FEST Writing Group

The thinking here was spurred by recent news of the death of Russian mercenary leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and information in the news about his life and activities.  The founder of the Wagner group, Prigozhin built a fortune by organizing militias, groups of fighters who could be employed for combat or security services by conflicting parties within nations or between nations.  The Wagner group was known for their brutal attacks on civilians as well as soldiers in Ukraine and is now active in several African nations.  In a New York Times editorial, Colin P. Clarke describes the supply-and-demand relationship between Wagner and the parties that employ them: “Since first sending groups to Africa in 2017, the group has embedded itself in these fragile states and siphoned valuable resources, a quid pro quo that offers military muscle in exchange for mining contracts that allow Wagner subsidiaries to extract gold, diamonds and other commodities that pad Russia’s coffers.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/opinion/wagner-russia-prigozhin-bazoum-niger.html?searchResultPosition=2

This is an example of human behavior at the extreme, both in its use of force and in its mode of acquiring valuable resources.  Examples of militant alliances that pursue control of resources and control of societies are found through human history.  The Proud Boys who organized to lead an insurrection and attempted coup at the capital of our country on January 6, 2021 are a contemporary example.  We need a broad context to understand such a phenomenon.  It calls for systems thinking that would start with the level of the biological roots of human behavior and reach to the level of the complexity of intra-and intersocietal relationships.  Such a project would be daunting for the best of scholars, but I do think Bowen theory provides a framework that makes it possible to at least begin to understand the forces that drive the evolution of extreme behavior.  Following is an outline of a line of thinking that attempts to see some of the connections along the trajectory toward extreme violent behavior.

1.  Male and female roles in the biology of reproduction

            Evolutionary biologists have focused on the differences between men and women in reproductive roles and the resulting differences in their mating strategies.  Organisms that multiply without sex produce offspring that are genetically identical to the parent. whereas partnering with an unrelated individual cuts in half one’s investment in genes per offspring.  Edward O. Wilson writes: “The inevitable result is a conflict of interest:  The male will profit more if he can inseminate additional females; the female will profit if she can retain the fulltime aid of the male.”  He concludes: “Sex is an antisocial force in evolution.”  (Sociobiology, Abridged Edition, 155)  

            This “antisocial force” is countered by the force for cooperation that is essential for both sexes to achieve the biological imperative of reproductive success.  Sarah Hrdy proposes that “Monogamy reduces inherent conflicts of interest between the sexes.  Her reproductive success becomes his, and vice versa promoting harmonious relations between genetically distinct individuals striving toward common goals.”  (Mother Nature, 231) That humans are far more monogamous than other primates is attributed to the fact that we practice both cooperative breeding and communal breeding.  The involvement of fathers, kin, and other caregivers in raising children is the uniquely human response to the uniquely dependent human infant. This “rare combination…makes us humans…the most cooperative primate species by far.” (Konner, 185) 

In his observation of many species, Darwin noted certain features that appear to be of no use or even detrimental to survival, and were seen mostly in males, such as “the greater size, strength, and pugnacity of the male, his weapons of offense or means of defense against rivals, his gaudy coloring and various ornaments, his power of song, and other such characteristics.”  (1871, 254) He wondered how these characteristics could have evolved through natural selection.  His answer was to propose a second kind of selection: sexual selection.  In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Darwin developed the idea that traits that are disadvantageous for survival serve a different function: to help members of one sex compete with one another for mates.  He observed that males risk much, even their lives, to attract females and compete with other males for mating opportunities, while females are the choosers. 

              Robert Trivers extended the concept of sexual selection by showing its relationship with parental investment.  Trivers defined parental investment (PI) as anything a parent does to promote the survival of an offspring.  He wrote: “Where one sex invests considerably more than the other, members of the latter will compete among themselves to mate with members of the former.  Where investment is equal, sexual selection should operate similarly on the two sexes.“ (Trivers 1972, 173)

For most animals, especially mammals, the mother’s parental investment is significantly greater than the father’s.  Differences between the sexes in their initial investment as parents is profound, mothers having a nine-month head start, followed by the birth itself, lactation, and the care that follows.  Father’s genes will benefit equally even with a minimum investment of a sperm cell. This asymmetry plays out behaviorally in the reproductive strategies of men and women. (Trivers 1972)  

            It behooves the female to be discerning and careful in her choice of a mate.  The long menu of qualities that females seek in males can be reduced to two: good genes (for which good looks are a proxy), and resources which he is ready and willing to share with her and her offspring.  In contrast with most other primates, humans have evolved a high level of male parental investment.  The great majority of fathers demonstrate deep emotional attachment to their children and commitment to provide for them in many ways including direct nurturance.  This turns sexual selection for humans into more of a two-way street.  What men look for in women is almost as important as what women look for in men.

