Objectively Subjective? Subjectively Objective? The Confusing State of Myth, Fact, and Truth in General

I've been discussing Metaphorical vs. Literal Truth on Sabio's blog. It's been quite a discussion! These are the types of conversations that I live for! They are heated yet generous, loaded with concepts yet open to new views, and most of all, you leave wanting a drink and some advil only to go at it again! These are the hard questions I love asking and exploring.

Sabio states that "sure, a made-up story obviously can have subjective truth — gee, that sounds like a truism." My question then would be... can a story also have an objective truth? Something that can't be expressed any other way? What about Sociology? Can there be a zeitgeist event where a subjective truth some how become objective in a sense? Or at least in a given group, say like Gen-Xers and the Millennials?

What this conversation is about is trying to answer what humans have been trying to do since we developed the frontal lobe; namely to answer the question: "What is true?" I like trying to get at an answer to this question through multiple means. The Socratic method, though, is my favorite and which is what we on Sabio's blog are engaged in now. I will attempt to further that dialog now.

Ian mentioned two types of truth, a subjective and objective: 1. Objective truth – ‘facts’ as Alice called them.
2. Subjective truth – things that ‘chime with’ or ’speak to’ an individual.This is very helpful as it is part of the method. Even the most universally recognized and used concept, like Truth for example when subjected to scrutiny, might reveal not only that there is NOT universal agreement but that every single person has a somewhat different take on each and every concept under the sun. i don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

I have really tried to tackle this question time and time again in the labels "Truth NOT Fact" the biggest discussion being found in "Absolute Truth." Largely i find myself holding to the main thesis put forth by Parker Palmer in To Know as We are Known is that truth is relational. Parker makes the case that education is at it’s best when it reflects this model. The quest for truth, by this definition, is a quest for self and for community with each other, with all creation. We cannot be removed from the equation and viewed as entities observing truth. We must be a part of it and be willing to be transformed by it. This way of life is only as secure as your relationships, and relationships are a lot of work. Parker’s truth is not to be found in our various doctrines or theologies (as these are partial, impersonal), but in the quality of our relationships. There can be groups of people who just want the easy, impersonal relationships. I see these in extreme fundamentalist religions and even atheist stances. These are a threat to community as a rigid adherence to doctrine takes an objectivist stance that reduces everyone to mere objects for conversion. Just holding things in binary tension and thinking things like: "it is either this way, or it isn't" is too simplistic for my blood.

going back to how myths can have objective truths, i present my fave tv show Battlestar Galactica as an example. There's a whole book written about the philosophy found within the show. i like it as it presents questions and situations, as does philosophy and theology, that won't pop up on a dradis screen or will be observable through Dr. Baltar's microscope.

things like "heroic figures have personal failings" or that some people "have overpowering egos and split personalities yet their selfish actions may lead to the salvation of many." In myth of a rag-tag fleet of survivors on the run we find objective truths about our post-9/11 reality. things like "we don't know who is with us or for us" our enemy is within our midst. stuff like that. we see how technology can both be a great compliment to our society and our downfall.

all of this to say that we need to be IN RELATION to the variety of ways to get to Truth (whatever that is). the objective and the subjective are in operation simultaneously and one should not be focused on to the detriment of the other. i may find some objective claim but my subjective feelings may color how i explain it to others. what we are left with in this quest for truth are not answers, but more questions and questions within questions. there are many methods and a great method is the Scientific one. it is ordered and rational and repeatable. yet when turned on humans, there is little that science can really tell us about personality or how a person will react in any given situation. sure it can tell us wonderful things about our mechanics (chemistry, biology, anatomical construction) but in terms of psychology or sociology, we can only lay out suggestions and points of reference that we must hold in tention with other contradictory points of reference (all of which can exist inside one single person).

The Liberation of Story Truth: Form Criticism When Applied to Genesis 1-11

in a recent conversation, i realized that many readers out there never understand what i mean when i say "truth does not depend on fact. truth and fact are separate things." nor have they heard of Form Criticism and thus they make the mistake of thinking that all Christians read the bible literally. here is a paper on Form Criticism written in my first year of seminary, enjoy!

