Being social animals is not what is most special about human beings. What is special is being cultural animals. Some other animals have bits and scraps of culture.
Social psychologists like to use the phrase “the social animal” to describe human nature. Th is phrase has been used by many influential thinkers, from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle right down to the modern social psychologist Elliot Aronson (2007). By calling people social animals, these thinkers are saying that people seek connections to others and prefer to live, work, and play together with other people.
People are indeed social animals, but using this label may miss the mark of what is special about human beings. Plenty of other animals are social, from ants to elephants (as Aronson and others acknowledge). Human beings are not the only and probably not even the most social animals.
Being social animals is not what is most special about human beings. What is special is being cultural animals. Some other animals have bits and scraps of culture, such as when a tribe of monkeys all use a certain group of stones to open nuts, or learn to rinse their potatoes in the stream to get the dirt off (de Waal, 2002), but none comes anywhere close to having the remarkably rich and powerful cultural systems that humans have. Moreover, human beings have culture everywhere; human life is almost impossible to imagine without it. Culture in animals is typically a bonus or a luxury, something they could live almost as well without. All humans use culture every day and depend on it for their survival.
Culture is thus the essence of what makes us human. Yes, we are social beings, but we have plenty of company in that respect. We are also deeply cultural beings, and in that respect we are unique. Let us therefore consider what culture is.
