Scientists put four monkeys in a room with a ladder leading up to a bunch of bananas. Whenever one tries to climb the ladder, the scientists blast all of the monkeys with cold water from a fire hose. After the 4th or 5th time being blasted, all of the monkeys will stop trying to climb the ladder. No more water is required; turn it off.
So they add a dry monkey, who immediately tries to climb up. Before the fifth monkey can even reach the second rung, the wet monkeys tear him off the ladder and beat him mercilessly. The new monkey tries a second time and takes a second beating, so then he too will refuse to climb.
One at a time, replace each of the original wet monkeys with a new dry monkey and watch the beatings repeat, but with even the dry monkeys joining in. At the end, you’ll have five dry monkeys who are just itching to beat the next climber, despite never having been blasted with water themselves.
This parable can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. My favorite is that this actually represents our own “monkey brains” as humans, which is characterized as our higher-order thinking, sitting above the “lizard brain” and “mouse brain” aspects.
We sometimes look at the ability to reason in these ways as a superpower, making us wholly superior to species without it. But this parable reveals that we’re not as smart as we think we are. Here, a well-reasoned situation has led to monkeys without bananas, despite the water being off and even a lack of knowledge of the existence of a hose. Observed behavior overrode instinctual behavior to the benefit of the group originally. But now, the circumstances have changed, and the reasoning has become uninformed and resistant to change.
Having this power is only useful if we use it critically, examining the logic and reasoning and circumstance behind the conclusions others have drawn for us. We must never deal in absolutes, always willing to test the oldest ideas anew and observe the results.
Get out there and climb a ladder. When people beat you up for it, ask them why. And then, convince them to climb with you. Let’s earn our bananas today.
