How to understand the conjunction of fierce aggression and cooperative behavior in humans.
“In his third book, The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution, (Richard Wrangham) deploys fascinating facts of natural history and genetics as he enters a debate staked out centuries ago by Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (among other philosophers), and still very much alive today: how to understand the conjunction of fierce aggression and cooperative behavior in humans. Why are we so much less violent day-to-day within our communities (in pretty much all cultures) than our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are within theirs? At the same time, how is it that human violence directed toward perceived enemy groups has been so destructive?”
Book Review: A Bold New Theory Proposes That Humans Tamed Themselves