Social Grooming and the Meeting of Naked Minds

How we evade or confront the great mystery

Image by Pixabay, from Pexels

In the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the protohuman animals are shown scratching in the dirt, grooming each other, screaming to scare off opposing groups, and being awed by the alien monolith.

It turns out that all human discourse falls roughly into those same categories.

Social Grooming in Linguistic Form

Many animals, including primates, birds, and insects, engage in social grooming. They scratch, stroke, and massage each other’s body parts to clean them and to promote their hygiene, health and utility to the group. Animals groom each other also in exchange for food or sex and to reinforce social status and maintain group cohesion by reducing stress and consoling injured or humiliated members. Animals bond and establish alliances by initiating grooming or by reciprocating the offer.

I remember my younger brother and I used to comb our mother’s hair when we were children. People also pat each other’s back to express our sympathy, and couples stroke each other’s arm or face on dates to create intimacy.

However, humans wear clothes most of the time, so we might believe our opportunities for social grooming are limited…