My favorite nonfiction book of all time never factually happened. The Things They Carried is a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien who served as a foot soldier from 1969 to 1970. He states that all the stories are true, even if they are not entirely factual. O’Brien intentionally labels the book as “fiction” for that reason despite the book being about his experiences (O’Brien preface). O’Brien explains this in the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story.” He suggests a second meaning be applied to the readers and listeners of stories: that readers and listeners can discern stories that hold a truth, regardless of whether the events of the story actually occurred. The common denominator for O’Brien is “a gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (O’Brien 84-91).This gut instinct is true of every story, not just war stories, as all stories have grains of truth. Humans are a story driven species. We spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on books, movies, and other story media. We yearn for good stories to laugh, cry, and ponder over because above all we want to learn from them.

Story truth is powerful, and one does not need facts to teach it. This argument is front and center in The Things They Carried. The book is not factual but shows the truth of the frailty of humanity. In fact, the greatest teachers of human history all taught through non-factual stories. Socrates, Plato, Buddha, The Brothers Grimm, Jesus and many others all used the power of stories to teach truths. Does the parable of the Good Samaritan have to be factual to show that we should show mercy to all those in need? Do Buddhist or Native American stories with talking animals have to be factual to convey those messages of mindfulness? Do we need people in a cave looking at shadows to discern Plato’s meaning? If this is true of all stories, then why can’t it be true of the Bible?

Just a factual reading of the Bible misses the story truth. The best method to discover and analyze these truths is through form criticism. Frank Frick defines the goal of form criticism as seeking to clarify the form, function, and social setting of small units of the Bible that make up the larger stories (31). Thus, form criticism is a means of analyzing the typical features of texts, especially their conventional forms or structures, in order to relate them to their sociological context. Detecting the literary types or genres used in a particular story and relating them to the “when and where” of the audience will help us find the clearest truth of the story.

The best example of the benefits of form criticism is seen in the controversial stories of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. This is the main battleground in the religion versus science debate. This debate has two extremist points of view. On one side, creationists, who read these chapters literally, argue against science by claiming that all we need is the factual truth of Genesis and nothing more (Abramson). The other group, I will call “science” although this is not the most accurate term as there are many religious scientists. By calling it “science” I am using the vocabulary of creationists to define the group they are fighting against. These “scientists” state that there is no God, and creation is here through a random process of natural selection. Therefore, the Bible is nonsense (Dawkins 1, Gassien 4). Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, cites Genesis as his main reason for not believing in the rest of the Bible (31).

I use the extremes of these two groups to prove the point that neither group’s reading of Genesis does any justice to the story truth. This debate is unnecessary and would not exist if these stories were read using form criticism and not literally. I am not saying that the use of form criticism would wipe out atheism or the tension between science and religion; I am claiming that the first 11 chapters of Genesis would not be the primary battleground if form criticism were used.

The story truths of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Babel dispersion are truths for religious traditions because they prove that God created the world and has an active role in reality. The truths of these stories would have been significant to the early audience who had no modern scientific means to answer some very important questions. The first 11 chapters of Genesis deal with universals (Frick 139). These stories are simply about everyone and how the world came to be as it is. This general idea is then focused through the rest of Genesis down to the creation of the nation of Israel. By recognizing these stories as myth, we are able to recognize the unique spirit of Israel at work (Gunkel 45). Through form criticism, we are able to see these myths in other cultures that were Israel’s neighbors and how they impacted the Israelites. The Babylonian flood story and traces of other cultures’ myths have made their way into the Torah. The Israelites, influenced by the other cultures, made these myths their own mainly by putting them into a monotheistic context (Gunkel 44). Gunkel claims “that precisely these stories, with their unique combination of sophistication and child-like simplicity, have had the greatest impact among all the stories of the Bible on all biblical peoples” (45). These stories, so vital to the Israeli community, still serve us today.

 The Creation myth, for example, shows that God is behind the creation of the cosmos and that humans are created in the image of God. This is important in explaining the difference between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom. Science can explain the creation of the cosmos in terms of chemistry, carbon dating, and various other methods. It does not attempt to explain the mystery of what or who first brought the raw materials into existence. The Bible holds the truth, but not the facts, while science holds the facts, but not the truth.  Science can explain humanity and our evolution to our current state, but it cannot explain how and why we think and act the way we do. Religion fills in the science’s holes and vice versa. Religion adds the story truth to science and gives a glimpse of the identity of humanity and its purpose. Form criticism melds these two concepts together and shows there is actually no debate when Genesis is read as a myth as it allows us the freedom of getting at the story truth. Frick states, “If we try to extract factual historical information from these chapters, we will be very disappointed (unless we read into them)” (Frick 116). Form criticism can derive the story truth through exegesis and answer the questions of causation and structure that a literal reading simply cannot do.

