Friday, April 15, 2005

what monkeys can tell us about ourselves!

Try the following experiment

Get a large cage with five hungry monkeys. Hang a banana on a string inside the cage, and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will approach the stairs and climb towards the banana. However, as soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with freezing cold water and temporarily withdraw the banana.

After a while, another monkey will attempt to get the banana - react the exact same way you did with the first monkey. When the third or fourth monkey eventually tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will do everything in their power to prevent it (fearing the blast of cold water).

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt, and attack, he finaly gets the point that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another member of the original group of five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer eventually goes to the stairs and is attacked (the previous newcomer also takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm)!

Likewise, replace the third member of the original group with a new monkey, then the fourth and ultimately, the fifth.

Every time the new-commer takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they themselves were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are beating of the newest "gullible" monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, absolutely none of the monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, they never approach the stairs and beat any newcommers who try....

That, my friends, is tradition for you! Our vaunted "3awayed"!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Man, I am late on this, but that's the smartest thing I ever read. They say that humans are 99% similar to monkey... Lebanese are something like 99,9%