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CONVERSATION LESSON

CAN HUMANS CHANGE?

Okay, here we are again another month, another core audio, can humans change.

That’s the main theme, right? Can humans change?

Can we evolve beyond wars? Will wars ever end? What do you say?

Can we get rid of violent tendencies?

What do you say? Take a stand.

I don’t think we can get rid of violent tendencies, but we might be able to not act on our violent tendencies.

Really, you can imagine a world without war?

Yes. Didn’t John Lennon do that?

That’s why we call you the Ringo Starr of Deep English.

I don’t know about that, I thought I might be more of the, I don’t know, who would I be?

I don’t know.

Ringo Starr.

No, I don’t think so. You’re definitely the George Harrison.

I heard about this survey where they just stopped loads of people on the street and they asked them, “Do you think that one day humans will … Do you think wars will end one day?”

They’ve been doing this survey for a long time, and since the 80s the people have gotten really pessimistic. It used to be something like a third would say, “Yes, one day I believe wars will end.” Since the 80s it’s gone down to 10%, only one out of ten believe that we’ll be able to evolve beyond our violent tendencies.

I wonder if that is correlated with the rise in access to information.

What do you mean?

People are a lot more aware now of conflicts around the world, they get more news and information about bad things that are happening, and maybe they’ve seen so many negative things that have taken place that they lose their optimism. I don’t know.

That’s a good question, if we back up a little bit, are they more aware or are they just being shown more sensationalist violent news that makes them feel that the world is getting worse.

Yes, I wonder.

When they look over the stretch of history I think now things are better than they ever have been in terms of war, violence, murder, infant mortality, disease.

I’ve read that too, yes, but it’s hard to feel that.

Yes, especially when we look on the news and we see so much horrible stuff.

Almost everyday.

That’s the theme of the story, and we start off with Franz Stigler.

He’s the German Ace fighter pilot.

The one who mysteriously felt some moment of compassion and mercy up there in the skies when facing his enemy, when seeing his enemy was crippled and on its last legs.

Interestingly, he was on the verge of earning some kind of achievement or some kind of medal, all he needed was one more kill.

The Knight’s Cross.

That’s what it’s called.

Apparently that’s some big deal medal.

In Germany.

Yes. I don’t know if it still is.

At that time.

If he shot down one more plane, and apparently he never did.

He never did beyond that, that was his last …

I don’t remember when the date was, I wonder if this was towards the end of the war or … Do you remember the date?

No, I don’t.

Was this actually the start of some turning point for him where he couldn’t kill people anymore?

Yes, interestingly.

He wasn’t somebody who wanted to get into the war to begin with even though he had this history. His father was a fighter pilot in World War I and his brother was a fighter pilot, and it was only when his brother died that we wanted revenge. It’s odd that he looked over at these enemy soldiers and he saw the face of his brother. It’s really strange that at that moment he saw his brother when in fact he got into the war to get revenge for his brother’s death. Could this be what we all might hopefully see in the future when we look across a battlefield and see our brother?

I just wonder what it takes to actually get there, to actually have that moment where you look at the “enemy” and you see either yourself or your kin, or your loved ones, or you feel that sense of brotherhood or humanity, and that causes you to lose that desire to kill. I’m assuming that there is a desire to kill. From what I’ve read from war, and of course neither of us have been in war, that very few people who are soldiers actually do want to kill, they’re just forced into it. They’re in those situations where they have to pull the trigger, and I guess sometimes they don’t even try to aim, they will pull the trigger to actually miss in the heat of battle.

They’ll purposely shoot over the heads of the enemy. Often with soldiers who are first going in to battle, that’s really common. Franz, he was a decorated experienced fighter pilot and all of a sudden he’s feeling compassion for the enemy. He really was putting it all on the line there. He could have been arrested for treason and executed if that had come out.

I wonder what did happen to him after this incident.

Apparently he never told anyone and I don’t think the story ever got out.

Didn’t they see him flying his plane near their plane and escorting it somewhere?

It was some anti-aircraft infantry on the ground. It never came back to him.

Never went anywhere, never got any legs.

He really risked it all and he kept his mouth shut for a good reason, and Charlie Brown was ordered to keep his mouth shut. We were talking earlier about how this story reminds us of the Christmas truce.

That was maybe World War I. Can you remember if it was World War I? I think it was World War I.

Yes, it was trench warfare, so that would be World War I.

In France, and it was between the … Can you remember if it was the French and the Germans or was it the British and the Germans? I can’t remember.

