Monday, March 08, 2004

Monkeying around

I stumbled across the cute story about the hundredth monkey.

Actually, I found it on a site promoting being nice to one another. I'm in favour of promoting positivity, if for no other reason than that the world can occasionally seem to be a toilet. I could almost sign up to the UNESCO manifesto, if it weren't for the part about not defaming people. I think that's too strict. Some people enjoy a good defaming and who am I to deny them? Even those who don't enjoy it much might be improved for the experience. That's part of the problem with "niceness". It isn't enough to build a world with. There does have to be a certain amount of "cruel to be kind"ness in the mix. Sometimes people have to be confronted with wrongness. Okay, you can do that with respect -- and the principle is worthy. We need not feel that just because we cannot always reach the standards we set ourselves, we need not try.

As for the monkey story, I would have been more impressed if the hundredth monkey had tapped a palm and fried the sweet potato in the oil, opening up a franchise, which although increasing the incidence in cardiac disease in Japanese monkeys, brought him unimaginable wealth, albeit in coconuts.

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