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What is the Monkeysphere?

By David Wong September 30, 2007 291,749 views
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"One death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic."
-Kevin Federline

What do monkeys have to do with war, oppression, crime, racism and even e-mail spam? You'll see that all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go Inside the Monkeysphere.

"What the Hell is the Monkeysphere?"

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.

Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you'd be if Slappy died.

Now, imagine you get four more monkeys. We'll call them Tito, Bubbles, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them now. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is quiet, the other just throws shit all the time. But they're all your personal monkey friends.

Now imagine a hundred monkeys.

Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn't remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there's a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.

So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?

That's not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.

"So this whole thing is your crusade against monkey overpopulation? I'll have my monkey castrated this very day!"

Uh, no. It'll become clear in a moment.

You see, monkey experts performed a monkey study a while back, and discovered that the size of the monkey's monkey brain determined the size of the monkey groups the monkeys formed. The bigger the brain, the bigger the little societies they built.

They cut up so many monkey brains, in fact, that they found they could actually take a brain they had never seen before and from it they could accurately predict what size tribes that species of creature formed.

Most monkeys operate in troupes of 50 or so. But somebody slipped them a slightly larger brain and they estimated the ideal group or society for this particular animal was about 150.

That brain, of course, was human. Probably from a homeless man they snatched off the streets.

"So that's the big news? That humans are God's big-budget sequel to the monkey? Who didn't know that?"

It goes much, much deeper than that. Let's try an example.

Famous news talking guy Tim Russert tells a charming story about his father, in his book Big Russ and Me (the title referring to his on-and-off romance with actor Russell Crowe). Russert's dad used to take half an hour to carefully box up any broken glass before taking it to the trash. Why? Because "The trash guy might cut his hands."

That this was such an unusual thing to do illustrates my monkey point. None of us spend much time worrying about the garbage man's welfare even though he performs a crucial role in not forcing us to live in a cave carved from a mountain of our own filth. We don't usually consider his safety or comfort at all and if we do, it's not in the same way we would worry over our best friend or wife or girlfriend or even our dog.

People toss half-full bottles of drain cleaner right into the barrel, without a second thought of what would happen if the trash man got it splattered into his eyes. Why? Because the trash guy exists outside the Monkeysphere.

"There's that word again..."

The Monkeysphere is the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number much larger than 150.

Most of us do not have room in our Monkeysphere for our friendly neighborhood sanitation worker. So, we don't think of him as a person. We think of him as The Thing That Makes The Trash Go Away.

And even if you happen to know and like your particular garbage man, at one point or another we all have limits to our sphere of monkey concern. It's the way our brains are built. We each have a certain circle of people who we think of as people, usually our own friends and family and neighbors, and then maybe some classmates or coworkers or church or suicide cult.

Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?

I mean, they're not people. They're teachers.

"So? What difference does all this make?"

Oh, not much. It's just the one single reason society doesn't work.

It's like this: which would upset you more, your best friend dying, or a dozen kids across town getting killed because their bus collided with a truck hauling killer bees? Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?

They're all humans and they are all equally dead. But the closer to our Monkeysphere they are, the more it means to us. Just as your death won't mean anything to the Chinese or, for that matter, hardly anyone else more than 100 feet or so from where you're sitting right now.

"Why should I feel bad for them? I don't even know those people!"

Exactly. This is so ingrained that to even suggest you should feel their deaths as deeply as that of your best friend sounds a little ridiculous. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside our Monkeysphere versus the 99.999% of the world's population who are on the outside.

Think about this the next time you get really pissed off in traffic, when you start throwing finger gestures and wedging your head out of the window to scream, "LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE, FUCKER!!" Try to imagine acting like that in a smaller group. Like if you're standing in an elevator with two friends and a coworker, and the friend goes to hit a button and accidentally punches the wrong one. Would you lean over, your mouth two inches from her ear, and scream "LEARN TO OPERATE THE FUCKING ELEVATOR BUTTONS, SHITCAMEL!!"

They'd think you'd gone insane. We all go a little insane, though, when we get in a group larger than the Monkeysphere. That's why you get that weird feeling of anonymous invincibility when you're sitting in a large crowd, screaming curses at a football player you'd never dare say to his face.

"Well, I'm nice to strangers. Have you considered that maybe you're just an asshole?"

Sure, you probably don't go out of your way to be mean to strangers. You don't go out of your way to be mean to stray dogs, either.

The problem is that eventually, the needs of you or those within your Monkeysphere will require screwing someone outside it (even if that need is just venting some tension and anger via exaggerated insults). This is why most of us wouldn't dream of stealing money from the pocket of the old lady next door, but don't mind stealing cable, adding a shady exemption on our tax return, or quietly celebrating when they forget to charge us for something at the restaurant.

You may have a list of rationalizations long enough to circle the Earth, but the truth is that in our monkey brains the old woman next door is a human being while the cable company is a big, cold, faceless machine. That the company is, in reality, nothing but a group of people every bit as human as the old lady, or that some kind old ladies actually work there and would lose their jobs if enough cable were stolen, rarely occurs to us.

