A
British zoologist, Desmond Morris (b.1928) is a researcher in animal behavior
and former curator of mammals at the London Zoo who now devotes his time to
writing. The book that made him famous (and that bothered some anthropologists)
is The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s
Study of the Human Animal (1967). Morris continued his observations of the
human animal in Bodywatching (1985) and Manwatching: A Field Guide to
Human Behavior (1977), from which the following study of human strategies
for protecting space is taken. Observe how Morris explains and illustrates each
human territory.
1. A territory
is a defended space. In the broadest sense, there are three kinds of human
territory: tribal, family and personal.
2. It is rare for people to be driven to physical fighting in
defence of these ‘owned’ spaces, but fight they will, if pushed to the limit.
The invading army encroaching on national territory, the gang moving into a
rival district, the trespasser climbing into an orchard, the burglar breaking
into a house, the bully pushing to the front of a queue, the driver trying to
steal a parking space, all of these intruders are liable to be met with
resistance varying from the vigorous to the savagely violent. Even if the law
is on the side of the intruder, the urge to protect a territory may be so
strong that otherwise peaceful citizens abandon all their usual controls and
inhibitions. Attempts to evict families from their homes, no matter how
socially valid the reasons, can lead to siege conditions reminiscent of the
defence of a medieval fortress.
3. The fact that these upheavals are so rare is a measure of the
success of Territorial Signals as a system of dispute prevention. It is
sometimes cynically stated that ‘all property is theft’, but in
reality it is the opposite. Property, as owned space which is displayed
as owned space, is a special kind of sharing system which reduces fighting much
more that it causes it. Man is a co-operative species, but he is also competitive,
and his struggle for dominance has to be structured in some way if chaos is to
be avoided. The establishment of territorial rights is one such structure. It
limits dominance geographically. I am dominant in my territory and you are
dominant in yours. In other words, dominance is shared out spatially, and we
all have some. Even if I am weak and unintelligent and you can dominate me when
we meet on neutral ground, I can still enjoy a thoroughly dominant role as soon
as I retreat to my private base. Be it ever so humble, there is no place like a
home territory.
4. Of course, I can still be intimidated by
a particularly dominant individual who enters my home base, but his
encroachment will be dangerous for him and he will think twice about it,
because he will know that here my urge to resist will be dramatically magnified
and my usual subservience banished. Insulted at the heart of my own territory,
I may easily explode into battle—either symbolic or real—with a result that may
be damaging to both of us.
5. In order for this to work, each territory
has to be plainly advertised as such. Just as a dog cocks its leg to deposit
its personal scent on the trees in its locality, so the human animal cocks its
leg symbolically all over his home base. But because we are predominantly
visual animals we employ mostly visual signals, and it is worth asking how we
do this at the three levels: tribal, family and personal.
6. First: the Tribal Territory. We evolved
as tribal animals, living in comparatively small groups, probably of less than
a hundred, and we existed like that for millions of years. It is our basic
social unit, a group in which everyone knows everyone else. Essentially, the
tribal territory consisted of a home base surrounded by extended hunting grounds.
Any neighbouring tribe intruding on our social space would be repelled and
driven away. As these early tribes
swelled into agricultural super-tribes, and eventually into industrial nations,
their territorial defence systems became increasingly elaborate. The tiny,
ancient home base of the hunting tribe became the great capital city, the
primitive war-paint became the flags, emblems, uniforms and regalia of the
specialized military, and the war-chants became national anthems, marching
songs and bugle calls. Territorial boundary-lines hardened into fixed borders,
often conspicuously patrolled and punctuated with defensive structures—forts
and lookout posts, checkpoints and great walls, and today, customs barriers.
7. Today each nation flies its own flag, a symbolic embodiment of
its territorial status. But patriotism is not enough. The ancient tribal hunter
lurking inside each citizen finds himself unsatisfied by membership of such a
vast conglomeration of individuals, most of whom are totally unknown to him
personally. He does his best to feel that he shares a common territorial
defence with them all, but the scale of the operation has become inhuman. It is
hard to feel a sense of belonging with a tribe of fifty million or more. His
answer is to form sub-groups, nearer to his ancient pattern, smaller and more
personally known to him—the local club, the teenage gang, the union, the
specialist society, the sports association, the political party, the college
fraternity, the social clique, the protest group, and the rest. Rare indeed is
the individual who does not belong to at least one of these splinter groups,
and take from it a sense of tribal allegiance and brotherhood. Typical of all
these groups is the development of Territorial Signals — badges, costumes, headquarters,
banners, slogans, and all the
other displays of group identity. This is where the action is, in terms of
tribal territorialism, and only when a major war breaks out does the emphasis
shift upwards to the higher group level of the nation.
