Monkeyspheres Part Deux

Since I've been thinking about the phenomenon of the monkeysphere lately I've begun pondering who gets included and by what means they are included in our personal concepts of who is real and who is not. I wonder how the monkeysphere theory relates to the internet. If verbal communication replaced grooming (which maintained group ties) to help establish and maintain the monkeysphere what role does electronic communication, with no physical interaction, play? Is the internet only the latest incarnation of that-which-replaces-social-grooming? Maybe "replace" isn't the right word. I don't think the internet will replace the spoken word, that seems pretty unlikely. After all, verbal communication didn't stamp out social grooming. If it had we wouldn't have hair salons, barber shops and makeup counters and the like. Now that I think of it, you could perhaps include tattoo and piercing shops in that social grooming category too. But I digress...

Are people we've never met but electronically communicated with part of our personal monkeysphere? I imagine it probably depends on the individual internet user. I think many of my internet acquaintances are included in my monkeysphere. In fact, I converse with more people online than I do face to face. Since I like internet socializing more than face to face socializing I think I include more internet acquaintances in my monkeysphere than people I've met in real life. Hmm, "in real life": I guess that term doesn't mean what it once did. After all, internet conversations are conducted in real time and it's real people doing the typing. But since it doesn't include social grooming, or any other physical interaction to stand in for it, is internet usage creating a new kind of monkeysphere. Maybe the intersphere? Ethersphere?

I also wonder about animal companions being included in our monkeyspheres. Being an animal lover I, of course, include all six of my dogs in my monkeysphere and a whole lotta kitties too. Once upon a time I even included a fish in my monkeysphere. I know there are plenty of people who consider pets to be little more than stuffed animals but I don't consider them to be my kind of human so I'll leave them out of this. I wonder when animals first became pets, back when wolf-like animals first became attached to humans, if they were included in an ancient’s monkeysphere. Ancient dogs were hunting partners and a potentially life-saving security warning system. But were they loved? Was there affection between early humans and early dogs? I can't help but think there was and that early dogs were included in many a monkeysphere.

And since I'm an earthy, tree-hugging, Earth Mother-worshiping greenie I wonder if our plant cousins can be included in our personal monkeyspheres. I think it's entirely possible and plausible. I know I've been deeply attached to certain plants and trees over the years. I still remember the sadness I felt when our beautiful, gigantic tulip poplar was cut down by the corporate assholes that eminent domained us out of our home when I was a wee lass of 7. And there have been other trees and plants I've been attached to and saddened to lose. So, yes, I think plant life can be included in our monkeysphere. Again, I know there are plenty of folks who feel nothing for, or from, plants. But, like those who feel nothing for animals, they are a different beast than I and have little to say to them as I don't think they're fully alive.

That, of course, brings us to the Earth Mother herself. She is not the same as a human. But she is alive. She breathes; she grows, ages, changes, suffers and flourishes. She is that from which all life springs. She is all, she is everything. So, yeah, I definitely include the Earth Mother in my personal monkeysphere. And, obviously, many, many, too, too many people don't. And that's what's so wrong with our culture, with our civilization, with our very race. All too many humans see the Earth as inanimate and lifeless, as a tool or resource to be ruled, conquered, manipulated, used and abused. Too many humans are so focused on their own little monkeysphere that they cannot see what should be at the heart of it: the Earth. The next thought that naturally occurs to me is "how can we encourage the inclusion of the Earth into the monkeyspheres of those who disregard her?"

How to grow our monkeysphere? How to help others grow theirs? That's another post for another time...

Who's in Your Monkeysphere?

First, what's a monkeysphere and why does it have such a dumb name? Well, the term itself is just another name for Dunbar's Number. See, this anthropologist Robin Dunbar did a study back in the early 90s, involving some of our primate cousins and a bunch of mathematical figurin', and came up with a theory about why we humans can be such assholes to our fellow humans. The basic idea is that we can only conceptualize a certain number of people as real people and then the rest just become a vast group of "other". The size of our brains decides this number for us. As humans, we can apparently handle a group of perhaps 150 - 300 people as real individuals. Our lesser cousins can only recognize, and thus peacefully live in, much smaller groups. Chimps and such maintain these groups by social grooming and there's even a theory that human speech developed because our groups kept growing and we simply didn't have enough time to socially groom each other. So, we started talking to maintain social bonds. Verbal communication replaced grooming, how 'bout that?

Anyway, back to the theory. Since we can only conceptualize a certain number of people as real individuals the rest are little more than walking statistics. For instance, we are deeply disturbed if someone we know and love is killed in an accident. But if a thousand people are killed somewhere in the Pacific by an earthquake we aren't all that bothered by it. We might say something like "oh, that's awful" and perhaps donate some money to the rescue efforts but that's about it. We aren't all that broken up by it even though many, many more lives were lost. And why is that? Those thousand people killed in that disaster are just as real as you and me. They were just as alive as we are now. And now they are just as dead as our loved one killed in the accident. But because they are outside our little sphere they don't matter as much. We don't know them personally, we can't recognize them as real people and so we don't feel as bad.

