ORIGIN OF SHYNESS II
Late in high school I read William Golding's 1955 novel The
Inheritors. It's the story of a small band of prehistoric hunter-
gatherers who have little speech, but communicate also with
hand signals and telepathy. They encounter a larger band of loud
talking, heavy drinking, more violent people who enter their
territory for the first time equipped with the bow and arrow, a
weapon the silent people have never seen before.
The end of that story, with the little band all dead except for two
mute children being carried off in dugout canoes, haunted me
for years.
Though Golding didn't say it in the book, he apparently said
elsewhere that he was writing about Neanderthals (In case you're
wondering, this is the same William Golding who wrote Lord of
the Flies).
Neanderthals are considered to have been a subspecies of Homo
Sapiens. It's a little known fact that their brains were, on
average, slightly larger than ours. Their skulls/brain cases reveal
differences too – their frontal lobes were smaller, but the back
of their brain (where visual centers are found), was bigger.
Maybe that's why Golding removed speech from his people and
gave them increased telepathy.
What does that have to do with shyness?
Well, I think shyness has an ancient origin. Shyness is found
throughout nature. Deer are shy, rabbits are shy, foxes, cougars,
leopards and tigers are all shy. At least one quarter of the human
population - 1.7 billion people - is shy (one in four people is an
introvert). Psychologists say the shyness of other animals is not
the same thing as human shyness, but I think they're wrong. I
think it's the same instinct in a new setting
Without going too deeply into the science of human origins, let's
consider that humanity, in the form of the hominids, is about 7
million years old (the current date given for our split from the
chimpanzees). During that time there were many species of
hominid. As fossils are dug up, new ones continue to be
identified - the count is currently about nineteen.
The first to stand fully erect and have a brain size comparable
with modern humans was Homo Erectus. It appeared about two
million years ago and spread from Africa into Europe, Asia and
the Far East, where it developed into many different subspecies
or races. In its late versions, it had a brain not much smaller than
ours. If you met one on the subway dressed in modern clothes,
you'd probably pay them little notice.
Between 300,000 - 150,000 years ago a new hominid arrived -
Homo Sapiens. The earliest versions, called Archaic Homo
Sapiens, are midway in body structure between Erectus and full
Sapiens, evidence that we evolved from at least one version of
Homo Erectus.
The evidence is still unclear whether Sapiens arose only in
Africa, or whether it evolved from Erectus simultaneously in
Europe and Asia too. In fact, there is an alternative school of
anthropology led by Milford Wolpoff that says Homo Erectus
and Homo Sapiens are the same species. Personally, I'm with
Wolpoff, but here I'm giving you the standard view.
By 100,000 years ago Home Sapiens is supposed to have
replaced Homo Erectus entirely. The usual explanation is that
Sapiens exterminated Erectus and any other hominids that got in
its way.
This, in a nutshell, is currently the basic view of human origins.
Think of this - one hundred thousand years ago the brain size of
Homo Sapiens was the same as today. We probably looked little
different than we do today too, except that we may have been
still covered with fur. But about 40,000 – 50,000 years ago
something unusual happened. Though brain size didn't change,
technology (stone tools, etc) suddenly began to evolve at an
unprecedented rate, and art appeared for the first time. Complex
language is also believed to have started at this time.
Why? The only thing known for sure is that in some places the
size of social groups began to increase then. Families, for one
reason or another, grew larger and/or began to join together,
evolving into tribes.
Keep in mind that the little family bands of hunter-gatherers
continued to exist. During the 20th century there were still
Bushmen families in remote parts of the Kalahari desert, the Efe,
or 'pygmies' were still in the Congo forests, and other hunter-
gatherers still lived on islands in the Pacific Ocean and remote
parts of Australia.
Very few of those cultures were allowed to survive into the 21st
century, since our civilization has always had an aversion to the
"primitive" lifestyle. Their way of life seems to have offended
us. While land has been protected all over the world for many
endangered species, almost none has been set aside for the
hunter-gatherer.
Today we live in the greatest tribes that have ever existed –
nations – and the assumption is that all of us carry the genes of
only one hominid, Homo Sapiens.
Homo Erectus, the Neanderthals, Archaic Homo Sapiens, the
whole lot are assumed to be completely extinct. You're not
supposed to think for a moment that any genetic remnant of
those forgotten people could be in your DNA - that seems to be
a taboo subject in the science of human origins.
Yes, we're supposed to be all one people now, with one basic
brain, one fundamental nature, and one generally consistent set
of behaviors. If you don't have that nature, if you behave in any
different way, or if you even physically look too much out of
place, watch out. You will be told that you have a disorder.
If your difference is behavioral – maybe you lack the customary
social instincts - then something has gone wrong with you and
you will at least have to learn to behave as if you do have them.
If your difference is physical – if you are a dwarf, for example –
you will get advice to not have children with another person like
yourself, lest your genetic condition (which is probably tens of
thousands of years old and perfectly natural) should be repeated
in your children.
Oh, this strange desire to have everyone look and behave alike.
Will we ever be free of it?
Never mind that Neanderthals were around as late as 30,000
years ago, or that heretic anthropologists argue that there are
Neanderthal traits, even Homo Erectus traits, in living
populations - or that Australian anthropologists recently found
fossils of a miniature Homo Erectus people on the Indonesian
island of Flores that are only 13,000 years old (local people on
Flores insist that the little people are still out there in the bush).
No, those of us with unusual genes and quirky behaviors are
supposed to understand that we shouldn't have them, so we need
to change, or at least take drugs to suppress our need to be
different.
Here, if you haven't figured it out already, is what I think.
During its long struggle to take over the planet, I think the new
social form of Homo Sapiens probably eliminated some of the
others, but not all. I don't disagree that in the distant past social
humans tried to exterminate the rest of us. I just don't agree that
they were successful.
When the social herd rolled over these other people and they
found themselves inside it, what could they do but accept it?
Some may have joined voluntarily. Some, like Golding's children
in The Inheritors, may have been dragged in against their will to
be pets and slaves.
With no empty lands left to escape to, all the defeated peoples -
the dwarves, the giants, the speechless, the shy and solitary –
who knows how many different peoples? – must have
reluctantly entered the great human community. Then, over the
tens of thousands of years that followed inside the herd, the
descendants of all forgot who they were.
In this way, I think a huge re-mixing of the genetic pot began
about 100,000 years ago and continues to this day.
Yes, I think shy people are a simpler people from the past
without complex social instincts. I think we were one of the last
to come in from the forest. In the wilderness we were confident
and happy, so we remained there as long as possible. Now,
trapped within this colossal herd that is growing exponentially,
our discomfort, anxiety and alienation are growing with it.
Origin of Shyness III
Copyright - Alan Conrad
2009