Form criticism is an excellent tool to help meld science and religion. Form criticism helps humanity as a whole get what Erhard S. Gerstenberger described as “the frame of reference from established genres” to help our communal interaction (99). Form criticism calls us to consider both story truths and factual truths to help us read the world as a whole. I can understand why creationists want to hold onto these stories, as they are powerful and show us the nature of God and humanity. I can also understand why science so easily dismisses these stories as they are not in anyway factual if read literally. The debate between science and religion reminds me of my grandma and grandpa arguing about what they had for dinner the night before. After a few minutes of arguing, my grandpa would say, “The point is we had dinner, let’s not let the facts get in the way.” This sums up what form criticism accomplishes when applied to Genesis 1-11.

Works Cited

Abramson, Paul. "A Defense of Creationism." Creationism.org. 1998. 18 Oct 2007 .

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion . 1st ed. London: Bantam Books, 2006: 1-31.

Frick, Frank. A Journey Through the Hebrew Scriptures. 2nd ed.. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003.

Gassien, Blair."Reasons for Atheism."The Atheist Agenda in Blog 25, MAY 2005, 18 OCT 2007 .

Gerstenberger, Erhard S. “Social Sciences and Form-Criticism: Towards the Generative Force of Life-Settings” Relating to the Text. Ed. Timothy J. Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo. New York, T&T Clark International; 1st ed. 2003: 99.

Gunkel, Hermann. "The Literature Of Ancient Israel." Relating to the Text. Ed. Timothy J. Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo. Trans. Armin Siedlecki. New York, T&T Clark International; 1st ed. 2003: 44-45.

 O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990: preface,84-91.

Fiction as Truth: Ward Lecture

I attended the Ward Lecture here at LTS on 10/22 to hear Dr. Carol Hess present “Fiction as Truth: Novels as a source for (Paradoxical) Theology. It was a decent lecture and Dr. Hess articulated many things that i've been trying to say for a while now...

She began with Picasso’s quote “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” She then talked about how novels ought to be read alongside theory as novels do certain things that theory can’t. Novels make readers participators in lives of others different from themselves and make them sympathetic to characters they don’t interact with in their day to day lives. I completely agree with this. I couldn’t see racism through the theory, but through the history and reading novels with Black characters is how I started to understand.

I couldn't help but think of the difference between Gallielo's narrative presentation of his theories vs. Newton's mechanical and formulaic presentation. Gal is a hoot to read, and fun! Newton... not so much

Dr Hess then jumped to what makes good fiction and good theology and how they overlap. She stated that fiction and theology is set in time and place, it is provisional, it is paradoxical, ironic, and revelatory. I wish she would have spent more time here because I feel this is the core of the argument. We’re seeing this in our churches today with the “established” voice versus a more emergent model. This is not the usual Conservative versus Liberal theology that we have seen but something else due to the study of post-modern thought.
 
Many people ask me for my systematic theology and I state that I can’t fully give them one, and usually give them something close to this model. They then state that this couldn’t possibly be a theology that does any good and that even novels have a structure and plot devices. The problem with systems is they sanitize and simplify an ambiguous and complex world. No system ever contains the full picture.

Truth and Fact?

a recent discussion as well as some coincidental readings (some of which come from Barry Taylor's Entertainment Theology) have caused me to think about the nature and relationship of "truth" and "fact." many would argue that these and synonyms meaning the same thing. i don't think they are.

in his work Social and Cultural Dynamics, Pitirim A. Sorokin (founder of Dept. of Sociology at Harvard) developed a complex theory of cultural change that have important implications for this discussion. Sorokin is Russian and his life was largely marked by upheaval brought about by the communist revolution. the traditional "folk" truth was uprooted by the "objective, cold-reasoning of the state."

He states that there is a marked difference between how truth is dealt with between west and east. Russia has both verisons in conflict. there is the cultural conflict of the Sensate and the Ideational.

