The animal has become the symbol of its child. The real child is too young to be a real parent, so instead it becomes a symbolic parent. Ownership of the animal becomes important and pet-keeping develops as a form of ‘infantile parentalism’. It is no accident that, since becoming available as an exotic pet, the animal previously known as the galago has now acquired the popular name of bushbaby. (Parents should be warned from this that the pet keeping urge does not arrive until late in childhood. It is a grave error to provide pets for very young children, who respond to them as objects for destructive exploration, or as pests.)

Here is one string exception to the second law of animal appeal and that concerns the horse. The response to this animal is unusual in two ways. When analysed against increase in age of children, it shows a smooth rise in popularity followed by an equally smooth fall. The peak coincides with the onset of puberty. When analysed against the different sexes, it emerges that it is three times as popular with girls as with boys. No other animal love shows anything approaching this sex difference. Clearly there is something unusual about the response to the horse and it requires separate consideration.

The unique feature of the horse in the present context is that it is something to be mounted and ridden. This applies to none of the other top ten animals. If we coupe this observation with the facts that its popularity peak coincides with puberty and that there is a strong sexual difference in its appeal, we are forced to the conclusion that the response to the horse must involve a strong sexual element. If a symbolic equation is being made between mounting a horse and sexual mounting, then it is perhaps surprising that the animal has a greater appeal for girls. But the horse is a powerful, muscular and dominant animal and is therefore more suited to the male role. Viewed objectively, the act of horse-riding consists of a long series of rhythmic movements with the legs wide apart and in close contact with the body of the animal. Its appeal for girls appears to result from the combination of its masculinity and the nature of the posture and actions performed on its back. It must be stressed here that we are dealing with the child population as a whole. One child in every eleven preferred the horse to all other animals. Only a small fraction of this percentage would ever actually own a pony or a horse. Those that do, quickly learn the many more varied rewards that go with this activity. (If, as a result, they become addicted to horse-riding, this is not, of course, necessarily significant in the context we have been discussing.)

It remains to explain the fall in popularity of the horse following puberty. With increasing sexual development, it might be expected to show further increases in popularity, rather than a decrease. The answer can be found by comparing the graph for horse love with the curve for sex play in children. They match one another remarkably well. It would seem that, with the growth of sexual awareness, and the characteristic sense of privacy that comes to surround teenage sexual feelings, the response to the horse declines along with the decline in overt sex-play ‘romping’. It is significant here that the appeal of monkeys also suffers a decline at this point. Many monkeys have particularly obtrusive sexual organs, including large, pink, sexual swellings. For the younger child these have no significance and the monkeys’ other powerful anthropomorphic features can operate unhindered. But for older children the conspicuous genitals become a source of embarrassment and the popularity of these animals suffers as a consequence.

This, then, is the situation with regard to animal ‘loves’ in children. For adults, the responses become more varied and sophisticated, but the basic anthropomorphism persists. Serious naturalists and zoologists bewail this fact, but providing it is fully realised that symbolic responses of this kind tell us nothing about the true nature of the different animals concerned, they do little harm and provide a valuable subsidiary outlet for emotional feelings.

Before considering the other side of the coin—the animal ‘hates’—there is one criticism that must be answered. It could be argued that the results discussed above are of purely cultural significance, and have no meaning for our species as a whole. As regards the exact identity of the animals involved this is true. To respond to a panda, it is obviously necessary to learn of its existence. There is no inborn panda response. But this is not the point. The choice of the panda may be culturally determined, but the reasons for choosing it do reflect a deeper, more biological process at work. If the investigation were repeated in another culture, the favourite species might be different, but they would still be selected according to our fundamental symbolic needs. The first and second law of animal appeal would still operate.

