Whitehouse's article on identity fusion and extreme self-sacrifice addresses one of the more puzzling questions about human behavior. His central hypotheses, the result of many years of thought and research, are important both scientifically and practically in today's world. The question still remains, however, how identity fusion triggering extreme sacrifice, such as that seen in suicide bombers, could have been selected in our evolutionary past.
Here, I suggest that some of the social selection pressures that brought about the capacity for identity fusion may not have been the same as those that harness it in modern terrorism. Although Whitehouse has conducted extensive work on rituals and social cohesion for groups in a wide range of situations, from religious movements to sports competitions, his suggestions for the selection pressures that shaped identity fusion are extremely reductive: that humans evolved in small warring bands with constant threats of intergroup raiding, warfare, and predation. Could the roots of group identity and fusion really have been so grim for such an extremely ultrasocial species? Neither the archaeological nor ethnographic evidence lends support to this position.
Although there is certainly evidence that warfare was one arrow in the quiver of hunter–gatherer strategies, its frequency and time depth remain a matter of debate (Allen & Jones Reference Allen and Jones2014a; Fry Reference Fry2005; Keeley Reference Keeley1996). Small, xenophobic communities were unlikely to be the prevailing condition of hunter–gatherers throughout our evolution for a number of reasons. First, sex ratios in small groups are highly variable (Kramer et al. Reference Kramer, Schacht and Bell2017), requiring cultural means to procure suitable mates, for example, arranged marriages over considerable distances (Apostolou Reference Apostolou2007; Walker et al. Reference Walker, Hill, Flinn and Ellsworth2011). Marriages created vast networks for mutual exchange, cooperation, and the transmission of cultural innovations to build large “imaginary” communities, in which members did not live contiguously in space (Mulvaney Reference Mulvaney and Peterson1976; Wiessner Reference Wiessner2014). There is sound evidence for such networks, beginning in the middle and late Stone Age (Gamble Reference Gamble1986; Marean Reference Marean2015). Second, as life history theory has shown, humans have long childhoods and cooperative child rearing; both biological and affinal kin regularly make sacrifices to raise children in the community (Hrdy Reference Hrdy2009). Third, hunter–gatherer territories are extensive, making physical territory maintenance costly. Many hunter–gatherers maintain boundaries peacefully by giving access to resources and alternate residences to those who maintain appropriate reciprocal cooperative ties (Cashdan Reference Cashdan1983; Peterson Reference Peterson1976; Wiessner Reference Wiessner, Biesele, Gordon and Lee1986). Fourth, mobility was essential to exploit large, foraging areas and gain access to the resources of those in other territories. Warfare severely limited mobility, leaving belligerent groups few options. Extensive food sharing, singing, night-long dancing and healing, and other forms of collective ritual rejuvenated commitment to all of these shared goals. They also incurred high energetic costs and generated strong bonds of group identity in ceremonies that fused participants (Durkheim 1897 [Reference Durkheim1951]; Hayden Reference Hayden1987; Kramer & Greaves Reference Kramer, Greaves, Codding and Kramer2016). Social selection pressures favoring those with the capacity to identify with larger groups and make sacrifices in many areas of life would have been significant. As coalitional violence increased with agriculture and social complexity, these capacities could have been increasingly co-opted for warfare.
Whitehouse's proposal that episodic memory is a mechanism for kin recognition receives much support in the ethnographic literature. History matters greatly for strengthening the ties that bind residential groups and for scaling up a sense of relatedness to much larger groups. Episodes from the past not only are held in individual memories, but are told and retold to produce a repertoire of shared oral traditions to become the collective property of groups (Vansina Reference Vansina1985; Wiessner & Tumu Reference Wiessner and Tumu1998). In oral traditions, some experiences are cleansed, reformulated, and glorified, whereas others are repressed. However, episodic memories are not all positive and also enter into individual evaluations for conditional cooperation, lowering the risk of making sacrifices with unintended outcomes.
Context also matters. Throughout more than 95% of human history, intergroup conflict took place in the context of daily lives, when food had to be procured and families fed. Warriors were grounded by the needs of hearth and home. It is probably for this reason that the emotional states of fusion in small-scale societies without institutionalized leadership are temporary. Participants move in and out of states of fusion, allowing time to reconsider the risks and benefits of self-sacrifice. For example, the Enga of Papua New Guinea experience intensive feelings of brotherhood during war rallies and initial bouts of battle. As wars progress, pragmatic concerns surface and rifts develop (Wiessner, Reference Wiessnerin press). The deaths of “brothers” temporarily revitalize collective energy, but that too may quickly wane. The Yanomani of Venezuela (Chagnon Reference Chagnon1992, pp. 197–98) perform fierce rituals before raiding to unite warriors. On the way to the raid, however, some warriors reconsider and drop out after giving a variety of excuses. Therefore, fusion sentiments do not appear to be durable unless continually invigorated by hierarchy of command, propaganda, ritual, and economic surplus.
Whitehouse proposes that shared dysphoric experiences predict strength of fusion and that “rites of terror” in male initiations serve to generate such experiences. Can dysphoric experiences alone suffice in the long run, if not eventually followed by the euphoria of success? Harsh male initiations are largely about older men controlling younger ones to prevent them from disrupting their political agendas, to keep them out of marriage until they are fully mature (freeing more women for their polygymous marriages), and building a cohesive cohort for many purposes. “Boys” who endure the torment are transformed into “young men” who are showered with admiration and praise during emergence celebrations. Dysphoric experiences end in euphoric ones. The cohort can then pursue a variety of cooperative goals defined by community, only one of which is warfare.
Paying attention to the contexts and social selection pressures in which the disposition for fusion and self-sacrifice evolved may help us understand how cultural institutions of today harness these capacities for global political goals.
