The monkey trap (for humans)

We humans like to think we're smarter than monkeys. But we may be getting caught by a very similar trap.

The future we choose

The book I'm reading wasn't meant to feature here. It wasn't going to be one of my book reviews. I thought it was unrelated - until the subchapter on consumerism.

The author mentioned the monkey trap - a fixed container of food with a hole in the side. The hole is big enough for monkey's hand to enter, but not big enough for a monkey's fist (full of food) to be removed.

So many monkeys are caught because they can't bring themselves to let go. They thought they were holding food, but it was really the food (bait) that was holding them.

At least monkeys do need food

While it's understandable that the monkeys would desire food, our bait seems to be consumerism. It's not even the essentials - it's just things that we are told we need. And we believe it, even if it means we're trapped.

Or in the author's words, "it has become so embedded in our psyche - to the point of being instinctive - that we cannot let go."

In the UK the average person buys 65 pounds (30 kilograms) of new clothes per year. That's not the necessity of clothing. That's advertising and fashion trends telling us to go get more.

Endless wants

"In the 1920s some Americans were concerned that a new generation was emerging that had satisfied its needs".

Kind of sounds a bit like minimalists today.

"President Hoover's Committee on Recent Economic Change in 1929 concluded that advertising was necessary to create 'new wants that will make way for endlessly newer wants as fast as they are satisfied'."

That certainly sounds like advertising today.

In short

The challenge for us is whether we're smarter than the monkey. The monkey gives up its freedom because it can't let go of the bait. Can we let go of the consumerism for the sake of our financial freedom?

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