The Sensate mode is one in which material values dominate. Its focus is on mattters of efficiency and bureacracy. The Ideational is the opposite. Rather than being predominantly sensorially focused, it is more artistically inclined, understanding reality as super sensory. The Greek civilization, for instance, would fall into the ideational mode, given its focus on beauty, transcendent truth, and philosophy. the Roman Empire would by contrast be squarely Sensate, given it's commitment to dominance and its gift of organization and construction.

so in Roman language, descriptions would be based in the "hard facts" because engineers need exact figures to build aqueducts and forts and such. Greek language, there is more metaphor, allegory, and a tendency to exagreate to drive points home.

take a Western, Sensate mode of describe'n a BBQ: "i had a big party, 15 people showed up, there were 5 cars in my 3 car-capacity driveway, we cooked 3 full chickens and emptied 4 quarts of mashed potatoes, and it took 45 minutes to do the dishes which normally takes 15.” this is a western “Just the Facts Please” way of telling the story.

now consider an Eastern, Ideational way of conveying the same event: “i had HUGE party.. there had to have been 100 people there, cars were lined up and down the block, we ate a whole flock of chickens and ate enough mash potatoes that Idaho is now having to replant, and i used every dish in the house which took like 3 days to clean!” this way is loose with the “facts” but i’d argue you’d remember this story longer.

so we have the western "factual" model which would best be summed up by Thomas Aquinas' quote "Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus ("Truth is the equation [or adequation] of thing and intellect").

then we have the eastern "metaphoric" model, best articulated by Michael Lynch in a series of articles and in his 2009 book Truth as One and Many argues that we should see truth as a functional property capable of being multiply manifested in distinct properties like correspondence or coherence. truth then is culturally understood to convey "another meaning than the facts or story presented."

another way to put it is through my advertising background. as a marketer, i studied demographics and found that it's a fact that the American Family is white, has 3.6 members, 2.4 pets, lives in the suburbs, has 2.4 vehicles, and has an median income of 50 to $75,000." (information from Hey Whipple Squeeze This) these are the facts but it doesn't hold the truth of the American family and one wouldn't be able to find this factual family no matter how long you searched for it.

so what i'm saying is that the modernist notions of reality are coming to an end. the east is meeting west and "Poetry will reach a superior dignity, it will become in the end what it was in the beginning-- the teacher of humanity." -Friedrich Schelling, Philosophy of Mythology.

Absolute Truth?

some recent posts i've had on facebook and other places concerning A.T.

Mac, a great philosopher and mentor from OU weighed in and said:

I'd question whether any truth is absolute. I mean metaphysically, there may be a truth out there, but given the limits of our empirical experience, the closest practical approximation of any truth we can attain is variable based on the accuracy (or lack thereof) of whatever is our most current knowledge. Or something like that...

My Sufi friend Ausaf, also from OU stated:

It seems you don't question the existence of absolute truth, just mankinds ability to learn absolute truth which I would agree with you about.

Absolute truth itself, in my opinion, must exist for the simple fact alone that if one was to say there is no absolute truth, that, in itself, would become the absolute truth and disprove itself. Or something like that.

it makes me reflect and think that maybe, just maybe, humanity’s greatest sin is to look for some sure and unassailable truth. craving for certainity, for an infallible authority will always lead to the “death” of our life with the Living God.

we make GOD the eternal immutable Truth and in turn make the scriptures immutable, omiscient, omnipotent, eternal and so on… does a disservice to the witness and revelation of both!

here's my absolute truth: i didn’t expect to be born… yet here i am. this is a result of massive eons of evolution, physics, chemistry, things unbeknownst to me and human wisdom, and not to be outdone, my mom having sex with my dad… ick! but anywho, here i am! somehow i’ve survived thus long… all of this is a gift.

we unwrap gifts, delight in gifts, live with gifts, and are grateful for gifts… authority seldom prompts gratitude. sometimes we need tools in opening a hard to get at package. scripture does that for me but it’s not the primary tool, it just tells me how others have tried to unwrap their gifts and what they expected to find inside. it's all part of the journey back to a God that was ever present yet ever absent.

in response, Brother Eden stated:

I disagree - I think (one of) humanity's greatest endeavors IS to look for sure and unassailable truths. It's what makes us tick sometimes, isn't it? Let's go find them (surely there are some) for the betterment of mankind and the glory of God's creation. But...perhaps the sin is to argue that POV is truth, to hold onto it like POV is salvation.

