The Rise of the Arrogant Apes
What can save us from the arrogant apes in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.?
HOBOKEN, OCTOBER 20, 2025. I take attendance in class. Several students are absent. With my sternest expression, I remind those in the room that attendance counts toward grades. As I speak I think, They’re not the ones who need to hear this, dumb ass.
That’s how I feel writing this column. The arrogant won’t read this. Or, if they do, they’ll dismiss it with a sneer. But I’m going to write the column anyway. Pointlessness has never stopped me.
My inspiration is a lecture I heard at NYU last week. Christine Webb, a primatologist, talked about her new book The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters.
Webb begins by asking, “What makes us human?” Scientists’ attempts to distinguish us from other species haven’t fared well, she notes. Chimps, octopuses and crows make tools. Other species carry out complex computations, exchange information, infer each other’s states of mind, display empathy and self-awareness.
Yeah, only humans invented hydrogen bombs. But if we’re “unique,” Webb says, so are baboons, bombardier beetles and slime molds in their own ways. And many species are stronger and faster than us, with keener senses.
Many of us nonetheless simply assume, Webb points out, that our species is “exceptional.” We’re smarter, more virtuous and, darn it, just better than all other organisms. After all, The Bible assures us that God created us in His image and gave us dominion over beasts. Exceptionalism also animates chains of being and cartoons showing us evolving from knuckle-walking brutes to our wise, upright selves.
Exceptionalist assumptions, Webb says, underpin scientists’ tendency to make humans the gold standard for cognitive capacity and to rig research in our favor. She zeros in on a 2006 report that human kids cooperate more than chimps. Unlike the kids, Webb points out, the chimps are captives. That’s like measuring human cooperation by observing prison inmates.
To punctuate her point that scientists assess other species unfairly, Webb shows a story from the satirical site The Onion, “Dolphins Not So Intelligent on Land.” The faux story has a faux photo of two white-coated, clipboard-holding scientists pondering a dead dolphin.
Why does all this matter? Because “the myth of exceptionalism,” Webb contends, underpins our current “ecological crisis.” We think we’re entitled to exploit other organisms without regard for their well-being. As a result, we risk destroying the planet that nurtures us. How smart is that?
Webb adds that some groups of humans assume they’re exceptional compared to other groups of humans. The result is racism and sexism, which for centuries white males have justified with pseudoscientific bullshit. This problem persists.
Our narcissism is neither innate nor inevitable, Webb asserts. Some indigenous cultures revere nature rather than seeing it merely as something to exploit. Webb wraps up her talk with a plea for “humility,” a recognition of our limits and dependence on nature. If we adopted a more humble, reverential attitude toward nature, Webb says, we’d see our fellow creatures more clearly and stop treating them so cruelly.
Since attending Webb’s lecture, I’ve been ruminating over it, and I’d like to make a couple of points. First, I’ve gotten to know some birds really well, because I used to be married to a wild-bird rehabilitator. Crows are all clever, but they all have their own personalities, too. Lena was affectionate, George had a wicked sense of humor.
So I know how extraordinary our fellow creatures are. And yet humans, I confess, still seem, well, exceptionally weird. I’m not saying this universe was created for our benefit, but I do think it would be a lot less interesting without us.
Second, as Webb would surely acknowledge, a little arrogance can be healthy, even necessary, for certain pursuits. Webb became a scientist because she was arrogant enough to think she could contribute to human knowledge. I must be arrogant to think anyone would want to read my writing, including this critique of arrogance.
So the question is, when is arrogance bad? Arrogance becomes dysfunctional, I’d say, when it prevents you from seeing the flaws in your own outlook. This disability afflicts Nobel laureates I’ve interviewed, who are blinded by their own brilliance.
Arrogance becomes malignant when it spurs you to seek power over others, and you assume that anyone who stands in your way is stupid or evil or both. This pathological arrogance is rampant now in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.
I recently hosted a talk by Adam Becker, whose book More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity scrutinizes the science-fiction obsessions of tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreeson and Sam Altman.
These guys believe their intelligence is proportionate to their wealth. They’re arrogant to the point of solipsism, they take self-gaslighting to new heights. They confuse what’s best for them with what’s best for everyone. Hence they seek government investment in and deregulation of artificial intelligence, brain chips, life extension and rockets. Full speed ahead!
The tech bros’ arrogance blinds them to the flaws of their fantasies (check out Becker’s brutal take-down of Musk’s Mars plans). Arrogance also blinds them to the faults of Donald Trump, with whom they are eagerly collaborating.
Trump’s arrogance is exceptional, it has no bounds, and he has surrounded himself with arrogant sycophants who do his bidding. “Arrogant sycophant” is not an oxymoron, it’s an apt label for the predatory capitalists sucking up to Trump. It also describes Stephen Miller, Mike Johnson, Pam Bondi, JD Vance and other flunkies servicing Trump’s whims.
So what can be done? I love Webb’s pitch for humility, but then of course I would. The problem with preaching humility is that only the humble are likely to listen. The arrogant will ignore Webb’s plea or mock it as a something only a woke professor would say.
I know arrogant social-justice warriors, and yet there is a terrible asymmetry in how arrogance and humility are manifested today. The left dithers, the right bullies. Yeat’s warning about the best and worst comes to mind.
We’ve survived such periods before. I’m heartened by all the woke folk who thronged the streets on No Kings Day. The question is, will these acts of resistance keep the increasingly rich, powerful, arrogant apes from wrecking civilization?
Maybe what makes humans truly exceptional, someone suggested during the Q&A after Webb’s lecture, is our capacity for self-destruction.
My pal Jim sent me these photos from a No Kings protest in Paris on October 18.
Further Reading:
I strongly recommend Christine Webb’s The Arrogant Ape and Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever, which I plan to review soon.