A number of years ago, I wrote an article on the cultural ape named Homo sapiens. The idea was suggested, in part, by Desmond Morris' facinating book, The Naked Ape, which is an account of our bio-social evolution, our kinship to the primates, and our psycho-somatic connection to the wider non-human environment. 1 By no rheans did Morris want to deny that we are cultural apes. To do so would be ironic, in light of the fact that the author, a zoologist, is a cultural ape discoursing on his own and other cultural apes' non-cultural roots and bonds. Rather, he wrote The Naked Ape out of the conviction that in our excitement over the "massive cultural explosions" which have led us "in a mere half-million years, from making a fire to making a space-craft," it is wise for us not to loose sight of the non-cultural dimensions of our nature with all its wonders and limits. 2
Morris' balanced judgment is to be applauded. Nevertheless, human beings are creators and creatures of culture to a degree more pronounced than perhaps Morris is willing to admit. Human culture appears to be more than just "the surface gloss" on "primate predators. ''3 Furthermore, I think it would be more appropriate to broaden Morris' technological allusion and suggest that the cultural explosions of which he speaks include all the ways of being human which set us apart from non-human animals. When man and woman crossed the evolutionary threshold, they arrived on the scene exhibiting capacities for various forms of culture which allow us to speak of ourselves as Homo sapiens, Homo symbolicus, Homo loquens, Homo faber, Homo ludens, Homo politicus, and Homo viator. Indeed, all the forms and institutions of culture emerge with the genesis of the human