    28

    Why Nations Pretend To Be Blind

    Scapegoating is not the only consequence of pecking order slippage for

    the operations of the mind.   A rise or fall in hierarchical position can

    radically rearrange the way we see the world.

    I own a very large German shepherd who is inordinately fond of

    pecking order games.  When we walk through the park and he spots another

    canine, he's suddenly all playful eagerness.  His ears go up.  His eyes grow

    bright.  He can't wait to run over to the stranger and make friends.  One

    reason for the enthusiasm: in the game of chase and tumble that follows the

    first sniffed greeting, my dog is certain he will come out on top.

    At least that's the way it goes most of the time.  The dog that appears on

    the other side of a meadow is not always some little cocker spaniel or

    mid-sized mutt my shepherd can tower over.  Now and then it's a mastiff or

    Great Dane, a hulking giant that makes my well-built pooch look like a fuzzy

    midget.  When one of these really big dogs appears, a strange thing happens

    to my pet's enthusiasm.  It disappears.  Faced with a creature he knows will

    beat him soundly, my shepherd plays a perceptual game.  He trots along

    staring resolutely ahead, feigning obliviousness to the massive monster in

    the distance.

    Ethologist Frans De Waal has noted the same behavior in chimpanzees.

    De Waal, who cropped up in the early pages of this book, spent six years

    carefully analyzing the nuances of social behavior among the chimps of the

    Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, Holland.  There, the animals live in a two-acre

    outdoor compound that approximates as closely as possible the conditions of

    the wild.64  Each chimpanzee tribe--whether in the zoo or in the jungle--has

    its leader.  According to De Waal's observations, this dominant male hasn't

    become king of the chimps by accident.  He has waged a long, hard

    campaign to make it to the top of the pecking order.  He's developed his

    physical strength, learned to make loud and frightening displays, and has

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