Or think of it this way.

Remember how yesterday you got cut off in traffic and flipped the bird and shouted several vile things at the offending driver? Think about what you said and did. Would you feel comfortable saying such things to someone you actually know? Probably not. And why? Because you know them and you know how much it would hurt them. And you also know that, if this someone you knew did something to piss you off, they were probably distracted by their own problems and didn't realize they were wronging you. But you could easily say horrible things to the jerk on the freeway because you don't have the concept of him/her as a real person in your mind. Why? Because that stranger on the road is outside your monkeysphere and doesn't qualify as one of your group.

Now, about us being total assholes to our fellow humans. Ya know how we always wonder how terrorists can do the horrible things they do? Well, it's because they don't see anyone outside their little sphere as real. So, it's kinda easy for them to do the things they do as they only conceptualize a few hundred people as real, as relevant. They can easily arrange the deaths of thousands because none of those thousands are real. The same goes for us when we think of them. We don't know them, they aren't real people. They are simply listed under the heading "terrorist" and that's it. I'm not equating ideologies here, just relating how the monkeysphere phenomenon affects all of us regardless of our politics or views on wholesale murder which is, obviously, the business to which most terrorists are devoted.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I've just been wondering about the nature of human cruelty lately and how the monkeysphere theory relates to it. The psychiatrists of the world say that certain types of people lack the ability to see others, even those who should be within their monkeysphere, as real. That's why some violent criminals lack empathy for their victims; they aren't real in their eyes, which I guess makes some sense. If you don't see anyone as a real person it would be a lot easier to rape, beat, torture and kill them.

And I wonder if our constantly growing populations are only making the asshole behavior worse. If there are more and more and more of us there's too many to recognize and so we become more and more discourteous to others because they aren't real people. They are "other". And this lack of courtesy become rudeness and agitation, disdain and can eventually lead to outright cruelty and violence. I can't prove any of this of course. I can only use myself as an example. You see, I am not a social person, never have been. I am a hermit by nature and I rarely leave the house (and by rarely I mean I leave the house twice, maybe three times a month) so my monkeysphere of people I physically interact with is very small. I believe this is what enables me to be much more courteous to others who often receive abuse, like cashiers and others in the service industry. My monkeysphere is small so I find it quite easy to recognize pretty much everyone I come across as a real, genuine, feeling, thinking, breathing, living, growing, aging individual. And I know this hasn't always been the case.

For instance, when I worked in a busy hospital, and came across hundreds of people each day, I was much more likely to see patients as faceless, nameless numbers. There were simply too many to include in my personal monkeysphere. This helped me maintain my sanity to a degree by allowing me to distance myself from their pain and discomfort. But it also hurt me, and them, in the sense that I wasn't always as compassionate and understanding as I could have been. I wasn't trying to be insensitive; I couldn't help it. Simply put, my monkeysphere was full to max capacity leaving little room for compassion.

So perhaps our exponentially growing population is doing more damage than we realize at first glance. We're not just straining our resources to the breaking point. We're not just damaging our environment, perhaps irrevocably. We're not just mismanaging food and social services leaving many out in the cold and starving. If this monkeysphere idea is the real deal we are forcing ourselves to relegate most of the world into a realm where they don't exist as real people.

I'll have more to say about the monkeysphere theory in forthcoming bloggings. I'm especially interested in how it relates to our wild and wonderful internet world and the somewhat bizarre communications and relationships that spring from it.

From the Holy Shit Files

Vatican accepts Darwin

and

Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant

Seems I looked away for just a moment and all kinds of wild things occurred. It's funny how that works out sometimes. I can read, read, read news obsessively for weeks and come across few items of interest and none that amaze me and then, poof! I take a week or two off to sink to the depths and two near unimaginable things happen in my absence.

And yet, while I've been too wrapped up in myself to pay much attention to the wider world the spirits of nature have not gone unnoticed by me. I've seen a hawk swoop in for the kill (something I'd never seen before) which was an amazing sight, to say the least. And just today we nearly hit a hawk flying low over our truck and spied a deer. A few days ago the bright yellow crocus started peeking out of the ground. Yesterday while I basked in the glory of a beautiful sunset I heard geese. And while we're still burning wood in both fireplaces I can feel spring tiptoeing closer. I can't wait for my winter to end.

Update

Hey folks, I'm still here, just not in posting mode. I won't go into details, I'll just say this: they don't call it bipolar disorder for nothin'.