Sally concured and stated:

Yes! POV assumes that the place where POV originates, human reason, is paramount. Can our salvation be based on that?

i'm not doubting that there's Absolute Truth, i'm doubting humanity's ability to understand it. even Jesus spoke of the Kingdom is metaphor and allegory.. saying "The Kingdom of God is like..."

we have eyes that don't see the full spectrum.. we have ears that can't hear dark matter.. what makes us think we have a brain that can comprehend absolute truth?

that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue AT... yet we must realize that when we think we've found one.. that it might not be applicable to all situations. thou shalt not steal only works if you're not starve'n, although it's generally a good rule to follow. Love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, mind, and soul... those are pretty darn close to AT as i can see.

as Brighteyes sang "IF you swear that there's no truth and who cares, how come you say it like you're right?"

long post... but what are your thoughts on this subject? if you hold absolute truth, what is it? here is mine:

"Mt. Sinai"

1.12.2009

I'll let these two videos do the talking.. hopefully there'll be much discussion on these two as there's been much talk over whether Exodus factually happened or not. well, much talk among the canon anyways...



and the following thoughts with Mr Dwight and myself.



love to hear your thoughts!

A New Seminary Metaphor

Last year, I wrote a letter to a future seminarian comparing their journey to wine grapes.

When talking to Chris a few weeks ago, he mentioned how easy it is to get overwhelmed here. I stated that there are 3 possible responses to being overwhelmed, I now will say 4:

1. Do Nothing. There's simply too much, best just to sit in class and see what topics are brought up from the readings rather than reading them.
2. Trudge Through It. Might not get to all readings, but cover enough to feel comfortable.
3. Speed Read. Skim all of the materials. You cover all the stuff but the comprehension rate suffers. I'm most guilty of this.
4. Read It All. This means you will sacrifice all community interaction, relationships, and your sleep suffers greatly.

My new metaphor for seminary shows my video game bias as it is particularly violent, but i think it gets the point across. Leadership NOW! peeps will prolly recognize this metaphor (as i have no real original materal, just constantly rehash old stuff ;-)).

Seminary is like a ZOMBIE-INVASION.

There is an outslaught of some-what dangerous looking things heading your way and it's easy to get overwhelmed here. How to survive a zombie-invasion is quite easy. You pick off the ones closest to you and keep aware of where your ammo is. Those who panic and aren't focused will be removed of their brains. Keep your feet moving, only rest when you've check all possible points-of-entry and keep your reloading stations in mind.

If you loose sight of the ammo stations, the profs will point you to sites where you can pick up new weapons. profs are smart enough to know how best to equip you, they won't give you Process Theology weapons if you're a Karl Barth wielder and vice versa.

like i said, rather violent, but shows my age and my addiction to video games and horror movies. RAWK ON!

Unidactyl Creates the Marshmallow

I really despise magical thinking. I'm all into MYSTICAL thinking, but not magical. What is the difference?

I have no idea how the marshmallow was created. Not one idea. So when we, as humans, come to something where we don't know how it was created, what do we do? we make up a story about it! Just like the creation story in Genesis or the creation myths in every culture on this planet. We are a story-telling species that are unique to this planet and perhaps the universe as no other animal tells stories.

So I looked it up on Wiki how Marshmallows are created, and now I know that this story is not the literal truth. I have the facts... so what does this mean for those who have to have a literal bible?

In short, their wrong... As James McGrath put it in this post

In short, they deny that the Bible is what it is. To claim that the Bible is simple when it is complex, to claim that it is clear when it is not, to claim that it is uniform when it is diverse, to claim that it is monolithic when it is pluriform, to claim that it is flawless when it is characterized throughout by the limitations and failings of its human authors - what could possibly be more unbiblical than this?

Now if i persist in my claims that the Unidactyl ACTUALLY created marshmallows despite all the evidence to the contary, this is magical thinking. If i instead say, this is NOT the literal, factual truth, but an excellent symbol that still holds truth to how marshmallows are created (which is still a stretch), then that is mystical thinking. Now comes the most important question, and one i ask as often as possible, does this make any sense?

BOOK REVIEW! To Know as We Are Known by Parker Palmer

I had to read this book in my Educational Ministries class and i really LOVED this book. Here is a little review i put together, enjoy!

