The Human Ape
The Fifth Great Ape
A Study of Human Behaviour from the unique perspective of Aspergers Syndrome
Early Days and Childhood
To fully understand my condition & the interactions with NT Humans it is essential that my childhood & early years of life are set out.
I grew up on a private estate on the West side of a city called Carlisle in the County of Cumbria in the United Kingdom, the estate was called Hebden Avenue. The children & adults on Hebden Avenue were thoroughly unpleasant people & it was at the time an affluent estate. None of the families were struggling financially so the arguments for the behaviour of the children being caused by impoverished socio-economic backgrounds would not be relevant here. I say this because there is studies & evidence to show a correlation between poverty & empathy development in Humans. I think however growing up in a capitalistic consumeristic society will have an impact on their behaviour to a point which I will address further on.
The children on the estate were predominantly Linguistically illiterate & like every other aspect of human society had a apelike hieratical system, with the children's place in that system depending on how violent they could be to other children, or how rich their parents were compared to other families.
The best way to describe hebden avenue and the behaviour of the children on it would be to say 'it was a microcosm of a darwinism type ape enclosure/social experiment within the large confines of our society, a very primitive version of natural selection was left to flourish unhindered with all the savageries of nature & all the unpredictability's that come with Natural Selection'. Though the children were astute enough to consolidate their grasp on control they were predominantly infantile, feral & left unaided or parented, altruistic behaviour was of course frowned upon.
​
​
_edited.jpg)
Typical of male dominated primate societal structures they are hyper masculine & Hebden Avenue was no different, they don't just try to banish what they interpret as empathy, kindness or weakness but they ridicule & persecute these traits, while doing so they valued force, aggression & violence as valuable traits.
Most of the time the children on the estate never left the estate & we were told (and it was a largely shared view) that the other estates nearby & adjacent to us were some how inferior, the people on them were 'poor' or 'inadequate' & so they were perceived as being beneath the people on hebden avenue because they had less money or because they lived in older houses. This of course was nonsense & of course this flawed belief was given to the children via a warped nurture belief from pretentious arrogant parents who measured their grass regularly so it looked better than the neighbours & who were continuously competeing with each other. The TV programme 'Keeping Up Appearances' springs to mind.
​
The estate had its fair share of sadists/psychopaths & a lot of the high (top ranking children) in the hierarchy enjoyed handing out pain or mocking others for fun or for no other reason than it amused them.
Traditional values from decades ago that were once respected & common place were not recognised on the estate, values such as kindness, honesty, integrity, intelligence etc the children perceived these traits as 'weakness' & anyone displaying them would be preyed upon very quickly.
​
There was an instance where a hedgehog had been cross bowed to the ground alive & left to die by the children on the estate. I as any person with any empathy or feeling for animals was shocked & sickened on hearing this so I went up got its now lifeless body and buried it making a little cross out of twigs & visited it daily as nature took its course & it gradually rotted away. I would of been around 7 or 8 years old at the time, the other children on the estate found out about this & of course it was yet another excuse for the feral children to mock & bully me more. Ironically here the same child that cross bowed the hedgehog to the floor didn't change his behaviour when he grew to be an adult & when he was around 18-22 year old he enjoyed going out every weekend drinking & fighting.
​
One of his sick sadistic behaviours by this guy would be to wait with one of his friends (again from this estate) for people to get off the last bus at night, he would then punch & kick to the ground whoever was unlucky enough to get off the bus. This is clearly a sign of sadism and/or psychopathic behaviour & a behaviour which is completely devoid of any empathy, the only goal of this behaviour was to hurt people for enjoyment.
​
​
The astonishing thing here is the vile behaviour of these predatory children on this estate was completely normal to them! Because 99% of the children were all doing the same it was completely normal, so when people pointed out that what they were doing was wrong they just laughed & projected the blame back onto the person telling them this & then the projected blame quickly turned to aggression.
My time on hebden avenue was truly tortuous, a barbaric cruel primitive environment that I never truly recovered from. The generic low IQ & low emotional intelligence coupled with the brutal apelike competitive nature of the people on the estate was intolerable. None of this 'mob' was capable of any critical thinking, not able to listen to reason, they were simply following the genetic code that was given to them from the same parents that placed no restraints upon them, they had unleashed freedom to do whatever they wished, they were simply wild.
​
I never truly understood why the children & parents were doing the things they were doing until I researched evolutionary psychology & anthropology & educated my self with the books of Professor Richard Dawkins. Then I realized why the children & their parents were acting in this manner, a manner that on hindsight is so obviously wrapped up in the genetics of our cousins (the other great apes) & a manner & behaviour that cannot be changed from simple education. I believe that the primary behaviour of these children was caused by their genetics & the little or flawed nurture from their parents, also note worthy is growing up in a dog eat dog capitalistic consumeristic society had its role to play too.
