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Baboon Logic
by Katharine Winans

...All that is prelude to this tv program of mine, because in a strange way that tv special taught me what that baboon in the zoo may have been thinking as he sat in his cage surrounded by gawkers. This program portrayed bigwig baboon males in the wild. In the wild a few or several head honchos of the type I saw in the cage at the Oakland Zoo will command their own troop, which consists of females with their young, plus the juveniles – young males simpering around the edges of the troop, waiting to make their move for dominance or else split for greener pastures. There is a lot to say about how a troop such as this works, the various interactions and bonds between the different baboons. I won’t say any of it. Except for this: when it comes to figuring who is the bigwig and who is the peon in a baboon troop, it all comes down to who pays attention to whom.

I found this out from the man with the deep voice on this tv program, who spoke while shots of the baboon troop in action were played. And I saw it happen myself. All the lower animals on the totem pole, the juveniles and the loser females etc., they pay scrupulous attention to what the big shot male baboons are doing. And in exchange, the big shot males pay absolutely no attention to them. They gaze off toward the horizon, so sublimely indifferent. In one scene, I saw a little teenager baboon dude abandon his dinner – he just scampered away from it – he was so intent on watching the big shot male that he didn’t have any spare energy for eating. The camera saw it happen, but the big shot male didn’t. He couldn’t be bothered to notice.

This is a simple idea, but it’s also a huge one. Paying attention is an act of submission....