I think it was French and the Germans, but I think there were some other allied forces too.

We did a listening fluency on that and they ended up playing soccer and having a feast together or something like.

Over Christmas they put their weapons down and all of a sudden they had a party.

They got in lots of trouble for it.

Yes, it’s similar to this story of Franz Stigler or with Charlie Brown’s superior is telling him to keep his mouth shut. The Christmas truce, the superiors were also very unhappy and did not want any sense of brotherhood or having compassion for the other side.

Didn’t Franz’s superior or was it his father, give him some kind of advice like never to shoot down someone in a parachute?

His commander. I was thinking about that, it really is something different to let a plane escape versus not shooting at somebody in a parachute. Somebody in a parachute is helpless and they’re not threat at all, and they probably will be captured when the land. A plane can return back and get fixed up and come attack again. Yes, I’m sure Franz would have been in big trouble if that story had come out.

What I like about the story is that these two men who didn’t know each other from a man in the moon, and in that incident they created some kind of lifelong bond from just a few moments of this incident that could have gone either way. It could have been a life ending incident especially for the American Charlie Brown. They remembered each other and got in touch with each other. They made an effort to get back and touch.

Yes, and they became best friends from what I hear. Charlie Brown by that time was probably in his late 60s and Franz was in the 70s, and they became super close.

They traveled around together.

They traveled around giving talks for 20 years. It made me kind of wonder if Charlie Brown may be got a little tired hearing the story. I wondered if he was like, “All right Franz, you saved my life, I got it, can we talk about something else.”

Let’s do something else please.

I’m sure he really appreciated him. It wasn’t just him, it was him and two other crew members, so these three crew members survived when 30,000 US airmen died during World War II, which of course was just a small sliver of all the deaths during World War II. Of those three men, apparently they had 27 descendants, so 27 lives came in to the world.

Really, 27 from those three?

Three, of that act of mercy of Franz during the war.

Interesting.

Our other story was about baboons.

That’s right, baboons. They were not fighter pilots, they were more like food bandits.

They are fighters though.

They are definitely fighters.

You sound like you’ve had some experience.

I have had a bit of experience with monkeys.

Monkeys…I’ve had my share.

I was attacked once by monkeys.

Yeah?

Yes, up on the mountain here.

What happened?

I was walking alone in the forest early in the morning and I was on a trail, in a ravine, and I heard some commotion up in the trees way up the mountain. I proceeded to watch about 80 monkeys come down in the side of the mountain. It was really amazing, it was awesome, I stood there and just watched. This giant troop of monkeys and they suddenly just surrounded me. They were everywhere.

That had not been the first time that I had had an encounter like that here in the mountains around Kyoto. But that particular time some big males, alpha males, one got on the trail in front of me and one was in the back and I had nowhere to go to the side. One of them was approaching me so I started walking in the direction of the one in front of me and passed very close by him, and he was trying not to make eye contact with me and I was trying to do the same with him. I’ve heard that if you make eye contact with monkeys it gets them excited, they don’t like it.

As soon as I passed him, and I’m talking about just a meter away, he was very close, he’s a big monkey, and they both started coming after me. Suddenly out of tree another one just leaped at me screaming, and teeth bearing, my heart just leapt right out of my mouth. I started running and all three of them like screaming at me and chasing me, and I just ran up to the trail as fast as I could and they were right on my heels the whole way. I was totally frightened man.

Were you alone?

I was alone, yes, I was alone.

How long did they chase you for?

It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only 10 or 15 seconds, but it seemed like a really long time and I was super scared. The interesting thing about it is that I had been doing a walking meditation, so I was purposely putting myself in a peaceful state of mind, but when that happened my whole biochemistry and my mindset totally changed. I was pure adrenalin, I was ready to flee or fight, and I was very agitated at the rest of the day. It was quite a harrowing experience.

Monkeys.

Yes, monkeys. I realized afterwards that there were baby monkey in the troop and they just wanted me out of there that’s all, they weren’t interesting in attacking me.

Tell the truth, were these three monkeys babies that chased you?

Actually yeah, they were the baby monkeys. The alpha males, they sicced the babies on me in their little monkey nappies. They came after me and it was frightening.

Did you ever look up what the correct response if you have to deal with monkeys?

I don’t think the correct response when a troop of 80 monkeys are coming in your direction is just to stand there and smile.

You didn’t look up what you’re supposed to do though? Like with bears you’re supposed to get big. You’re supposed to get as big possible and never run away.