​
Studies have shown that capitalism & the subliminal programming from advertisements actually drives & propagate's individualistic thinking in humans, when this happens people are more likely to only care about themselves, their family & others second. What this does is that it breaks the bonds of social cohesion & community that most of the other great apes have on the planet, they need this bond to survive & flourish. Humans also need this bond to flourish, the growing individualistic thinking would certainly explain the selfish, 'me first' attitude from a lot of the children & adults on that estate.
Indeed Capitalistic driven pervasive societies by their nature are hyper masculine & seek to banish any empathy, they not only ignore the vulnerable & the weak but they ridicule them instead, they celebrate supposed values of force, violence, strength & empathy is perceived as weakness, this would go a long way to explain the children's behaviour on the estate but not entirely so.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
But this has a much more sinister & profound effect than NT Humans & the community than just being selfish. With capitalism & the consumeristic life style that it feeds on, this severs the link that people in a tolerable kind compassionate society needs & instead drives the competition trait that humans already have innately even more aggressively & that then promotes even more individualistic thinking, its an endless loop. This coupled with non-existent nurture & genetically driven behavioural patterns is a unpredictable cocktail of primitive aggression & ancient apelike behaviour waiting to explode.
This would certainly go along way explaining why some of the children on the estate did what they did. I think though examining their behaviour on hindsight & now understanding evolution & human evolutionary psychology some of the children on the estate that did the more cruel, sick actions are actually just sadistic psychopaths. They certainly tick all the box's for this condition as in no empathy, enjoying others in pain, ruthless, manipulative etc etc. The capitalism & the almost darwinian in nature environment that they inhabited only fed the desire for these people to dominate & hurt people. The latest studies have shown that 3-4% or more of humanity is made up of psychopaths & 1 in 100 NT Humans are Sociopaths, looking how humans treat other humans i would say that is a underestimation! After all its hard if not impossible for a species that lacks the abillity of self reflection to be objective and accruate on critiquing its self.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Additional Theoretical Consideration
​
The Incessant need to Prey on the Weak
​
The Children & for the most part the parents of the children all had a very common Primate driven behaviour, that behaviour was to prey on the vulnerable & weak. This prey drive extended & was partly fuelled by the innate intolerance of difference most if not all seemed to share. Anyone showing any difference for any obscure reason would quickly become 'prey' to the mob. One example was of a man that used to be a friend of my family when I lived there.
I will refrain from mentioning his name in full out of courtesy and lets just call him 'Arthur'. Arthur lived alone in a large house on the estate and for this reason & for the wild irrational tales and lies for the most part based in fantasy made up about him he very soon became prey to the 'mob'.
_JPG.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
The children singled Arthur out very quickly & it started with snowballs at his windows, then stones, then damaging his vehicles, then damaging his house. Near fire work night air bombs & other very loud fireworks were pushed through his letter box as 'fun' & 'entertainment' for the mob. Of course this for Arthur was anything but fun & with the inability to relax in his own house I bet his life was living torture on the estate when they decided to prey upon him. This is a great example though of the collective prey drive in NT Humans & the innate intolerance of difference that fuels that drive.
The Children never questioned what they were doing, never thought of the feelings of Arthur or what their behaviour was doing to him. Arthur living alone & being reclusive & shy was enough for the children on the estate to see him as vulnerable & weak.. The abuse was relentless & lasted years before he was forced to move.
So Where did their Cruel behaviour come from?
​
This is the question that has troubled and baffled me most of my adult life. Are neuro typical humans really that cruel? really that aggressive? Are their actions really so confined by tribal affiliation & other evolutionary primate traits?
​
Sadly after studying and researching human behaviour for decades the answer is for the most part Yes!
As the 'Stanford Prison Experiment' in 1971 clearly showed the mob mentality in the Hebden Avenue children caused a type of collective Anonymity where personal egregious behaviour of the children could be hidden under the protective cloak of the group. If this was not bad enough there seemed also to be a warped competition to who could be the cruellest, who could hand out the most extreme behaviour
The behaviour of the children on hebden avenue was a small incapsulated example of a wider problem, a problem that is wide spread amongst most housing estates in most British cities. Of course because hebden avenue was in effect a closed off estate & most of the children never left the estate while growing up & because of this the behaviour was perhaps more extreme, the behaviour was more intensified. As mentioned earlier the socio-economic argument wouldn't be valid here as most if not all the families on the Estate were affluent. So this leaves us only two possibilities, they are 1-Genetically driven behaviour patterns & 2-Nurture of these children from their parents who are in my opinion complicit in their bad behaviour made more prevalent due to the failure of self actualisation by the children.
