El otro día mientras iba a la escuela un evento me hizo reflexionar muchas cosas. Resulta, que una señora de edad avanzada, le dijo al chofer que porque no la bajaba del lado de la banqueta. pues, este sujeto pretendía hacer la parada en medio de la avenida (revolución), poniendo en riesgo la seguridad de la dama en cuestión. Ante el reclamo, el conductor la bajo en la acera. Lo curioso del asunto es que, una pareja de señores más o menos de la misma edad de inmediato dijeron -esa señora esta loca, si no le gusta, que tome taxi- fue entonces que reaccioné y dije. La mujer que reclamó ¿esta loca por quejarse de algo que le afecta directamente?
Al parecer, en esta sociedad efectivamente se esta loco cuando se externa las quejas que hay en torno a algo. Curiosamente desde ahí me considero llena de locura, pues me quejo bastante de lo que pasa en la actualidad con nuestro país. Será entonces que por no querer parecer locos, la gente no expresa su desacuerdo hacia las cosas que le molestan. En cierta forma es absurdo dado que, la locura se define como el acto de repetir una conducta fallida una y otra vez. Que paradoja no? Entonces, en realidad las y los que no estamos de acuerdo con las conductas fallidas de la sociedad, no estamos locos. Sin embargo, estar en contra de es un signo de estar mal, es decir, cuando uno se queja, se le tilda de inconformista o de irracional, porque no logramos ver que las cosas así son y así tienen que ser, porque así siempre han sido.
Reflexionemos entonces, si realmente tenemos que seguir la corriente del así siempre ha sido. O tal vez comenzar a externar nuestros razonamientos acerca de un sistema que ciertamente no funciona.
Gabriela Rubio
Monkeys
ResponderEliminarThe apocryphal thought experiment goes something along these lines. Take several monkeys (but not too many!), a cage, and a banana. You will also need a hosepipe and a substantial supply of very cold water. Place half the monkeys in the cage, along with the banana, but make sure the banana requires some effort for the monkeys to obtain. Some writers suspend it from a string, or put it at the top of some steps. Now the monkey torture begins.
One enterprising monkey will head for the banana. Before he gets it, hose down all the monkeys in the cage with cold water. Shortly afterwards, another monkey will try to get the banana, resulting in yet another thorough dousing for the monkey and all his buddies. It takes only a little of this conditioning for the monkeys to develop a conditioned response. Should another monkey have the nerve to make a move for banana nirvana, his fellows will hammer the crap out of him before he gets a chance.
Before the second part of the experiment begins, it's worth taking a look inside the cage. Monkeys are social creatures, but the conditioning has produced an inevitable social breakdown. Each monkey will keep himself to himself, whimpering uncontrollably at the thought of the unseen denizen of the hosepipe. Presumably, each monkey is experiencing the long dark teatime of the soul trying to convince himself that, actually, he never really cared much for bananas anyway.
Once deadlock has been reached, with no monkey daring to even contemplate bent yellow fruit, there's no longer any need for the hosepipe. Instead, our experiment continues by replacing one of the monkeys with the spare ones we left out of the cage, who have been busy entertaining themselves doing the things that monkeys do best. Inevitably, the new monkey makes a beeline for the banana, and gets his reward, a ritualistic beating. The system is now autonomous. When a second replacement monkey is brought in, the last arrival will quite happily join in the ensuing brawl.
From here, it's easy to continue to the logical conclusion. Continue replacing monkeys, one at a time. At each step, the new monkey receives a beating for his banana lust. Monkey see, monkey do - and our new monkey joins the group of sociopaths. Ultimately we end up with a cage full of monkeys, none of whom have ever been sprayed with water, who will all happily pounce on any monkey with banana ambitions. Why do they do it? Because that's the way things have always been done...