That's one of the ingenious things about the big-time religions, by the way. The old religious writers knew it was easier to put the screws to a stranger, so they taught us to get a personal idea of a God in our heads who says, "No matter who you hurt, you're really hurting me. Also, I can crush you like a grape." You must admit that if they weren't writing words inspired by the Almighty, they at least understood the Monkeysphere.

It's everywhere. Once you grasp the concept, you can see examples all around you. You'll walk the streets in a daze, like Roddy Piper after putting on his X-ray sunglasses in They Live.

But wait, because this gets much bigger and much, much stranger...

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207 Comments

This article is highlarious. But check out them internal consistencies:
"Now click over to a liberal show now, listen to them describe "Multinational Corporations" in the same diabolical terms, an evil black force that belches smoke and poisons water and enslaves humanity."
Or click to this website: http://www.cracked.com/article_15967_awful-truth-behind-5-items-probably-on-your-grocery-list.html
Also, like them other notes below note, nice job chiding us not to listen to simplifications, then to give the most simplified version of Communism and Capitalism ever. Funny... and dumb, at the same time. Also, Cracked is the best website on the internet, seriously.

7/3/2009 7:56:58 PM
sstarr

What really worries me is our capacity to understand. Whenever I read an article that 'blows my mind', like this one did, I always get the same feeling, "I already knew this on some level" and, "I'm not going to remember it". I'll probably recount the main points of this article to those within my monkeysphere only to have them say, "yeah I knew that". In truth they do know about the monkeysphere, just like they know about children starving in Africa and global warming but they can't think about more than one at a time. Even the monkeysphere has too many elements to digest or express in one clear thought. - So my scary conclusion; not only can we not care about anyone outside our monkeysphere, this gigantic social issue probably won't orbit around most of our give-a-s**t-spheres for more than a few hours.

7/1/2009 9:12:48 PM
BHB

I had to say something... YOU f****n ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!
you may be a monkey like all of us, but you are really good at elliciting your point... you should be a teacher!!!

PS: we had to write a paper in cultural anthro class on the dynamics of society and the monkeysphere number that we studied was actually around 200...

7/1/2009 3:46:49 AM
Wyndam

the ending bit was wrong. Just be nice to everyone you meet and smile as much as you can. Dont worry, be happy and relaxed and then do you best to make as many people as you can feel better. Then no matter what, you can sleep at night knowing that because of you the world is a little bit better.

6/30/2009 8:50:40 PM
Quesoformagio

This was one of the most educational things I have ever seen. It all makes sense and stuff too. Incredible. Simply incredible.

6/30/2009 11:46:07 AM
screaminbean

Hee hee...monkey

6/18/2009 8:57:22 PM
manusmactibilis

"Know problems cannot be solved with clever slogans and over-simplified step-by-step programs.

You can do that by following these simple steps."

That says it all, really. But the article sure is insightful, otherwise.

6/14/2009 10:07:44 AM
Grognor

The article starts out great but sadly soon degrades into a series of non-sequiturs. Most of page 2 is rife with the very vice the author's warning against: Oversimplification.

6/13/2009 5:20:26 AM
Hannu

well... this most certainly explains multiple-personality disorders as the necessity to have two largely different monkeyspheres... right?

6/7/2009 3:12:23 PM
dabomber279

Well, Ira, I think you make some interesting points. However, you seem to have been born without a sense of humor.
The quote that you are 'correcting' is translated from German. Therefore, your translation is no more correct than the one in the article. The Kevin Federline thing is a joke. So really there is no mistake in the article.
I hate to be a pedantic douchebag, but, y'know, you started it.

5/26/2009 4:37:01 PM
Tristan MacKinlay

I will be a little bit off topic but there is a common mistake done in the very beginning of the article:
"One death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic." - Kevin Federline
The quote is actualy : "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." and it is commonly misattributed to Josef Stalin. This quotation probably was originated from the novel "Der schwarze Obelisk" by Erich Maria Remarque (1956) [see article on wikipedia]

Now back to "the monkeysphere" article

The problem is that we understand the situation, we see it every day around us, we sometimes even try to break the habits and lie to ourselves and to others that things can be changed, can be different. We pretend that the dehumanization brought by the society in it's marvelous and hypnotic dance towards the future, the so-called globalization, is not actually real.
The truth is that our minds can't grasp the enormity of what is the global reality, so, with or without our consent, our minds hold to whatever is closest to reach. If you can't see the whole picture in one gaze than you just stare at the details in front of you.
It's ironic, the "greater good" idea has to treat people as numbers, the same way we have to see the "rest" of "them" in a blur, meanwhile it's the same you that feels the rapture created between people, the detachment, the dehumanization... and you don't like it, and you don't agree, and you want to change it but ... how can you?
You're one man, not against, not beside, just coexisting with millions of others. Believe me, you're gonna loose your mind if you try to feel, see, get involved and care about all of it. It sounds wrong, sad and pessimistic, but it's not far from the truth.
All you can do is feel, think, act as best as the situation allows you, i mean do all of those as long as they don't interfere with your well being and your survival. It's just a matter of personal choice, the free will still governs all of us. You can present the ideas, you can show the world as it is and the rest is up to every man to decide for himself if and how much will take in.
Tell, show, explain and then hope for the best, while you go on living your life in accordance with your ideology.
After all, we're only human! We have good and bad parts as well, we might just accept that and focus on the things we really care and we really can change. Start with yourself, do what you want, what you like, what you believe and what you feel, be happy with yourself and you will be amazed of the effect on others. It's one thing to see the problems in the world, to see the suffering, the injustices, etc etc and be consumed by them, and another to acknowledge their existence have opinions about them but continue to live your life. As long as you can't do anything to change one problem, let it be, go solve one that you can, don't waste time loosing your mind on the impossible and miss the chance to really change something, even if it's at a smaller scale. If everyone would do the same, little by little the situation would change.
I'm sorry if i was unclear and maybe just tangent to the topic but i got carried away by the idea. The bottom line is that i think you have a good point, but you're a bit too acid and dramatic in your exposure, and you are too much in your writings [you let your your emotional implication into the page - disappointment, maybe a little disgust, and the one that jumps out of the page is the contempt]

