# Cooperation May Have Checked Violent Males by Richard Wrangham > “Cooperation is a big part of the story in the sense that it’s only as a result of our ability to cooperate that our ancestors were able to control the aggressiveness of the most extremely violent males. It was absolutely critical that the subordinate males were able to come together to cooperate. The argument I make is that this depended entirely on a sufficiently sophisticated language.” > **— Richard Wrangham**, *How violence pointed to virtue, Harvard faculty interview* ## Sources and Context - **Original publication:** [How violence pointed to virtue](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/author-examines-the-strange-relationship-between-good-and-evil/) — Harvard faculty interview; Wrangham's stated argument combines coalitionary cooperation and language in an evolutionary hypothesis. - **Exact original wording:** “Cooperation is a big part of the story in the sense that it’s only as a result of our ability to cooperate that our ancestors were able to control the aggressiveness of the most extremely violent males. It was absolutely critical that the subordinate males were able to come together to cooperate. The argument I make is that this depended entirely on a sufficiently sophisticated language.” ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Greatest Transformation in Human History|The Greatest Transformation in Human History]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Human Animality|Human Animality]] - [[wiki/Cooperation|Cooperation]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Cooperation is a big part of the story in the sense that it’s only as a result of our ability to cooperate that our ancestors were able to control the aggressiveness of the most extremely violent males. It was absolutely critical that the subordinate males were able to come together to cooperate. The argument I make is that this depended entirely on a sufficiently sophisticated language.” — Richard Wrangham, How violence pointed to virtue https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-richard-wrangham-cooperation-may-have-checked-violent-males ```