The Beginning of a Culture

I was watching this documentary called Food for Thought, when I saw a remarkable thing. The host of the series was sitting with a group of chimpanzees living on a mangrove-covered island near the mouth of the Congo. The chimpanzees in this particular place were orphans, whose parents were killed for what they call bush-meat. Researchers were attempting to rehabilitate them and teach them the skills that their parents would have taught them, so that they could be reintroduced into the wild and survive on their own. Some of the chimps had learned to do certain things by observing and imitating people. These particular chimps were illustrating a way to crack nuts. They would take a nut, put it in a divet so it wouldn't roll around, and smash it with a log.

While observing this behavior, the narrator made what struck me as an outstanding remark.

"There are many different ways to crack a nut. Furthermore, there are many different kinds of nuts. So different groups of chimps, have developed different ways of dealing with the problem. That is the beginning of a culture."

This was remarkable to me for two reasons: One is that watching this whole documentary, and many others that I have watched over the course of my life, it's nothing shy of fascinating to see how human-like many ape species are; the second reason was that it immediately struck me how right that comment was.

Isn't that all cultural differences really are? Just long-lived, deep-seeded differences in the way our particular cultural ancestor's taught their progeny to solve life's problems. We all face the same problems, just in slightly different forms depending on where we came from, and the stresses that our particular environment imposed. And that simple beginning is what has led to such dramatically different approaches, and thus the many cultures that we see today.

If you think about it, and look at all the vastly different cultures of the world, and the way they mix and mesh, and sometimes clash where they meet, doesn't it just make sense. Take any two polar opposites, like modern America, and extremist Islam for example. It's hard to imagine that the terrorist attacks against America would have ever taken place absent different views on the world and the way its problems should be solved.

But it seems like we've gotten so caught up in all the scenery; the history, the stories, and the pride of our own culture, that we've forgotten the point of it all. We're all just trying to solve our own problems in our own ways, and sometimes we're so proud of our own way, and so convinced that it's right because it has worked for us, that we impune other approaches for being so wrong. But doesn't it almost seem like we all have to be right in our own way, otherwise it wouldn't have worked? Perhaps that's too big a pill for humanity to swallow yet.

Is this the ultimate irony of life? We're all fighting different battles, but in the same war. Yet sometimes when we encounter people who do things differently, because they had to do it their own way in their own place, we feel the need to impose our own will on them because our vision is so myopic and narrow that we can't see the bigger picture. Sometimes we even kill each other, for simply doing what we were taught to do in order to solve life's problems. We kill, for living. Is this why we were cautioned against excessive pride?

Nah, can't be, I must just be crazy. People aren't as simple as apes...

Part of the Problem. OR Suzy Good-Girl vs. Kelly Quick-Butt

One of our biggest problems as a society is the way we look at sex. As a guy, we are at least 50% responsible for it. Consider this illustration.

Take Suzy Good-Girl. She’s a good girl. She wants a husband, a family, a career, the whole nine yards. She’s behaved her whole life, no old sex flings in her closet, no dirty little secrets that would spoil her worth in the eyes of her prospective husband, she wants to do things right. The first guy she goes to bed with will be her husband she says.

But wait a minute, Suzy forgot something. It’s 2007, and sluts abound.

What is gonna make Timmy Everyman think Suzy is so worth waiting for? Why would he do that anyway when he’s a young man, and all every young man wants to do is get in some pussy ASAP.

Suzy’s a good girl. Suzy is the girl you want to marry. But you’re not looking for Suzy now. You’re looking for Kelly Quick-butt, cause she gives up the butt quick. And in 2007, you need not look far to find Kelly. Kelly is everywhere. She’s in your classroom, she’s at the gym, she’s at the corner-store, she’s at the bar. She’s all over the club. You’ve never seen so many girls named Kelly as you’ll see at the club. So from a young man’s perspective, it’s very difficult indeed to keep your eyes on the prize, Suzy Good-Girl, when all these Kelly’s are coming out of the woodwork, promising to be good-for-now. Useless for later, but great-for-now.

Poor Suzy. All she wanted was to be good, and she is forced to choose between being good and lonely, or being bad, and having a great time. If she makes the right choice, she will quickly be out-competed for Timmy’s attention by a bunch of knuckleheaded broads named Kelly.

What’s a good girl to do? The easiest answer is depressingly obvious, Suzy’s gonna take off that school uni, put on some ho-heels and a short skirt, change her name to Kelly, go to the club and become an absolute degenerate, cause that’s better than being the single outcast with no boyfriend. And as guys, it is as much our fault as it is theirs. We have to do our part, but I’m finding it very hard to get takers on board.