The golden rule still says it best : "do unto others what u want others do unto you" [or the negation variation "don't unto others what u don't want others do unto you"] - the "ethics and reciprocity" idea is found in most of the religions around the world, more than twenty of them anyway.
"Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal." The Dalai Lama

and the 2 quotes that i find appropriate to complete and end my reply to this topic:
"The more you know, the more you realise how much you don’t know — the less you know, the more you think you know." - David Freeman
"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance" - socrates

5/15/2009 8:08:42 AM
iraflame

Actually, Lenin's brother was excecuted for trying to kill Alexander III-so it wasn't like he was murdered in cold blood. And they weren't exactly close at the time of his execution. Neither he nor his brother, Alexander, were close, nor did they get along.

Oh, and you forgot Hitler, dearest. And Mussolini, and Franco. And Pinochet, Samoza, Batista, the Shah of Iran, etc.

4/24/2009 1:51:46 PM
Guinastasia

Society is utterly screwed? I think I knew that already.

4/21/2009 8:43:14 AM
Dracocron

i thought this was very, very good. a little over simplified itself, and therefore a touch hypocritical, but good. just because i would take my best friend's death harder than a bus load of kids crashing, doesn't mean i don't care at all. but still, it made me think. i know alot of people who would really benefit from reading this.

4/8/2009 3:10:07 PM
jquincy

I enjoyed the article, though. Very well-written and insightful.

4/3/2009 2:17:06 AM
4udball

I assumed that some of you pictured the non-people with lives for fun.
Or am I the only one that actively muses about sociology/psychology outside of the internet? Please.

4/3/2009 1:04:52 AM
4udball

That was very good. Very good indeed.

4/2/2009 1:53:14 PM
Im_a_Vandal

Point taken on the non-existent "super monkeys"...

I blew about $1400.00 on Landmark "Education" Forum in 2005 to realize that B.S. is an ancient art that socio-pathic personalities have been perfecting it for thousands of years.

Deliberately screwing people in your own "monkey-sphere" for shits, giggles, grins and profit has been termed "sophistry", "bullshit", and "marketing"...

So let us not come down on the hummers with the 22 inch rims(?)...we have been carefully conditioned to lust after our pimped-out rides for decades now.

And in truth we have already had the "get responsible" or "simple life" movement...which in and of itself is nothing but, more coercive "marketing" based on massive amounts of pseudo-science...in pursuit of the political goal of the paralysis of present producers of goods and services...to subvert and/or supplant them.

Whether it be through regulation and taxation or "cult-ural" efforts... It is about the ability to control such...or to paraphrase and shorten Marx: Get control of the means...

..then ALL the "monkeys" have to "go green" or die(?)...

Lenin screwed the Czars over for the death of his brother and then foolishly selected Joseph Dugashvili(Alias Stalin) for his hatred of all things Christian and relgious...which degenerated into a hatred of all "things" between him and absolute power(oops!)...

All told, 40 million people lost their lives from the pre-Soviet revolutionary period to 1959(The Gulag Archipelago?). There were "good" monkeys with strong value for their families and communities, education, etc...but, such were not "good socialists" (read "puppets").

Mao outdid Stalin by an additional 20 million when he topped 60 million murders during his "Cultural Revolution".

Add in the "Killing Fields" of Cambodia and every other Marxist-nonsense inspired group's murderous indiscretions...

Then you cannot whine so loudly about the so-called "religious" wars of Europe without coming off as completely ridiculous...

Socialist ideology has been cited to justify the murders of far more people than Islam, Judaism, and all variations of Eastern and Western Christianity combined.

Further, it used evolutionary "science" to justify most of that slaughter while hypocritically killing the best and the brightest individuals...go figure(?).

3/18/2009 9:32:59 AM
ParadigmBlaster

"A good exercise is to picture your hero--whoever it is--passed out on his lawn, naked from the waist down."
What I do is picture the guy taking a dump. And if it's a woman -sucking dick or engaging in raunchy anal sex.

3/17/2009 1:20:35 PM
itsnotlupus

...as much as I despise you as a person Wong, I do so love your work!

3/13/2009 11:40:40 AM
FishBulb

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