Or the tragic tale of the ring-tailed lemur.
Folks around here keep asking themselves, “Just what the heck does Putin want in the Ukraine anyhow? Is he just another in a long line of Russian psychopaths? Reaching back to the Tsars? Rasputin? Stalin and the rest? Well, yes, that seems quite likely. However I think we may find deeper insight if we consider the ring-tailed lemurs of Madagascar. No, wait, wait. There is a connection here and one that is supported by other data from the animal kingdom.
First thing you need to realize is that ring-tailed lemur society is matriarchal. Rather obsessively so. Like all lemurs, the ring-tails live only on the large island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa. Socially they are organized into “troops” of 8 or 9 up to thirty individuals. There are both males and females in each troop but the troops are all dominated by very aggressive females who fight the dominant females of other troops to protect territory. See where I going with this? The guys do hang around during mating season and will fight among themselves for mating rights - hence the term “mating season.” But when the mating is done, that’s about it for the "male maters." The females run everything else, to the extent that if one troop loses territory to another, the females of the defeated troop pack their bags and head out. Leaving the males to follow along - or not. And the loser males can join the winning troop, who seem to figure, “What the heck, we only keep them around for the mating.”
While this matriarchal organizational structure seems particularly rigid among the ring-tailed lemurs it is far from unique among our animal kin. Elk do it, bison do it, wolves do it, elephants do it, chamois way up in the alps do it. Point being, and here is where Putin comes in, that often the guys are just kept around for a bit of hunting, but primarily as sperm donors for the herd. And those mating rights are usually determined by who can beat up all the other dudes, or who by pawing the ground, hollering the loudest, and flexing, scares the other guys into thinking, “Wow, this guy could really kick my ass!” And they slink away. Or they don’t. “Oh, yeah? You want a piece of me? Well, bring it on!” And they proceed to bite and butt and kick, until one finally gets mating rights to any of the females who stuck around to see who won. But, and this is important, all the guys are now useless for the rest of the year until the next mating season rolls around. So they form “bachelor herds” and hang out for the rest of the year shoving each other around, telling off color jokes, and “marking their territory” without the benefit of porta-pottys.
Human males, being so much more evolved than our critter kin, looked around for something to fill all that down time between mating seasons and - surprise, surprise - the guys came up with war and professional sports. Come on - who came up with Super Bowl parties, and who jumps up and down while eating all the chips and swigging down imported beer? So - even in lieu of the Super Bowl - it isn’t an unexpected lesson of history that many of our “great political leaders” got a significant leg up on power on the other bachelor herd option, the battlefield. 29 of 45 US Presidents are military veterans. And a bunch of international bad dudes in autocracies around the world seem to love strutting around in flashy military style uniforms. Equally unsurprising is the fact that Putin’s road to the Russian presidency ran through the infamous KGB.
So, here’s what I’m thinking. We’ve got to find a way to make better use of the bachelor herds. We have been trying war now ever since humanity made its way out of Africa. And what has that gotten us? Seemingly just more war. And, OK, admittedly I’m a guy. Somewhat traditionalist, straight old white guy in my early 70s. But I’m ready to suggest we take a page from the ring-tailed lemurs playbook. Let’s let the females do the fighting over territory. And us guys will just follow the ladies from troop to troop and see what’s cooking. Could well be the females will soon see the errors of history and come up with a better model.
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