What we can learn from monkeys.
Have you heard of the Five Monkeys Experiment?
I had never heard of the ‘Five Monkeys Experiment’, although when I did — it instantly changed my perspective on society and everything we’ve come to accept as normal or “that’s just the way it is”.
A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage and in the middle, a ladder with many bananas on top. Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water.
After a while, every time a monkey went up the ladder, the other monkeys beat up the one on the ladder. After some time, no monkey dared to go up the ladder regardless of the temptation.
Scientists then decided to substitute one of the monkeys. The first thing this new monkey did was go up the ladder. Immediately, the other monkeys beat him up for it.
After several beatings, the new member learned not to climb the ladder even though he never really knew why. A second monkey was substituted and the same occured. In fact, the first new monkey even took part in the beating of the second new monkey.
A third monkey was changed and the same thing happened. The fourth too was substituted and the beating was repeated, and finally the fifth monkey was replaced.
What was left was a group of 5 monkeys that even though never received a “cold shower”, continued to beat any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder.
If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they would beat up all those who attempted to go up the ladder, most likely their responses would be “Oh, I don’t know, that’s just how things are done around here.”
Whether this experiment actually happened or not is irrelevant as there’s a strong lesson for us humans to learn from it. If you look around, almost everything we’re unhappy with is most likely a result of a reality that we’ve all come to accept as “normal”.
Fear mongering keeps us in check. Social conformity is very real.
Every time you ask yourself why we continue to do what we do and if there was a different way out there — contrary to popular belief, the answer is yes.
Just because things are the way they are because they’ve always been a certain way does not mean there isn’t another way possible.
We fear change like we fear death. But we all die, you see.
There’s no running away from the inevitable. What truly matters is not how long we live — rather how we live.
And so, if monkey see, monkey do — it’s time to do ba do be do.
