The Ape Within

Once upon a time, long, long ago, an ape was wandering around a jungle, minding his own business, scratching his back on a tree here, peeing on another one there. He thought he had the place to himself. Then, quite suddenly, he bumped into another ape. The other ape had been wandering around the jungle, scratching and peeing as well. They're really quite similar in so many ways. However, startled, and because, unknown to each other, they both had family nearby and therefore felt a bit protective, they immediately screamed at each other and then had a big old scrap. You know, punching, kicking, scratching, and biting. It was rather like a Friday night bar fight in a British Wetherspoons or an American roadhouse or literally anywhere in Scotland, at any time, on any day.

Now, you may want to know which one was victorious, but this is the problem, neither were.

You see, that scrap, it's still going on today.

So here we are, fast forward, several thousand years later and descendants of those two apes are still at it. Only those descendants have progressed to killing each other without always needing to bump into each other in the jungle. Now, they can do it from a distance, over any terrain, anywhere they want, thanks to the modern apes ingenuity in areas such as physics, chemistry and the military industrial complex. It's not complex, it's making things that kill people and then selling them to anyone with money, whilst selling the upgraded version to their enemy.

Wait, that last one cannot be down to ingenuity, that's most definitely got to be down to ingestupidy has it not? I mean, that's mutually assured madness isn't it?

Anyway, todays ape doesn't wander around the jungle scratching and peeing and throwing punches at anything that strolls out of the trees. Oh no, todays ape lives in a big house, owns cars and yachts and planes and a computer. He, or indeed she, has also figured something really clever out. You don't need to wander around getting into fights, you just need to convince other apes to do that bit for you. Save you getting punched, kicked and bitten, which saves on the dry cleaning bills they never have to worry about.

Todays apes wear suits, expensive watches and sunglasses, and their jungle is an air-conditioned office. They rarely shout or scream incoherently, no, they talk, they write, they post, they deal, they disrupt and they influence.

You see, of all the many things humanity has done, it is language that is its greatest achievement. When we consider ingenuity, things like science and exploration and an understanding of our physical being and world is remarkable, but without language, none of that would have been possible.

The problem though, is that everyone thought language would enable communication and communication would enable understanding and develop greater thinking, leading to even greater understanding, compassion and a global sense of community.

It can, indeed, it has and does, sometimes. That is until the modern ape does what the modern ape does best. He sharpened the edges of the words, he blurred and twisted its context, and he turned new, far-reaching communication channels into launchers from which he could fire this new, limitless weapon of mass destruction from afar. He weaponised language.

The reason why this happened is simple. Two apes in a jungle have their basic instincts on which to base their next action. Neither ape is doing anything other than reacting to its innate sense of survival. It is a simple case of fight or flight at every encounter. This is based on a very simple set of risks. Each ape wants a family, each ape wants its family to be safe and each ape wants to live. Another ape might want to take some or all of that away.

That's pretty much it.

The wandering ape in the jungle didn't used to dress up in smart looking clothes, smile and whistle as it wandered by, saying something about just passing through, don't mind me, I'm one of the good apes. It didn't mention seeing something over in the cave there that it heard mention something about killing a family of apes nearby and then wait for the other one to turn its back before attacking it.

What language did, was enable the ape to adopt a new capability as yet unused; corruption. The modern ape is as corrupt and as corruptible as it is possible to be in the animal kingdom.

But, let's not blame language, for language is not at fault. It is simply the latest in a long line of tools that apes have used to achieve their own goals, from shelter to food, from farming, to building, from accessing water to killing things.

The greatest threat to humanity is and always has been, the ape. Not the ones that still live in the jungles, scratching and peeing, but the ones in the penthouses, mansions, courtrooms, government buildings and offices. The ones that continue to weaponise the very thing that thousands of years ago, enabled us to sit alongside fellow apes and not constantly rip each others heads off in the first place. Language.

The ape in us all still lives in a jungle, still scratches and pee's and wanders around. It isn't corrupt, but it is ever on guard, edgy and alert, ready at any moment to react to its singular and most innate purpose of self-preservation.

Today, language is used as a weapon on every single one of us. But it's not talking to the version of you that you see in the mirror every morning, the one that enjoys comedy shows and dinner with the family and going to watch a movie. It's talking to the ape within you, the one that you rarely if ever notice is still there. But it is there, and it's stronger and more powerful than you think.

And the apes in charge know that.