Monkeys

"Dolphins were monkeys that didn't like the land," sang Ian Brown back in whatever year it was that he sang it. Humans were monkeys that did (face it, you anti-evolutionists, you), and by god, doesn't it show?

Let me make myself a bit clearer by picking on cars. Now, i'm not that bothered about the various merits or otherwise of cars, though i do drive and own a small car. All i can tell you about it is that it's a citreon, it's white, it has four wheels, two doors and a boot. I have to put petrol in it every now and again to ensure that it works, and, even more occasionally, i have to pay money to people to give me bits of paper with things like M.O.T., Tax and Insurance. And that's all i need to know about it. It takes me and the occasional passenger from A to B very effectively, thank you. It completely serves the purpose for which it was acquired, and if by some miracle it is able to last me until i'm into my seventies, then i shall be content. The fact that it looks grotty concerns me not.

But it seems i'm in a bit of a minority with this attitude. I get funny looks. People probably feel sorry for my lack of enlightenment, that it is not an ambition of mine to own a bigger, better car (or perhaps i should be more accurate and to the point here; a bigger, better car than my peers). Because it doesn't seem to be enough for people just to own a car to take them from A to B. No, their car has to be at least comparable to the cars owned by their peers, and it has to be seen to reflect how much money they earn. Do you own a car that you needed to take a loan to pay for? Well, then, obviously you're somebody to be reckoned with. Except you're not, are you? Because the minute you get a car that shows your status as an earner, those around you will soon follow suit. And you can all talk for hours about the little features that your car has, about how fast you took it down the motorway, about how you burned off this wanker in a BMW yadda yadda yadda.

See, it's the Alpha male syndrome writ large (although this behaviour is by no means confined to human males), and i'm no longer going to confine myself to cars. Lets face it, 99.999% of us humans are ordinary people who will make no discernible mark on the world as we struggle to make a living by sweating our guts out for ungrateful super-rich people who dump us the minute we become problematic regardless of how much money we make them, and we know it (though not consciously, perhaps). So, instead, we try to become the most enviable person within our circle of acquaintances because we have the coolest car, or the best clothes, or the shiniest trinkets and gadgets. No matter how attached we are to our nearest and dearest, we want all members of the opposite sex (or same sex, depending on your preference) to want to have sex with us, because it makes us feel big.

See, i'm not saying monkeys/apes/chimps and the rest have it sussed. Far from it. The alpha male is the one who gets to have sex with all the females, and all the other males have to lump it or get destroyed (unless their coup is successful, but then this only makes them a target themselves). It's not how i want to live, and i very much doubt that it's how you want to live when put in blunt terms like that. So, in our 'civilised' way, we now allow all our males to have sex with willing females, but this competitive urge remains. Instead of finding a mate and settling, we constantly strive to show others how much they should envy our lifestyles, our possessions and our activities. We frequently lie about how good our lives are just to illustrate these points, and we secretly hope that everybody, but everybody, is really impressed and envies us.

So perhaps you live in a 3-bed house with your other half, and you have two kids (so the house is the ideal size) and a decent, functional motor what takes you about. You get a raise in your salary perhaps (lucky you), or even better, a new job that pays loads more. You're straight down the estate agents and the car dealerships, even though you what you have is perfectly adequate. Why? So you can show off to everyone else just how flush you are. And no other reason.

Of course, the inevitable conclusion to all this is that those who can't quite afford all these trappings will borrow or steal the means to do so. And lending companies will happily provide you those means so that their executives can get bonuses for all the business they've generated, and they too can go and buy bigger houses, faster cars, newer gadgets and shinier jewellery.

Being human myself, and therefore a monkey, i'm not immune to all this (though i wish i was), although as i pointed out earlier, i'm not bothered about cars. Not even bothered about houses or jewellery, though i do like the odd gadget, and i definitely like guitars, computers and recording equipment. But my competitive urge tends to sublimate itself in my desire to write better songs than anyone else (which is a stupid desire seeing that song quality is totally subjective. yes, that bit was aimed at you music critics). And i do have a large CD collection.

The only reason I feel this subject deserves a rant (because, let's face it, we are descended from primates, so perhaps it is only natural that we retain the essence of their pyramidical social structure, at least for an evolutionary while) is because we in the western world do love to bang on about how civilised we are. Have you ever pontificated about how advanced we humans are, about how we're so much more than monkeys? Then go and look at the evidence. And i mean look. Then we can chat some more.

footnote: the above was written some time in 2004/05. we westerners were living bubble land about our economic things then. now, in 2009, some still are, but some of us have caught a bit more wise. and i now have a wife, small child and no car of my own, though my wife has one that i borrow when necessity asks. and i'm a bit more cynical now than i was then, especially about the whole purpose of this possession led status society that our empire has us living in, but, it's not my job to tell you my version of the answers, as it won't be true for you anyway. look around a bit, and figure out your own truth.

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