            At risk of overgeneralizing, I would say that the biology and psychology of sex and reproduction create a natural pathway for women toward the roles of nurturing and caring for children and others, and a natural pathway for men toward the roles of protector and provider of resources.  Over time this pattern has worked out with wide variation, as humans have adapted to changing economic conditions and ways of life.  What are thought of as the “traditional roles” of mother as homemaker and primary parent, father as primary financial provider, are being flexibly interchanged by many couples in today’s socioeconomic world.

1. Social and Economic conditions impact mating and reproduction

When two people become parents, they also become economic partners. In humanity’s time on earth, the economic conditions for raising a family have evolved dramatically. Until the advent of agriculture, hunting of wild animals and gathering of wild plants was the primary way of life, with a division of labor based on gender and age. Margaret Powers notes that “gathering and hunting are jointly cooperative activities and neither carries greater prestige.” 

Agriculture brought a transformation as described by John Gowdy: “The radical change in the economic base of human societies from small scale, immediate return foraging to large-scale production for surplus, fundamentally changed our relationship with the natural world and with our fellow humans.”  (Gowdy 2021. Human nature and sustainability:  Individual behavior is not individual. Family Systems 16:1, 81) As it became possible to produce a surplus of food with fewer laborers, societies moved toward growth in population, expansion into new environments and ways of developing resources, increasing economic complexity and specialized roles.  

Societies also became more socially and economically stratified, with multiple levels of hierarchy.  This became the world in which both men and women adapted.  Women continued to be major contributors to family resources, but their economic and social status was now tied to their men.  Social rank became a factor in the relationships between men and women, a serious consideration in the choice of mates for both.  Common practice, as famously depicted by Jane Austen, was for marriages to be arranged by fathers for their daughters.  Marriage became less a personal choice and more a transaction designed to forge alliances and consolidate assets between families.  “Moreover,” Robert Sapolsky writes, “inequality expands enormously when cultures invent inheritance within families.”  (Behave, 2017, 291)

Melvin Konner describes the emergence of male supremacy over the past ten to twelve thousand years.  A minority of men became “overrepresented in positions of power” while other men “languished at the bottom…deprived of opportunity by other men.”  (Konner 2016, p. 7) As socioeconomic disparity increases, it gives rise to disparities in mating opportunities for both men and women.  Polygyny, which has been widely practiced, allowed high-ranking men to acquire as many wives as their wealth could afford, leaving low ranking men with little or no opportunity to become husbands and fathers. It leaves women with the option of being a second wife, or one of several, to a high-ranking man. With this option, writes Sarah Hrdy, “mothers have little freedom of choice, and once mated, have only a fraction of the paternal investment that a man divides among the offspring of multiple wives.”   (Mother Nature, 252)      

From a systems perspective, the creation of a patriarchal system must be understood as a product of society as a whole.  Nothing of such significance would be possible without the participation of the female half of the population.  Barbara Smuts offers this explanation of women’s support of patriarchy: “In pursuing their material and reproductive interests, women often engage in behaviors that promote male resource control and male control over female sexuality.  Thus, women as well as men contribute to the perpetuation of patriarchy.”  (Smuts 1995, p. 18) 

1.  Where is all this taking us?

Circling back to the initial subject of the ill-fated Mr. Prigozhin and his mission, I wonder about the men who volunteer for this kind of occupation or are recruited into it.  It would be illuminating to know their life histories, multigenerational family histories, and the social and economic circumstances of their lives.  I speculate that if we could know this, we would see the following factors as points on the pathways that lead to violent behavior.

Poverty and inequality have a long history in the human record.  Both are currently of serious concern in most parts of the world, including our own affluent society.  Unemployment or underpaid low menial employment leave a percentage of people, mostly men, without a productive role in the community or resources to consider marriage and fatherhood.  Low status, often combined with low self-regard, puts men in a poor position to attract mates though their natural instincts propel them to attempt to do so.  Deprived of opportunity, they see other men enjoying high status and privileges.  The resulting frustration can be expressed in many ways.  One is the anxious pursuit of women and use of force to exploit them physically and sexually.  Other outlets are drugs, alcohol, and gangs. 

            Like birds of a feather, angry, disaffected men gravitate to groups in which grievances and angry aggression are expressed and reinforced.  The counterbalancing influence of women is weak or absent.  Weapons are readily available.  The ingredients are there to create a climate of intense emotionality and loyalty to the group, permitting no dissent or independent thinking. Given this context, individuals caught in a group frenzy will do what they would not do alone.