Whitehouse's article on identity fusion and extreme self-sacrifice addresses one of the more puzzling questions about human behavior. His central hypotheses, the result of many years of thought and research, are important both scientifically and practically in today's world. The question still remains, however, how identity fusion triggering extreme sacrifice, such as that seen in suicide bombers, could have been selected in our evolutionary past.
Here, I suggest that some of the social selection pressures that brought about the capacity for identity fusion may not have been the same as those that harness it in modern terrorism. Although Whitehouse has conducted extensive work on rituals and social cohesion for groups in a wide range of situations, from religious movements to sports competitions, his suggestions for the selection pressures that shaped identity fusion are extremely reductive: that humans evolved in small warring bands with constant threats of intergroup raiding, warfare, and predation. Could the roots of group identity and fusion really have been so grim for such an extremely ultrasocial species? Neither the archaeological nor ethnographic evidence lends support to this position.
Although there is certainly evidence that warfare was one arrow in the quiver of hunter–gatherer strategies, its frequency and time depth remain a matter of debate (Allen & Jones Reference Allen and Jones2014a; Fry Reference Fry2005; Keeley Reference Keeley1996). Small, xenophobic communities were unlikely to be the prevailing condition of hunter–gatherers throughout our evolution for a number of reasons. First, sex ratios in small groups are highly variable (Kramer et al. Reference Kramer, Schacht and Bell2017), requiring cultural means to procure suitable mates, for example, arranged marriages over considerable distances (Apostolou Reference Apostolou2007; Walker et al. Reference Walker, Hill, Flinn and Ellsworth2011). Marriages created vast networks for mutual exchange, cooperation, and the transmission of cultural innovations to build large “imaginary” communities, in which members did not live contiguously in space (Mulvaney Reference Mulvaney and Peterson1976; Wiessner Reference Wiessner2014). There is sound evidence for such networks, beginning in the middle and late Stone Age (Gamble Reference Gamble1986; Marean Reference Marean2015). Second, as life history theory has shown, humans have long childhoods and cooperative child rearing; both biological and affinal kin regularly make sacrifices to raise children in the community (Hrdy Reference Hrdy2009). Third, hunter–gatherer territories are extensive, making physical territory maintenance costly. Many hunter–gatherers maintain boundaries peacefully by giving access to resources and alternate residences to those who maintain appropriate reciprocal cooperative ties (Cashdan Reference Cashdan1983; Peterson Reference Peterson1976; Wiessner Reference Wiessner, Biesele, Gordon and Lee1986). Fourth, mobility was essential to exploit large, foraging areas and gain access to the resources of those in other territories. Warfare severely limited mobility, leaving belligerent groups few options. Extensive food sharing, singing, night-long dancing and healing, and other forms of collective ritual rejuvenated commitment to all of these shared goals. They also incurred high energetic costs and generated strong bonds of group identity in ceremonies that fused participants (Durkheim 1897 [Reference Durkheim1951]; Hayden Reference Hayden1987; Kramer & Greaves Reference Kramer, Greaves, Codding and Kramer2016). Social selection pressures favoring those with the capacity to identify with larger groups and make sacrifices in many areas of life would have been significant. As coalitional violence increased with agriculture and social complexity, these capacities could have been increasingly co-opted for warfare.
Whitehouse's proposal that episodic memory is a mechanism for kin recognition receives much support in the ethnographic literature. History matters greatly for strengthening the ties that bind residential groups and for scaling up a sense of relatedness to much larger groups. Episodes from the past not only are held in individual memories, but are told and retold to produce a repertoire of shared oral traditions to become the collective property of groups (Vansina Reference Vansina1985; Wiessner & Tumu Reference Wiessner and Tumu1998). In oral traditions, some experiences are cleansed, reformulated, and glorified, whereas others are repressed. However, episodic memories are not all positive and also enter into individual evaluations for conditional cooperation, lowering the risk of making sacrifices with unintended outcomes.
Context also matters. Throughout more than 95% of human history, intergroup conflict took place in the context of daily lives, when food had to be procured and families fed. Warriors were grounded by the needs of hearth and home. It is probably for this reason that the emotional states of fusion in small-scale societies without institutionalized leadership are temporary. Participants move in and out of states of fusion, allowing time to reconsider the risks and benefits of self-sacrifice. For example, the Enga of Papua New Guinea experience intensive feelings of brotherhood during war rallies and initial bouts of battle. As wars progress, pragmatic concerns surface and rifts develop (Wiessner, Reference Wiessnerin press). The deaths of “brothers” temporarily revitalize collective energy, but that too may quickly wane. The Yanomani of Venezuela (Chagnon Reference Chagnon1992, pp. 197–98) perform fierce rituals before raiding to unite warriors. On the way to the raid, however, some warriors reconsider and drop out after giving a variety of excuses. Therefore, fusion sentiments do not appear to be durable unless continually invigorated by hierarchy of command, propaganda, ritual, and economic surplus.
Whitehouse proposes that shared dysphoric experiences predict strength of fusion and that “rites of terror” in male initiations serve to generate such experiences. Can dysphoric experiences alone suffice in the long run, if not eventually followed by the euphoria of success? Harsh male initiations are largely about older men controlling younger ones to prevent them from disrupting their political agendas, to keep them out of marriage until they are fully mature (freeing more women for their polygymous marriages), and building a cohesive cohort for many purposes. “Boys” who endure the torment are transformed into “young men” who are showered with admiration and praise during emergence celebrations. Dysphoric experiences end in euphoric ones. The cohort can then pursue a variety of cooperative goals defined by community, only one of which is warfare.
Paying attention to the contexts and social selection pressures in which the disposition for fusion and self-sacrifice evolved may help us understand how cultural institutions of today harness these capacities for global political goals.