Dance, Monkeys Dance!
Posted on Jun 27th, 2008
by 
Earon
Earon
I wanted to share with you a funny, thought-provoking little video on YouTube that helps present the idea behind my "Divine Primates" work. "Dance, Monkey Dance" is a video from Ernest Cline http://www.ernestcline.com .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a15KgyXBX24
This is not just a cute metaphor. Humans are primates. We are not perfectable creations of a divine being, but rather are close cousins to apes and obviously related to the other complex animal species on this planet. We are different in a way, because of our complex symbolic thinking, but we live our lives with precisely the same motivations as the other animals. We seek to meet our basic needs in ways that allows us to function in our social groupings in relative peace and security!
No matter how long you spend at a university or in an upscale urban or suburban neighborhood, there will still be pick up trucks with gun racks and bars where people go to get drunk and strip clubs and fundamentalists acting as if they were licensed to enforce "God's Will" upon everyone else on earth. There will still be religious leaders who have sex with children and there will still be business people who lie, cheat and steal. Greed and fear are part of human nature just as generosity and hope. We are inconsistent and quirky and will never become "vulcans" or "robots" or "angels."
So, what do we do with this information about humans being primates? Do we give up all of our spiritual metaphors and aspirations? No. In fact, we learn to take better care of ourselves, to see through the greed and fear-based cultural constructs that create a culture where fear, depression and feelings of meaninglessness and futility are endemic. We learn that there is no such thing as a "free market" or "victorious war" or "bombing our enemies into the stone age."
What we do, is we slow down. We stop buying so much stuff. We recognize that buying more stuff and having lots of waste and money isn't going to give our lives more meaning. We take action to protect our security, but we don't bully and abuse other nations or other species just for the sport of it. We come to understand that killing and maiming and terrorizing other people encourages them to return the favor as soon as they are able.
Does this mean our economy will collapse? Things are changing either way. Our current way of looking at the world is grossly dynfunction and unsustainable. It is already "hitting the fan." Our greed and arrogance have caused us to fail to prepare for natural disasters and economic cycles. "Free market" delusions leave us open to real estate and mortgage crises that make many people wealthy at the risk of creating a depression. Primates should not be trusted to run an economy until we understand how to control our inevitable excesses - until we understand that we are primates.
When we learn to live more within our means, we become more grateful for being alive, and respectful of other people because, after all, we're quite a wonderful species. But we get carried away with things and we have to remind ourselves to behave in ways that help society function - rather than creating huge problems all the time. We become good neighbors because that is how things work well and everyone stays happy. We don't become good neighbors because we are afraid of going to Hell, but because we finally figure out that our consumerist culture, which is destroying our planet, IS hell!
There are paths to a better life, a sustainable life. To travel these paths, we will have to give up some of the things to which we are addicted. We will have to spend less time as workaholics and more time as partners and parents and friends and neighbors. We will need to consume far less gasoline and other nonrenewal energy and other resources. We won't all follow the same path, but we will each seek better ways to live. We will experiment and will learn to depend upon each other in new ways.
And we will build a future of meaning and compassion and partnership. It will not be perfect, but it does not need to be perfect. After all, we're primates - not gods.
Peace,
Earon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a15KgyXBX24
What we are
This is not just a cute metaphor. Humans are primates. We are not perfectable creations of a divine being, but rather are close cousins to apes and obviously related to the other complex animal species on this planet. We are different in a way, because of our complex symbolic thinking, but we live our lives with precisely the same motivations as the other animals. We seek to meet our basic needs in ways that allows us to function in our social groupings in relative peace and security!
No matter how long you spend at a university or in an upscale urban or suburban neighborhood, there will still be pick up trucks with gun racks and bars where people go to get drunk and strip clubs and fundamentalists acting as if they were licensed to enforce "God's Will" upon everyone else on earth. There will still be religious leaders who have sex with children and there will still be business people who lie, cheat and steal. Greed and fear are part of human nature just as generosity and hope. We are inconsistent and quirky and will never become "vulcans" or "robots" or "angels."
So, what do we do with this information about humans being primates? Do we give up all of our spiritual metaphors and aspirations? No. In fact, we learn to take better care of ourselves, to see through the greed and fear-based cultural constructs that create a culture where fear, depression and feelings of meaninglessness and futility are endemic. We learn that there is no such thing as a "free market" or "victorious war" or "bombing our enemies into the stone age."
What we do, is we slow down. We stop buying so much stuff. We recognize that buying more stuff and having lots of waste and money isn't going to give our lives more meaning. We take action to protect our security, but we don't bully and abuse other nations or other species just for the sport of it. We come to understand that killing and maiming and terrorizing other people encourages them to return the favor as soon as they are able.
Does this mean our economy will collapse? Things are changing either way. Our current way of looking at the world is grossly dynfunction and unsustainable. It is already "hitting the fan." Our greed and arrogance have caused us to fail to prepare for natural disasters and economic cycles. "Free market" delusions leave us open to real estate and mortgage crises that make many people wealthy at the risk of creating a depression. Primates should not be trusted to run an economy until we understand how to control our inevitable excesses - until we understand that we are primates.
When we learn to live more within our means, we become more grateful for being alive, and respectful of other people because, after all, we're quite a wonderful species. But we get carried away with things and we have to remind ourselves to behave in ways that help society function - rather than creating huge problems all the time. We become good neighbors because that is how things work well and everyone stays happy. We don't become good neighbors because we are afraid of going to Hell, but because we finally figure out that our consumerist culture, which is destroying our planet, IS hell!
There are paths to a better life, a sustainable life. To travel these paths, we will have to give up some of the things to which we are addicted. We will have to spend less time as workaholics and more time as partners and parents and friends and neighbors. We will need to consume far less gasoline and other nonrenewal energy and other resources. We won't all follow the same path, but we will each seek better ways to live. We will experiment and will learn to depend upon each other in new ways.
And we will build a future of meaning and compassion and partnership. It will not be perfect, but it does not need to be perfect. After all, we're primates - not gods.
Peace,
Earon
Access: PublicTagged with: hope, stress, primates, monkeys, energy, sustainable, sustainability, future, sanity, spirituality
energy
July 2008 