Monkey Tale

Today when I went running, I found on the locker room door before I went running at lunchtime a posted notice. The notice told a tale of five monkeys. It goes something like this, although you can get a narrative by searching, say for "monkeys banana attack".

Put five monkeys in a cage. Put a stairs there and a banana so that a monkey, standing on stairs, can reach and get the banana. Then watch. Sooner or later, a monkey will go up to get the banana. At that time, spray the other four monkeys hard with a hose. After that, continue to look (replace the banana). Sooner or later, a monkey will go after the banana. When that happens, spray the other four monkeys. Do this several times. At about this time, when a monkey goes up to get the banana, the other four monkeys will attack it, because this brings water on them. This happens, even after you stop dousing them.

Call the monkeys 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Now take Monkey 5 out and replace him with Monkey 6. Monkey 6 does not know of the situation. He goes for the banana. At that time the other monkeys attack him. After a couple of times of this, he does not climb the stairs any more. Take Monkey 4 out and replace her with Monkey 7. For the same reason, Monkey 7 will try to get the banana and will be attacked by the other monkeys (including Monkey 6!). In turn like this take Monkey 3 out and replace him with Monkey 8, and watch him get attacked upon trying to get the banana. Do the same with Monkeys 2 and 1, replacing them with Monkeys 9 and 10.

Now look. There are now five completely different monkeys in there, numbers 6-10. Monkeys 1-5, who got doused, are not there anymore. None of 6 through 10 ever got doused. But if any of those goes for the banana, he gets attacked! What is this phenomenon? It is POLICY, that is what it is.

This had me really thinking, especially since my workplace went through a 100% turnover a year ago (except for me). Apparently there are two levels of monkey thinking. Level 0 is the monkey who is new to the situation. Everything is fresh, yet to be discovered, including that tasty banana hanging from the ceiling. So he goes for the banana. Not so Level 1. This is a monkey that has learned that going up to the banana gets dousing from others, and gets one attacked by the others. So the monkey does not go up stairs. Now these monkeys, having nothing to do with the original situation, are still stuck with the original Level 1 situation.

To get above this, a monkey in the cage needs to go to Level 2. Why should I be attacked for doing what comes naturally, getting a banana to eat? There is no point to it. There was a point once, but it now has been lost. So the Level 2 monkey would want to get the banana, and would try to get it without getting attacked. Maybe a quick snipe. Maybe even better yet, find out what causes the attacks in the first place. There's a hose in the wall? Maybe take that banana and plug the hole with it?

This reminds me of the world situation. Soon we are going to run out of oil. But no one mentions it. Why not? Because a politician would lose votes, and a hypermediac would lose his job with the network. The hypermedia and the politicians are the other monkeys who would attack you. So what do you do? You need to get something going to get us ready for the oil shortage, but you need to do something about all the Level 1 monkeys out there that would attack you. So you need to attend to world defense, as well as move to a more sustainable economy. This would be taking the world view, according to Spiral Dynamic's Yellow Meme. It would be a courageous action, but it needs to be taken soon. If we remain trapped like monkeys in a cage, that may mean the end.