On the other hand, if you've heard anything about evopsych before, I'm 99% sure it's not because of the actual ideas it posits ("we are products of evolution" isn't a bad premise on the surface), but a certain *audience* those ideas attract. They're the sort of folk who claim that natural selection alone can prove we are genetically wired (read: destined) to seek out criminality, hierarchy, war, or greed; believe that, and they can make you believe much worse.

Not unlike the #Monomyth, starting with the TL;DR of Darwin's theories is more open-ended than you'd think, and this means it lends itself to being fertilizer for shithead ideologues to make their means to an end palatable. Not all evopsych enthusiasts see themselves as bedfellows with eugenicists, nor successors to the phrenologists before them, but if you *are* for #eugenics, then evopsych is the perfect smokescreen, and you might as well call yourself one to confuse everyone else.*

The author seems keen to promote evopsych not as a third wheel to #neuroscience and #anthropology*, but as the main act (see next post):

> Evolutionary theory tells us our purpose is to survive and reproduce. These are complex aims, not least reproduction, which, for humans, means manipulating what potential mates think of us. Convincing a member of the opposite sex that we’re a desirable mate is a challenge that requires a deep understanding of social concepts such as attraction, status, reputation and rituals of courting. Ultimately, then, we could say the mission of the brain is this: control.
- pp. 16-17

Right off the bat, the evopsych framing is front and center. Evolution, alone, can explain why we behave the way we do, and thus, how plot elements work to stir our emotions.

There's a brief section in Chapter 3 of #DavidGraeber and #DavidWengrow's #DawnOfEverything where they argue starting from a common evopsych claim: hierarchy-seeking behaviour after groups pass a certain number is an adaptation from our simian ancestors. Social inequality, therefore, is an effect of genetic destiny. Some erudite Pleistocene archaeologists, "forced to confront" recent evidence of royal burials and commons areas, propose no alternatives. Open and shut case, right?

The Davids bring in the work of #ChristopherBoehm, an evolutionary anthropologist and specialist in primate studies, who writes that yes, we inherited dominant and submissive behaviours from the simians we descended from, but what separates humans - and human societies - from other primates is that not only can we consciously choose not to act in a certain way, we also understand how our society is impacted if we do not act to keep bullies in check (see next post):

> "Carefully working through ethnographic accounts of existing egalitarian foraging bands in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, #Boehm identifies a whole panopoly of tactics collectively employed to bring would-be braggarts and bullies down to earth - ridicule, shame, shunning (and in the case of inveterate sociopaths, sometimes even outright assassination) - none of which have any parallel among other primates."
- pp. 174-5

Emphasis my own here:

> While gorillas do not mock each other for beating their chests, humans do so regularly. Even more strikingly, while the bullying behaviour might well be instinctual, counter-bullying is *NOT*: it's a well-thought-out *STRATEGY*, and forager societies who engage in it… understand what their society might look like if they did things differently…
- Ibid.

#Boehm argues this is the 'essence' of politics, and it's not a 20th-century idea - the Davids trace it back to #Artistotle's description of humans as 'political animals.' Despite the evidence, however, Boehm still concludes that, until around 12,000 years ago, all human settlements that came and went followed the exact same egalitarian social arrangements. Suddenly, hierarchy! Talk about conservative* cognitive dissonance.

And yes, I DO know that I'm writing this only having read the first chapter. Let the irony come back to hit me if it turns out the whole book isn't like this.