8. Each of these modern pseudo-tribes sets up its own special
kind of home base. In extreme cases non-members are totally excluded, in others
they are allowed in as visitors with limited rights and under a control system
of special rules. In many ways they are like miniature nations, with their own
flags and emblems and their own border guards. The exclusive club has its own
‘customer barrier’: the doorman who checks your ‘passport’ (your membership
card) and prevents strangers from passing in unchallenged. There is a
government: the club committee; and often special displays of the tribal
elders: the photographs or portraits of previous officials on the walls. At the
heart of the specialized territories there is a powerful feeling of security
and importance, a sense of shared defence against the outside world. Much of
the club chatter, both serious and joking, directs itself against the
rottenness of everything outside the club boundaries—in that ‘other world’
beyond the protected portals ……
9. Second: The Family Territory. Essentially, the family is a
breeding unit and the family territory is a breeding ground. At the centre of
this space, there is the nest – the bedroom – where, tucked up in bed, we feel
at our most territorially secure. In a typical house the bedroom is upstairs,
where a safe nest
should be. This
puts it farther
away from the
entrance hall, the area where
contact is made, intermittently, with the outside world. The less
private reception rooms, where intruders are allowed access, are the next line
of defence. Beyond them, outside the walls of the building, there is often a
symbolic remnant of the ancient feeding grounds—a garden. Its symbolism often
extends to the plants and animals it contains, which cease to be nutritional
and become merely decorative—flowers and pets. But like a true territorial
space it has a conspicuously displayed boundary-line, the garden fence, wall,
or railings. Often no more than a token barrier, this is the outer territorial
demarcation, separating the private world of the family from the public world
beyond. To cross it puts any visitor or intruder at an immediate disadvantage.
As he crosses the threshold his dominance wanes, slightly but unmistakably. He
is entering an area where he senses that he must ask permission to do simple
things that he would consider a right elsewhere. Without lifting a finger, the
territorial owners exert their dominance. This is done by all the hundreds of
small ownership markers they have deposited on their family territory: the
ornaments, the possessed objects
positioned in the rooms and on
the walls; the furnishings, the furniture, the
colours, the patterns, all owner-chosen and all making this particular
home base unique to them….
10. When they venture forth as a family unit they repeat the process
in a minor way. On a day-trip to the seaside, they load the car with
personal belongings and
it becomes their temporary, portable territory. Arriving at
the beach they stake out a small territorial claim,
marking it with rugs, towels, baskets
and other belongings to which they can return from their seaboard wanderings.
Even if they all leave it at once to bathe, it retains a characteristic
territorial quality and other family groups arriving will recognize this by
setting up their own ‘home’ bases at a respectful distance. Only when the whole
beach has filled up with these marked spaces will newcomers start to position
themselves in such a way that the inter-base distance becomes reduced. Forced
to pitch between several existing beach territories they will feel a momentary
sensation of intrusion, and the established ‘owners’ will feel a similar
sensation of invasion, even though they are not being directly inconvenienced.
11. The same territorial scene is being played out in parks and
fields and on riverbanks, wherever family groups gather in their clustered
units. But if rivalry for spaces creates
mild feelings of hostility, it is true to say that, without the territorial
system of sharing and space-limited dominance, there would be chaotic disorder.
12. Third: the Personal Space. If a man enters a waiting room and
sits at one end of a long row of empty chairs, it is possible to predict where
the next man to enter will seat himself. He will not sit next to the first man,
nor will he sit at the far end, right away from him. He will choose a position
about halfway between these two points. The next man to enter will take the
largest gap left, and sit roughly in the middle of that, and so on, until
eventually the latest newcomer will be forced to select a seat that places him
right next to one of the already seated men. Similar patterns can be observed in cinemas, public urinals,
aeroplanes, trains and buses, This is a reflection of the fact that we
all carry with us, everywhere we go, a portable territory called a Personal
Space. If people move inside this space, we feel threatened. If they keep too
far outside it, we feel rejected. The result is a subtle series of spatial
adjustments, usually operating quite unconsciously and producing ideal
compromises as far as this is possible. If a situation becomes too crowded,
then we adjust our reactions accordingly and allow our personal space to
shrink. Jammed into an elevator, a rush-hour compartment, or a packed room, we
give up altogether and allow body-to-body contact, but when we relinquish our
Personal Space in this way, we adopt certain special techniques. In essence,
what we do is to convert these other bodies into ‘nonpersons’. We studiously ignore
them, and they us. We try not to face them if we can possibly avoid it. We wipe
all expressiveness from our faces, letting them go blank. We may look up at the
ceiling or down at the floor, and we reduce body movements to a minimum. Packed
together like sardines in a tin, we stand dumbly still, sending out as few
social signals as possible.
