Reverse Dominance
= "Hunter-gatherers practiced a system of "reverse dominance" that prevented anyone from assuming power over others".
Description
Peter Gray:
The writings of anthropologists make it clear that hunter-gatherers were not passively egalitarian; they were actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee, they were fiercely egalitarian. They would not tolerate anyone's boasting, or putting on airs, or trying to lord it over others. Their first line of defense was ridicule. If anyone--especially if some young man--attempted to act better than others or failed to show proper humility in daily life, the rest of the group, especially the elders, would make fun of that person until proper humility was shown.
One regular practice of the group that Lee studied was that of "insulting the meat." Whenever a hunter brought back a fat antelope or other prized game item to be shared with the band, the hunter had to express proper humility by talking about how skinny and worthless it was. If he failed to do that (which happened rarely), others would do it for him and make fun of him in the process. When Lee asked one of the elders of the group about this practice, the response he received was the following: "When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can't accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make him gentle."
On the basis of such observations, Christopher Boehm proposed the theory that hunter-gatherers maintained equality through a practice that he labeled reverse dominance. In a standard dominance hierarchy--as can be seen in all of our ape relatives (yes, even in bonobos)--a few individuals dominate the many. In a system of reverse dominance, however, the many act in unison to deflate the ego of anyone who tries, even in an incipient way, to dominate them.
According to Boehm, hunter-gatherers are continuously vigilant to transgressions against the egalitarian ethos. Someone who boasts, or fails to share, or in any way seems to think that he (or she, but usually it's a he) is better than others is put in his place through teasing, which stops once the person stops the offensive behavior. If teasing doesn't work, the next step is shunning. The band acts as if the offending person doesn't exist. That almost always works. Imagine what it is like to be completely ignored by the very people on whom your life depends. No human being can live for long alone. The person either comes around, or he moves away and joins another band, where he'd better shape up or the same thing will happen again. In his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest, Boehm presents very compelling evidence for his reverse dominance theory."
2. Cathryn Townsend:
Evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Boehm (1999) uses the terms “reverse dominance” or “reverse dominance hierarchy” to describe the outcome of egalitarian practices, with the implication that egalitarianism evolved by means of the majority in social groups coalescing to rebel against the tyranny of alpha males. Boehm proposes that human morality is the product of egalitarian behaviors over the course of 6 million years during which social controls such as punishments exerted against antisocial and selfish individuals created selection pressure that worked in favor of altruistic behavior and against despotic or antisocial behavior. The egalitarian social organization of hunter-gatherer bands thus led to the emergence of a social conscience, including feelings of virtue and shame. Gintis, van Schaik, and Boehm (2015) have argued that a mixture of factors such as the domestication of fire, availability of lethal weapons, and cooperative breeding constitute a niche in which egalitarian social structures overturned typical primate-style hierarchies."
(https://www.academia.edu/29417676/Egalitarianism_the_evolution_of)