The main thesis put forth by Parker Palmer in To Know as We are Known is that truth is relational. Parker makes the case that education is at it’s best when it reflects this model. The quest for truth, by this definition, is a quest for self and for community with each other, with all creation and with our Creator. We cannot be removed from the equation and viewed as entities observing truth. We must be a part of it and be willing to be transformed by it. This way of life is only as secure as your relationships, and relationships are a lot of work. Parker’s truth is not to be found in our various doctrines or theologies (as these are partial, impersonal), but in the quality of our relationships.

There can be groups of people who just want the easy, impersonal relationships. I see these in extreme fundamentalist religions. These are a threat to community as a rigid adherence to doctrine takes an objectivist stance that reduces everyone to mere objects for conversion. There is also a subjectivist view when these groups lay claim to the absolute truth and those outside the circle are destined for damnation. In both instances of objective and subjective stances go against this idea of personal truth and how it involves relationships.

Some would claim that Parker is too vague and too idealistic. I don’t see this at all. Parker simply strips away all the systems we’ve added to get to the natural way to truth through community. We’ve ritualized education; we’ve synthesized and systemized for the sake of a controlled path to truth. Parker offers a look back to where we started, a world where relational community met life or death and this fact brought us closer to God.

The problem I see is that America is built on competition. We are a capitalistic society from the get go. Parker’s “truth is relational” stance flies in the face of our society and this makes the idea that much harder to get people to listen to it. How can you enforce good community? How can you measure it? In this area I wish Parker should have gotten down to the nuts and bolts, as this is what the theory hinges upon.

The question of building a good community is one that I will carry with me into my ministry. I will measure my effectiveness in how well my community has bonded. I won’t deal in the currency of answers, but that of questions. The more questions raised, the better and deeper dialogue my future congregation can have and thus a better chance at building true, loving relationships. This method is much more messy and uncontrolled but isn’t this how Jesus taught? Isn’t this how God ultimately connects with us? We build systems that inherently block this truth in the name of controlling and measuring education. The last thing we need is another system as we’ve had the answer in each other all along.

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…” (John 14:12) This is the call of Christian education. We are called to be the way, the truth, and life ourselves. We must become the incarnation of truth. Jesus also gave us the only way to do this is when he said, “When two or three are gathered…” (Matt 18:20)

The Objective Walk

i walk my dog at night
and ponder what is right
what facts are facts
and what is objectively true.

i think of my old self
and the old science that said,
"The atom is the smallest matter
and can't be divided."

i remind myself that the
US was to fighr russia
and the world was to end
the date was 8.8.88.

I knew God was God
and He was in heaven
all things from His will
and i was loved.

i think of my self now
and the science that says,
"Atoms aren't the smallest
(we have quarks and quasars)
and we can dissect them too."

The world has yet to end
(though some say 2012)
I see this as each generation
unable to think of a world
without them in it.

I know God is God
and I am loved
and what is objectively true
and constant is change.

I know one day this
dog that i walk will be gone,
my unborn will be born
and may birth some more.

one day i won't be here.

these changes are true without
me having any say
and won't change despite
my objections.

but beyond that is vanity and words
and words are mist posing
as rocks on the distant
and future horizon.

so love abundantly and do no evil,
be a child of God
and remind others,
that they are too.

BUT it's ALWAYS been done that way

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be attacked.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not? Because as far as they know, that’s the way it’s always been done.

Do you believe that story? Would you tell it to someone else as true? I asked my source if the experiment had been ever done, and she did not know. So far as she knew, it was just a story that makes a lot of sense. If repeated enough times, soon "everybody" will believe it, and it will become part of the culture. Is that the way popular acceptance of the litany came about?

If you had lived in Caesar's time (d. 44 BCE), would you have believed in Roman gods because "everybody" did? (Actually, not everybody did).

If you had lived in France in 1572 (Bartholomew Massacre), would you have believed that everyone had to adhere to the same religion, or the nation would fall apart?

If you had lived in Italy in Galileo's time (1564-1642), would you have believed the sun moves around the earth?

If you had lived in Salem, MA, in 1692, would you have believed in witchcraft?

So, what's different about 2001 to present?

this was to present a myth in modern language.. we here in the modern world tend to equate fact with truth.. this study never has happened but it relays a truth about the world. so the follow up question is can something be true but not factual? for more on this, just check out the tag-link: Truth NOT Fact.