​​
Without Self Actualisation the children & for the most part their parents would never develop sufficiently emotionally & psychologically to where abstract & critical thinking was possible. Because of this they were trapped in an endless cycle of hedonistic consumerism looking to pacify their vulnerabilities & low self esteem through the purchase of possessions.. This would certainly explain why most of the children showed frequent symptoms of low self esteem, self worth & would therefore explain their overly exaggerated & unrealistic persona they potrayed.
​
​
​
​
​
The Estate was not on its own here as mentioned in the School page there was often mass fights arranged from the neighbouring estates in the west of Carlisle.. Hebden avenue for some reason were never apart of these..
It would be extremely common though for the teenagers of the neighbouring housing estates of Sandsfield Park, Morton, Richmond Green to meet at a pre-planned time & place for what could only be called as a 'tribalistic battles'.. You see this behaviour in chimpanzees where neighbouring troops will fight & to the death in some aspects.. Luckily these tribalistic fights never came to death though sometimes close the ferocity & egregious violence they would give to each other..
All anthropologists & evolutionary psychologists know where this behaviour comes from yet for the people partaking in these mass fights they seemed completely unaware that what they were doing was wrong, indeed they seem to actively get a odd sense of gratification from these mass fights never stopping to question the pain and hurt put onto others at their own hands. The tribal affiliation to the estate where they lived and their companions & their need to fight and compete with neighbouring estates seem to override any questioning of the morality of the actual behaviour...
​
​
​
​
​
s
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
There are some interesting aspects of the nurture explanation, as in if you examined the behaviour of the most unruly children you could clearly see some of these traits in their parents. Now most of the parents/families looking back from our time to theirs would now appear decadent in nature, caught up in the whole consumeristic capitalistic boom of the 1970s & 1980s. They enjoyed showing their wealth, showing others what they own, I think the word that best comes to mind is 'pretentious'. Of course these traits were naturally past down to their children & with their DNA which merely fuelled the explosive fire that was their unruly cruel behaviour. However I don't think this entirely explains WHY they were so cruel & callous, sure one could argue that the very basis of capitalism/consumerism is dog eat dog, profit at all cost, compete with the neighbour to get a bigger car, a larger house etc etc.. But I'm not sure this would make you crossbow animals to the ground for fun, or go around bullying & hurting people purely for the entertainment value. I think capitalism / consumerism has a small role to play in their behaviour but I think its their genetic code that was the fundamental factor in making them do what they did. After 45 years of life a lot of Aspergers sufferers see & regularly comment that their is something very dark, very primitive, very sinister in NT Human behaviour. Now I know not all are like this! But from my experience the vast majority are, NT Humans have just learn't to hide these traits as they grow older under the premise of being polite, kind or having manners & of course conformity.
​
​
Indeed all humans today are alive as a direct consequence of human ancestors being successful on an evolutionary level, through natural selection they have adapted to their environment. Their genetic line has survived so if you wish one could argue that the children on the estate acted this way as they were success's of natural selection & evolution. This argument to the likes of Charles Darwin & Prof Richard Dawkins would certainly be a valid argument & rightfully so. This would also certainly explain why the majority of todays humans are utterly selfish & self absorbed.
This however still doesn't explain WHY humans can be so cruel, what did they benefit from it?
Usually in nature & natural selection a behaviour has a benefit, a reward of some kind, a beneficial reaction to your actions. On hebden avenue there was no beneficial reaction that I could see other than the enjoyment of seeing others in pain or humiliation.
​​
This behaviour is consistent & a very telling characteristic of psychopaths & sadists. Now some psychologists say we need 'socially pro psychopaths' in society to do the jobs that no one else will do, such as surgeons, doctors, slaughter men & this is a plausible point.
But I nevertheless believe the psychopaths that inhabit our society have a detrimental effect on our society overall & communities & is in my opinion clearly an evolutionary flaw in the genetic code of humans.
​
.jpg)
Tribalistic Gang Wars
​
The Socio economic argument again couldn't be claimed here as a few of the estates as Hebden Avenue was were affluent & awash with wealth & money. One memorable 'fight' was between estates 'Morton Park' & 'Belle Vue'... Belle vue was a predominantly wealthy estate whos inhabitant's dressed up to fight with their most expensive clothes that their parents had bought them & Morton park was predominantly working class & were to use a pun 'a little rough around the edges', but for all their rough edges seemed more grounded to the workings of the world than their foes... Both brought their 'girl friends' with them so they could no doubt view their feats of bravery..
