Dancing Monkeys, Redux

A few days ago, I put up a video about dancing monkeys. To me, it was a great example of satire. The purpose of satire is to use irony and sarcasm to expose human folly and vice. While the goal may be similar to that belonging to other modes of speech, we generally permit this genre of social commentary more leeway than, say, a political debate. Perhaps it can be argued that our desire to harshly criticize a particular work is inversely proportional to that work’s entertainment value. Because satire tends to amuse, we tend to be less critical towards it. This is why, I suspect, that comedians and satiricists, can get away with so much.

Take, for instance, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” written back in 1729. Swift comes up with a rather clever solution to abate the poverty, homelessness, vagrancy, panhandling, and general hopelessness that plagues the city of Dublin’s lower class. He proposes that the poor be permitted to sell their babies to the rich. Such a solution would not only serve to unburden impoverished mothers and provide them with disposable income, but it would, at the same time, be to the public benefit of the rich, for, as Swift notes, citing an American with direct knowledge in such matters, “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.” And while the audience is captivated by his analysis of the economic benefits of infanticide and cannibalism, Swift slyly exposes the injustices of the tenant-landlord system, addresses the import-export imbalance, discusses the prevalence of abortion in the slums, and shines light on the radical indifference the rich have for the poor. It’s a truly brilliant essay, delivered in a style of speech that permitted him to discuss issues that he would not have otherwise been able to.

I believe the monkey video is of a similar vein. While it makes some bold, eye-catching metaphysical claims – humans are insignificant in the grand scheme of things and God, at least as far as humans conceive him, does not exist – the video’s overall purpose is focused right here on earth, where human vice and folly have run amuck. For instance, he notes the fruits of human “potential” and “cleverness” – fiber optic technology, pyramids, sky-scrapers, phantom jets, the Great Wall of China, and an American flag on the moon – have done little or anything to cure humanities’ true maladies – unhappiness, hatred, racism, religious intolerance, loneliness, and war. Indeed, our continued focus on the trivial – taller buildings, faster modes of transport, longer walls, bigger pyramids, American Idol – only serves to distract us from the reality of our situation. Moreover, the greatest opiate of all, that which allows humans to sleep peacefully at night in the face of all our follies, is the Ptolemaic notion that the entire universe was made for the inhabitants of a tiny blue rock circling a tiny star in a tiny solar system in a tiny galaxy, as though it lay at the metaphysical center of The Grand Plan, the notion that, at the end of the day, despite our countless missteps, and continual denial thereof, a benign force will set things right eventually, and we are, therefore, justified in whatever we do.

What is not immediately obvious, however, is that such a suggestion is not anti-religious, nor is it anti-god, per se. It is, however, a stinging criticism of the way in which modern religions have come to understand their gods and humanity’s place in the universe. Of course, there is no reason to believe that the way that we do religion is the only way it can be done. It is at least possible that humans can conceive of a God, the worship of which would promote peace and understanding, tolerance and acceptance. The question is, do religions today advance these goals? Or, do they, more often than not, lead to dirision, hatred, and eventually war?

One of my best friends from high school, who is an atheist, once made a similar argument that religions cause wars, which, I, at the time, strongly opposed. I countered that to the extent that religion is a factor in war, it is likely more of a post-facto justification given by governments to curry support for a war that they already deemed tactically necessary; but also, if religion did not exist as such a justification, governments would drum up some other one. But the video made me question my original stance and I wondered if I could find any evidence for-or-against the proposition that religion still causes wars, even in civilized, educated modernity. I decided to do a little research, but immediately ran into some methodological problems. What exactly constitutes a war? What should be the threshold for ‘significant’? Should I consider the religion of the government in power or the religion of the majority of a country’s citizens? But most problematically, I had no way to ascertain the single proximate cause of any war.

Having noted some methodological problems, I will nevertheless push forward and consider US armed conflicts from 1950 onwards. According to this website, there have been 13 battles matching that description. One was against a predominantly Jewish country, two were against predominantly Buddhist countries, four were against predominantly Christian countries, and 6 were/are against predominantly Muslim countries. Using that method of counting, it seems that the US is quite democratic in choosing which religions to battle against. We may even be tempted to conclude that religion is not a factor at all.

However, I quickly realized that each of the “conflicts” against Christian countries seemed to be more of the peace-keeping variety, as opposed to the war-waging variety. This fact is borne out in the number of US casualties, which, in terms of the four conflicts in Christian countries, numbered 27, 6, 19, and 23. That is to say, in the past 57 years, the US has lost a total of 75 soldiers in battles in four separate Christian countries. (The Israelis claimed nearly half as many soldiers when they mistakenly bombed an allied US navy vessel in 1967, which accounted for 33 deaths, and the only US-Israeli “conflict,” and for which, mind you, there was no US retaliation.) In contrast, battles on Muslim soil have taken over 4,500 soldiers and counting. Battles on Buddhist soil have claimed over 14,000 soldiers. And, if we are counting dollars spent, rather than lives lost, which would then include the Cold War against the atheistic USSR, then this ceases to be a comparison at all, as Christian conflicts are dwarfed effectively into non-existence. Determining causality of a war is admittedly beyond my expertise, but it appears to me that if someone wanted to make the argument that religious difference strongly correlated with the number of lives lost or the number of dollars spent in US armed conflicts since 1950, then it appears that they would have plenty of fodder on which to base their argument.

Indeed, the notion that religiosity and bellicosity are strongly correlated is not a new one. Way back when, Plato suggested that society should actively encourage a vision of a blissful afterlife, for such a conception allows citizens to be fearless in the face of death, which, consequently, makes them good soldiers. Of course, this Platonic ideal can be taken too far and has often resulted in the senseless loss of lives of both soldiers and civilians for reasons and by tactics that no rightly-conceived god (seemingly) could ever justify.

Finally, I would like to address two points that Nathan raised in his comment on the video. First, as to the video’s internal consistency, my reading of the video is that it is, indeed, consistent. Where it mentions human potential, I do not think it is with reference to a transcendent moral standard. Rather, I think he is referring to human potential with sarcasm. The word potential is punctuated with the picture of an American flag on the moon, as if to say, so what? Even our greatest achievement (arguably) still amounts to nothing! In that sense, I think the video is consistently non-transcendent. Of course, if the author was not being sarcastic when he talks about human “potential” and “cleverness,” then Nathan would be correct in his criticism. I suppose it depends on how you read it. Secondly, as to the point of whether a Nihilist can rightly claim to be the only possessor of Truth, the answer is yes, precisely because a Nihilist doesn’t believe anyone is in any better position to judge Truth. Therefore, Nietzsche can say whatever he wants, but he is a monkey, too, as the video admits, and so is Ernest Cline. If nothing else, Nihilists are rather even-handed that way. Everyone’s a fool, even the one calling everyone a fool.

Lastly, when I put up the video, I did not realize that some people may be offended at the suggestion that all gods were made up. If you are a Nihilist, you probably agree with the statement. If you are an Absolutist who thinks that your God is the only true God, then you should at least see the partial truth in the claim, as it applies to everyone but you. And finally, if you are a Relativist, who thinks that everyone is seeing different aspects of the same God, then you likely have room in your heart even for those who see an absence of god, and, besides, you are likely not easily offended, you granola-eating hippie. Just kidding. You know I love you all and did not mean anyone individually any offense. Such things are meant to provoke thought rather than offense. My apologies to those who received it otherwise. Now, who wants a baby?