Americans allowed the system to deny them much of what they have worked for because of similar behavior to these five monkeys. It’s time to unlearn.
Five monkeys can teach us about us
On Sunday mornings, I listen to all the network and cable news shows. I like to blog them with a narrative more conducive to progressives. In other words, I try to remove the spin or reinterpret when I see a fraudulent narrative.
The Lakewood Church service comes on after the last news show. While I am blogging, I generally listen to it. Pastor Joel Olsteen, who I consider more a motivational speaker than a pastor, usually has some very uplifting messages. Again, I am a humanist but enjoy all religions (hell, my wife is a deacon in a Progressive Baptist Church).
Olsteen always starts his program with a joke or light story. This time he told the story about five monkeys. Before anyone gets on my case, I researched the story and found that it is really an offshoot to an actual experiment, but they took a lot of liberties with its recounting. The thing is, the “version” Olsteen described is exactly how we behave when it comes to economics, religion, vaccines, and much more. So I used it to make a point on my Politics Done Right show that is very important.
We have been taught to conform. That lesson has created an environment that allowed us to accept less, demand less, and be satisfied with less than we have worked for and earned. Worse, it has allowed us to devalue our worth as we enhanced the worth of the undeserving.
It turns out that if we analyze our behavior and why we do certain things, the narrative of these five monkeys is apropos. Would you please watch the entire piece and let me know what you think. Most importantly, please share. Until we start to think critically about our entire system, we will continue to be those five monkeys figuratively.