Turning now to animal ‘hates’, we can subject the figures to a similar analysis. The top ten most disliked animals are as follows: 1. Snake (27 per cent). 2. Spider (9.5 per cent). 3. Crocodile (4.5 per cent). 4. Lion (4.5 per cent). 5. Rat (4 per cent). 6. Skunk (3 per cent). 7. Gorilla (3 per cent). 8. Rhinoceros (3 per cent). 9. Hippopotamus (2.5 per cent). 10. Tiger (2.5 per cent). These animals share one important feature: they are dangerous. The crocodile, the lion and the tiger are carnivorous killers. The gorilla, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus can easily kill if provoked. The skunk indulges in a violent form of chemical warfare. The rat is a pest that spreads disease. There are venomous snakes and poisonous spiders.

Most of these creatures are also markedly lacking in the anthropomorphic features that typify the top ten favourites. The lion and the gorilla are exceptions. The lion is the only form to appear in both the top ten lists.

The ambivalence of the response to this species is due to this animal’s unique combination of attractive anthropomorphic characters and violent predatory behaviour. The gorilla is strongly endowed with anthropomorphic characters, but unfortunately for him his facial structure is such that he appears to be in a constantly aggressive and fearsome mood. This is merely an accidental outcome of his bone structure and bears no relationship to his true (and rather gentle) personality, but combined with his great physical strength it immediately converts him into a perfect symbol of savage brute force.

The most striking feature of the list of top ten hates is the massive response to the snake and the spider. This cannot be explained solely on the basis of the existence of dangerous species. Other forces are at work. An analysis of the reasons given for hating these forms reveals that snakes are disliked because they are ‘slimy and dirty’ and spiders are repulsive because they are ‘hairy and creepy’. This must mean either that they have a strong symbolic significance of some kind, or alternatively that we have a powerful inborn response to avoid these animals.

The snake has long been thought of as a phallic symbol. Being a poisonous phallus, it has represented unwelcome sex, which may be a partial explanation for its unpopularity; but there is more to it than this. If we examine the different levels of snake hatred in children between the ages of four and fourteen, it emerges that the peak of unpopularity comes early, long before puberty is reached. Even at four, the hate level is high—around 30 per cent—and it then climbs slightly, reaching its peak at age six. From then on it shows a smooth decline, sinking to well below 20 per cent by the age of fourteen. There is little difference between the sexes, although at each age level the response from girls is slightly stronger than the response from boys. The arrival of puberty appears to have no impact on the response in either sex.

From this evidence it is difficult to accept the snake simply as a strong sexual symbol. It seems more likely that we are dealing here with an inborn aversion response of our species towards snake-like forms. This would explain not only the early maturation of the reaction, but also the enormously high level of the response when compared with all other animal hates and loves. It would also fit with what we know of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. These animals also exhibit a great fear of snakes and here again it matures early. It is not seen in the very young apes, but is fully developed by the time they are a few years old and have reached the stage where they are beginning to make brief sorties away from the security of their mothers’ bodies. For them an aversion response clearly has an important survival value and would also have been a great benefit to our early ancestors. Despite this, it has been argued that the snake reaction is not inborn, but merely a cultural phenomenon resulting from individual learning. Young chimpanzees reared under abnormally isolated conditions have reputedly failed to show the fear response when first exposed to snakes. But these experiments are not very convincing. In some instances, the chimpanzees have been too young when first tested. Had they been re-tested a few years later, the reaction may well have been present. Alternatively, the effects of isolation may have been so severe that the young animals in question were virtually mental defectives. Such experiments are based on a fundamental misconception about the nature of inborn responses, which do not mature in an encapsulated form, irrespective of the outside environment. They should be thought of more as inborn susceptibilities. In the case of the snake response, it ‘may be necessary for the young chimpanzee, or child, to encounter a number of different frightening objects in its early life and to learn to respond negatively to these. The inborn element in the snake case would then manifest itself in the form of a much more massive response to this stimulus than to others. The snake fear would be out of all proportion to the other fears, and this disproportionateness would be the inborn factor. The terror produced in normal young chimpanzees by exposure to a snake and the intense hatred of snakes exhibited by our own species is difficult to explain in any other way.