13. Even if the crowding is less severe, we still tend to cut down
our social interactions in the presence of large numbers. Careful observations
of children in play groups revealed that if they are high density groupings
there is less social interaction between the individual children, even though
there is theoretically more opportunity for such contacts. At the same time,
the high-density groups show a higher frequency of aggressiveness and
destructive behaviour patterns in their play. Personal Space – ‘elbow room’ –
is a vital commodity for the human animal, and one that cannot be ignored
without risking serious trouble….
14. Those of us who have to spend a great deal of time in crowded
conditions become gradually better able to adjust, but no one can ever become
completely immune to invasions of Personal Space. This is because they remain
forever associated with either powerful hostile or equally powerful loving feelings.
All through our childhood we will have been held to be loved and held to be
hurt, and anyone who invades our Personal Space when we are adults is, in
effect, threatening to extend his behaviour into one of these two highly
charged areas of human interaction. Even if his motives are clearly neither
hostile nor sexual, we still find it hard to suppress our reactions to his
close approach. Unfortunately, different countries have different ideas about
exactly how close is close. It is easy enough to test your own ‘space
reaction’: when you are talking to someone in the street or in any open space,
reach out with your arm and see where the nearest point on his body comes. If
you hail from western Europe, you will find that he is at roughly fingertip distance
from you. In other words, as you reach out, your fingertips will just
about make contact with his shoulder. If
you come from eastern Europe you will find you are standing at ‘wrist
distance’. If you come from the Mediterranean region you will find that you are
much closer to your companion, at little more than ‘elbow distance’.
15. Trouble begins when a member of one of these cultures meets and
talks to one from another. Say a British diplomat meets an Italian or an Arab
diplomat at an embassy function. They start talking in a friendly way, but soon
the fingertips man begins to feel uneasy. Without knowing quite why, he starts
to back away gently from his companion. The companion edges forward again. Each
tries in this way to set up a Personal Space relationship that suits his own
background. But it is impossible to do. Every time the Briton moves back, the
other feels rejected. Attempts to adjust this situation often lead to a talking
pair shifting slowly across a room, and many an embassy reception is dotted
with western- European fingertip-distance men pinned against the walls by eager
elbow-distance men. Until such differences are fully understood, and allowances
made, these minor differences in ‘body territories’ will continue to act as an
alienation factor which may interfere in a subtle way with diplomatic harmony
and other forms of international transaction ….
16. A third method of reinforcing the body-territory is to use
personal markers. Books, papers and other personal belongings are scattered
around the favoured site to render it more privately owned in the eyes of
companions. Spreading out one’s belongings is a
well-known trick in public-transport situations, where a traveler tries
to give the impression that seats next to him are taken. In many contexts
carefully arranged personal markers can act as an effective territorial
display, even in the absence of the territory owner. Experiments in a library
revealed that placing a pile of magazines on the table in one seating position
successfully reserved that place for an average of 77 minutes. If a
sports-jacket was added, draped over the chair, then the 'reservation effect'
lasted for over two hours.
17. In these ways, we strengthen the defences
of our Personal Spaces, keeping out intruders with the minimum of open
hostility. As with all territorial behaviour, the object is to defend space
with signals rather than with fists and at all three levels – the tribal, the
family and the personal – it is a remarkably efficient system of space-sharing.
It does not always seem so, because newspapers and newscasts inevitably magnify
the exceptions and dwell on those cases where the signals have failed and wars
have broken out, gangs have fought, neighbouring families have feuded, or
colleagues have clashed, but for every territorial signal that has failed,
there are millions of others that have not.
They do not rate a mention in the news, but nevertheless constitute a
dominant feature of human society – the society of a remarkably territorial
animal.
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