{"id":3991,"date":"2007-10-19T15:40:33","date_gmt":"2007-10-19T22:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/19\/the-need-for-a-common-enemy\/"},"modified":"2007-10-19T15:40:33","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T22:40:33","slug":"the-need-for-a-common-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/19\/the-need-for-a-common-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Need for a Common Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0684857073\/ref=nosim\/thenurtureassump\"><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/nurture.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Even monkeys and apes are clever enough to use the threat of a common enemy as a way of reducing within-group tensions. Frans de Waal has seen wild baboons resolve a dispute by jointly threatening the members of another baboon troop, and chimpanzees in a zoo making aggressive \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wraaa\u00e2\u20ac\u009d calls in the direction of the cheetah enclosure, though no cheetah was visible. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The need for a common enemy can be so great that a substitution is fabricated,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says de Waal. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have seen long-tailed macaques run to the swimming pool to threaten their own images in the water; a dozen tense monkeys unified against the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 group in the pool.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In the absence of a common enemy, or of a common goal that can be achieved only if everyone pulls together, groups tend to fall apart into a collection of individuals or smaller groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0684857073\/ref=nosim\/thenurtureassump\">The Nurture Assumption<\/a><\/em>, by <a href=\"http:\/\/home.att.net\/~xchar\/tna\/\">Judith Rich Harris<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More science <a href=\"http:\/\/www.progressdaily.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even monkeys and apes are clever enough to use the threat of a common enemy as a way of reducing within-group tensions. Frans de Waal has seen wild baboons resolve a dispute by jointly threatening the members of another baboon troop, and chimpanzees in a zoo making aggressive \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wraaa\u00e2\u20ac\u009d calls in the direction of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3991"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}