With monkeys I think I did probably what they wanted me to do, is just get out of there, that’s what they wanted. I didn’t know that at the time I just did what felt like the right thing to do in the moment which was run as fast as I could.

Back to the story this guy Sapolsky this professor, a Stanford professor. I think we don’t go into it in the story but his actual main research focus is the effects of stress in humans. In his view, what better way to research this but through baboons because he was looking at the effect of violence, aggression and hierarchy on creating stress and baboons are perfect for looking at this. He was taking blood samples and looking at their blood pressure, and their brain chemistry and other signs of stress, which sure enough he could see very clearly. When these baboons found their treasure trove of garbage, all of a sudden a lot of the stress in their society decreased. There still was still plenty of violence because they’re fighting over …

Over food, over a resource. Just like people fight over resources, oil and money, et cetera.

This treasure of garbage was their undoing and made them sick. Interestingly, it was the alpha males that got wiped out because at least with Robert’s favorite troop of baboons, it was the alpha males that were fighting their way in to the enemy territory.

They were the first to have contact with that virus or whatever it was that made them sick.

There’s two troops of baboons, one troop lived over the garbage dump, and then there was Robert’s troop that had to fight to get in there everyday, grab a bunch of drumsticks and cake, and then hightail it back to their troop. When this tuberculosis devastated the troop that lived at the garbage dump, Robert’s troop, it was only the alpha males that got hurt. They died and all of a sudden these alpha males who were controlling a lot of the culture of aggression and violence were gone and a lot of the hierarchy broke down.

That’s why Robert thought, “I can’t do this research anymore. Like my research is on how hierarchy and aggression deals with stress, so I’m out of here.” He took off for six years, he could say, “Okay, things are totally changing, they’re not acting normal, they’re building these social bonds and there’s not the regular amount of fighting, and they’re grooming each other, and they’re taking care of each other, and they’re not bullying each other. And like this is not good for my research.”

Where’s the interest in that? It’s not exciting anymore.

He left to go look for some typical baboons to study. Six years later he comes back, and not only does he see all of these new culture of pacifism is still continuing, but weirder than that, he notices that all the males in that troop are new. Apparently, adolescent baboon they …

They take off.

They just take off and they go find a new troop. When they find a new troop usually it’s really bad for them. They get really bullied and none of the females will come near them, because if the females come near a new baboon then the alpha male in that troop will come and beat up both the new guy and the woman. That didn’t exist anymore. These new baboons were coming into the troop and all of a sudden they’re being treated really good.

They’re like, “Hey, I like this place. I’m gonna stick around man.”

I would think what would happen would be like, “I like this place, I’m gonna be the new alpha male.” No, that’s not what happened. They were watching what was happening in this culture and they were assimilating. That’s what amazed Sapolsky and a lot of people that that’s not happening over generations. That’s one generation within a generation, have a culture and behavior, and aggression, and violence changed that much.

What I find fascinating about this is the fact that when the context changed, maybe some of these baboons within the presence of an alpha male, their behavior it becomes more reactive to the presence of this violent energy and in turn makes them a lot more agitated and violent in their daily lives. They have to defend themselves, they have to be careful, they’re always wary of a threat from this hierarchy. In the absence of that maybe they actually are reverting back to a more perhaps natural state in the sense that … Maybe deep down these baboons are sort of meant to be peaceful, and grooming, and caring for each other. Perhaps that’s the case.

When I started thinking about human beings I wonder how much of our violence and the people who are being violent, and perpetrating certain crimes or acting in violent ways toward other people, I wonder how much of that is contextual. If the context were different those people would be a lot more relaxed and a lot more chilled out, and maybe a little bit nicer to people.

If we just all had more garbage in our lives that can change. Maybe that’s what John Lennon was talking about when he said “Imagine”.

It wasn’t so much the garbage was it? It was more the tuberculosis. Maybe it’s just about getting …

Getting rid of all the bad guys …

Getting rid of the alpha males or finding a new thing for them to do that’s not harmful.

I get the feeling that Donald Trump is not one of the groomers.

No, and I don’t think Hilary Clinton is either. Bernie Sanders on the other hand but I think that’s a lost cause.

That’s kind of a done deal isn’t it.

May peace be with you my baboon brother, until next time.

May peace be with you. I think you’re looking a little bit more like a baboon these days than I am.

I think we’re done here. How rude. How dare you sir, how dare you.

It’s the facial hair.

All right, until next time.

All right man, see you.