The Hebden Avenue occupants in showing no allegiance to either side were neutral here, they went to just observe. They met on a small park in Belle Vue & then for the next 5-10 minutes fought like wild chimps with each other, some of the Morton park inhabitants used sticks, bricks & just about anything else they could lay their hands on. After a lot of bloody noses, injured heads & bruised egos they parted.. This is a shocking & brilliant example of the apelike tribalism that runs deep in the veins of present day NT Humans, as I said earlier wealth seems to have no effect on it, indeed if anything it seems to widen the segregation even more & with that that lesson the chance for these two sets of NT Humans to actually be amicable. There only difference? One was from one estate with slightly more wealth than the other, that was all what was needed for it to light the fire of tribalism between them.
​
The children on the estate & indeed most of their parents though some would of been no doubt quite intelligent in a moral sense they were bankrupt, emotional intelligence was also shockingly low as per normal with the NT Humans population. So a discussion about how you feel or the mechanisms behind why you feel in such a way to make decisions was impossible & when attempted you would be mocked and ridiculed for doing so.
Later on during the adolescent stage, young adults from this estate still spent time together & a lot of them still showed some very brutal behaviours & characteristics that they had not seemingly shed while aging. At one point one of the young adults we hung around with called 'Colin' (he was not from the hebden estate) became ill with terminal cancer, instead of his 'friends' (& I use that term very loosely) from the estate feeling empathy, compassion & kindness to their friend, the people from the hebden estate mocked him, he was labelled 'Cancer Colin' & one of the young adults from hebden avenue whom I refrain from naming used a black marker pen to change the registration on the car of colin so it read 'COOT' which was referring to his bald head as he had lost his hair due to the chemotherapy.
This is a classic example of the cruel almost sadistic humour that was common practice on this estate. The problem is here the cycle will continue, as now adults will have children & they will pass on all their traits to their children and of course the flawed nurture they received will now be pressed upon their children by them & so on & so on.
​
_JPG.jpg)
A point worth noting here is the human species are the only species on this planet that does not regulate procreation in any way.
Nature has its own ways with other species to regulate procreation.
NT Humans however have abolished all of these controls & safe guards & instead everyone is free to have a child regardless of IQ, social background, behavioral characteristics not to mention if you can actually afford to have a child etc etc. You then wonder why the human race is in the mess its in with things like over population and lowering IQ counts etc.
The odd thing even after decades the people on the estate have not changed their behaviour in the slightest. After returning from living in Germany I attempted rather foolishly I might add to try & 'catch up' with some of them.
After meeting a few I was shocked to find out they were as obscene, cruel & nasty as they were when I had left them decades before! This was truly shocking to me as for some bizarre reason & perhaps rather naively I thought they would of evolved slowly away from that cruel behaviour on the estate but they had just became adult versions of the children they once were.
They had all the traits they had on hebden as children & young adults, they were sarcastic, sadistic, pretentious, competitive & in some interactions violent. This though merely backs up my point even more firmly that these behaviours were mainly due to genetically driven behavioural patterns & not from the nurture or lack of it they had on the estate from their parents. Their humour was crude, simplistic, predictable & the same obvious low cognitive ability was still visable. To quote Sir Francis Galton 'Education and ageing seems to have no effect on them as one would expect if their behavioural roots were derived from their genetics'
​
Some of the children on the estate clearly showed psychopathic traits, we know from modern research that genetics & nurture both play a part in propagating a psychopathic mind... Here is a very good study of this very topic titled 'Psychopathic personality traits: heritability and genetic overlap with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology' -
​
For merely being different I was reviled & hounded & my relationship with these people on the estate was deeply antagonistic. Suffice to say I was pleased to cut contact with them as quickly as possible.
​
07.04.2023 - I recently ran into an old acquaintance that I knew from childhood, he did not live on the estate but he used to come onto the estate regularly & interact with its inhabitants.. He told me a story recently that merely fuels my beliefs that some of the children on the estate were indeed psychopathic in nature. He told me that two of the more brutal & violent children from the estate came across him on another park close to Hebden Avenue, he was then pinned to a children's swing where they wrapped the chain of the swing around his arm & then went on to stamp on the seat of the swing in an attempt to break his arm which luckily they were not successful.
​
This is not normal children's behaviour but behaviour of deeply damaged and psychopathically driven children with little or no empathy & who enjoy hurting others for no other reason but self pleasure.. I was unaware of this sickening event until recently but the cruel & callous indifference to suffering is exactly how I recalled my time on the estate too.
Please note all the incidences & events mentioned on this site actually occurred and while I stand by these recollections wholeheartedly I must mention however, although I have been researching & studying Genetics, Anthropology, Primate behaviour for over a decade now its still however my objective opinion based on that research that the behaviour shown by these Neuro Typical Humans mentioned predominantly originates from their primate based genetically driven behaviour patterns & none or little nurture from their parents. This site was not built with the intent to purposely offend & upset people but to document and observe Neuro Typical Human behaviour through the perception of someone with Aspergers Syndrome. All Photographs of people were taking in public where there is no expectation of privacy.
​
​