THE PATH OF THE MONKEY MAN
America’s Inner Chimp

Earlier today, I caught the second half of a two-hour long interview with Noam Chomsky on C-SPAN 2. It was followed by a shorter interview with David Horowitz. I had to change the channel on Horowitz after about ten minutes—I said “WHAT????” a few times too many. This ping-pong in ideological extremes gave me a few thoughts.

There are a couple of realities in America. The first one, embodied by Horowitz, sees the US as a democracy, free, a force for what is right and good, leading the fight against terrorism and oppression. The second, embodied by Chomsky, sees the US being run by an evil, greedy, soulless, wealth-driven oligopoly taking the nation down the road of empire, aided by a corporate controlled, propagandistic mass media.

Most Americans believe that they exist in the former version of reality—the latter version is dismissed as fantasy by the few who have even heard of it at all. Americans cherish their mythical reality, despite the masses of evidence that proves it false, available to anyone who digs only a bit. Public education and mass media, both entertainment and “news,” cause Americans to imbed the Horowitz reality deeply within their personal identities. Speaking against sacred national myths pushes psychological buttons, sometimes evoking rage. Nobody wants to be told that they have been living a lie.

There is seemingly no hope of persuading Americans to abandon their greatly loved mythology. Soft peddling doesn’t work. Lecturing and finger wagging doesn’t work.

How do I persuade the bored and disinterested? The patriotic? The fearful? Centrist Democrats? Fundamentalist Christians? Free market fundamentalists? Nervous middle class white men? Gun nuts? How do I persuade my very intelligent, very conservative brother who I once angered by asserting that the Clinton impeachment was unfounded?

This reality schism is beyond the liberal/conservative dynamic, anyway. The two terms are simply ideological boundaries that serve to make any outside point of view seem crazy or stupid. Liberal/conservative is myth: “reality.” Walking away from the conventional political spectrum is only for those who are willing to risk being seen as fools, only for those who are unafraid of questioning the heavily socialized meaning of what it means to be a “good American,” a good person.

It is very difficult to walk against the herd. It is even more difficult to get others to come with you.

When I was in college, I took a course that examined group methods. Once, while studying as a class project the environmentalist group Greenpeace in Austin, I asked one of their members how he dealt with the fact that they seemed to be facing insurmountable odds. He quickly told me about a book called The Hundredth Monkey. The book deals with chimpanzee behavior and how new behaviors are transmitted from chimp community to chimp community. The long and the short of it is that once a new kind chimp behavior reaches a particular numerical threshold, it might as well be said that all chimps show that behavior. For example, by the time an observer can see that any one hundred monkeys have started eating a previously uneaten fruit, the observer will also see that all monkeys are now eating that fruit. I’m still skeptical about this (of course, I’ve never read the book; maybe I should): it seems too mysterious and magical. However, this was the hope that kept this poor guy trudging from door to door for hours and hours every day asking for donations.

In spite of my skepticism, and because of my own ever-looming sense of hopelessness, I find that I have developed a similar point of view, only without the monkeys. I try to affect the people around me, and hope that they, in turn, will affect others. It’s just as much of a long shot as the Greenpeace guy’s genetic-primal-behavioral sea change theory, but what else have I got?

I also find that, even though I am leery about the hundredth monkey premise, I am increasingly beginning to feel that we are more primal than I want to believe. Seemingly, most Americans believe in our sacred national ideals, not because of contemplative, rational thought and judgment, but because there are serious social rewards for believing: “Good boy. You’ve memorized the Preamble to the Constitution. You get an ‘A.’ What a good boy you are. A good American.” Good monkeys get more bananas.

Americans also tend to believe the words of the leaders who seem the most excited, the strongest. Watch the alpha male behavior during the upcoming presidential primary season. Watch the monkeys screech and beat their chests.

Can the left appeal to the human intellect that exists within all Americans? Can the left beat down America’s inner chimp? These are the realities of Horowitz and Chomsky: ape instinct versus human thought.

More than ever, it appears that America’s probable destiny is the path of the monkey man, to forever exist as psychological slaves to our genetic behavioral heritage, the weak following, the strong leading. Even though I do not know how to alter this sad destiny, I will not accept ape reality. I choose the human reality, the path of man, embracing freedom, justice, and intellect.

It is not wrong to piss off the monkeys by holding up the mirror to show them that they are, in fact, men.

Get your filthy, stinking paws off of me, you damned, dirty APE!

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