Your Inner Primate: Desmond Morris on Why We Still Act Like Apes

 Humans are, quite simply, animals. This is the foundational insight Desmond Morris offered in his groundbreaking book "The Naked Ape" and the one that should shape how we understand the earliest chapters of world geography. To explain our species without returning to our animal origins is like trying to explain a modern city without understanding the village. Evolution is not just a chapter in our past. It is the very soil out of which our geography, our behavior, and our cultures have grown.

Look at the human body. Strip away the trappings of modern life and what you are left with is not a divine sculpture but a highly adapted primate. We walk on two legs because it freed our hands to carry food and children and later tools. Our forward-facing eyes provide depth perception, essential for a species that once leapt through trees or threw stones at prey. Even our strangely hairless skin is not a divine mystery but likely a result of heat regulation during long-distance running in the African savannas. Desmond Morris called us the naked ape for a reason. Our bare skin is not a bug in the design. It is a feature born from selective pressure.

But the real magic happens when you move beyond the body and into the mind. Morris showed that our behaviors are echoes of earlier adaptations. The smile, for example, is not just a social nicety. It is a submission gesture with deep roots in primate communication. The handshake may be our way of showing we are not holding weapons. Blushing, laughter, tears. These are not mysterious flourishes. They are hardwired signals developed in an ancient context of tribe and survival.

So what does this mean for the geography student It means that the things we study—migration, settlement, war, cooperation—are not disconnected from biology. They are extensions of it. We migrate because our ancestors followed game and fled danger. We settle because certain ecologies permitted us to grow food. We war and form alliances because group behavior shaped our evolutionary success. Morris reminds us that even in our concrete jungles and digital tribes we remain tethered to the needs and instincts of that early primate form.

Consider gender and family. Morris was among those who explored the evolutionary roots of male and female social behaviors. Whether you agree with every one of his claims or not the point remains. Our notions of masculinity and femininity did not spring fully formed from the Enlightenment or industrial capitalism. They grew from biological roles and pressures in the long arc of our evolutionary past. Geography students should understand that cultural patterns around family work and sex do not float above biology. They are braided with it.

Now think about how Morris looked at the city. To him it was not a purely economic construction. It was a modern human zoo. Our instincts to form cliques to patrol territory to display status did not vanish with the invention of steel and glass. They simply found new outlets. Business suits became tribal markings. Skyscrapers became status totems. Commutes and cubicles became ritual behavior within a bounded social structure. Morris showed us that even the most modern human behaviors are ancient ones wearing new clothes.

This is why we begin here. Because to understand the geography of humans we must first understand the humans themselves. Not as isolated minds but as evolved organisms. Desmond Morris peeled back the layers of modern life not to humiliate us but to remind us. That everything from love to politics to architecture is ultimately shaped by the same evolutionary pressures that once sculpted the face of a hunting party tracking antelope across a plain.

We are animals. Smart ones. Social ones. Talking ones. Tool-using and storytelling and tribe-forming ones. But still animals. And if you want to know why our world looks the way it does, why borders are drawn, why cities rise where they do, why war is as common as love, you must start with the animal at the center of it all. The naked ape

Reflection Activity: Your Inner Ape Take a moment to reflect on your daily behaviors. Think about how you dress, how you interact with others, how you eat, how you claim space, how you seek comfort, how you express emotion. Then ask yourself: which of these behaviors might have deep evolutionary roots? Which ones might be echoes of our primate past dressed up in modern clothing? Write a short paragraph connecting one modern behavior to an evolutionary origin. It could be about something as simple as your morning routine or as complex as how you form friendships. This is your chance to see yourself as Morris saw us all—not just citizens of nations, but members of a species still shaped by the wild.

Comments

  1. David Tyler Rand-McKayJuly 13, 2025 at 4:27 PM

    You wake up.
    Stretch your limbs.
    Scratch an itch.
    Stare into a mirror.
    But what stares back… is not just a person.
    It is a primate. A naked ape.

    We walk upright, not because of destiny, but because it freed our hands to carry, to strike, to build.
    Our eyes face forward—like all predators—because we once hunted, leapt, and judged distance in dense forests.
    Even the bareness of our skin is no mystery.
    It helped us keep cool while chasing prey under a hot savanna sun.

    Why do we smile?
    Because primates bare their teeth to show they are not a threat.
    Why do we shake hands?
    To show we are unarmed.
    Why do we blush, cry, laugh?
    Because our ancestors needed ways to signal feeling long before language evolved.

    Our cities?
    They are not escapes from nature.
    They are modern habitats.
    We live in vertical nests.
    We mark territory with flags, fences, and bumper stickers.
    We join cliques.
    We patrol borders.

    Desmond Morris called us what we are:
    Animals in suits.
    Tool-users with tribal minds.
    Apes with smartphones and grocery carts.

    Geography is not just maps.
    It is the story of how animals like us spread, settled, fought, mated, nested, and built the strange concrete jungles we now call home.

    You are not above nature.
    You are a product of it.
    And the more you understand that…
    The more human you become.

    #TheNakedApe #DesmondMorris #HumanGeography #EvolutionExplained #PrimateBehavior #WeAreAnimals #GeographyTikTok

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Tyler Rand-McKayJuly 13, 2025 at 4:28 PM

    or even shorter

    You eat with utensils. Wear clothes. Commute to work. But underneath it all? You're still an animal. A naked ape.

    That was Desmond Morris’s point. He looked at us not as gods—but as clever primates in suits.

    We smile? It’s a primate submission signal. Shake hands? A way to show we’re unarmed. Cities? Morris said they’re not progress—they’re zoos. And we’re pacing the cages.

    Every skyscraper, every status symbol, every office cubicle? It's just ancient instinct in modern drag.

    We fight. We mate. We gossip. Not because we’re evil. Because we evolved in tribes.

    So next time you check your reflection or argue on the internet, ask yourself: is that your mind talking—or your monkey?

    Because if you want to understand the world we built, you have to understand the animal who built it.

    ReplyDelete

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