Revolutionary Tuesday: The Monkeysphere

#1 Posted by Get in my monkeysphere! | Pace and Kyeli on April 7th, 2009 4:41 pm | link

[...] this thing, the monkeysphere, which affects how many people can be real to us at any one time. All primates have this, thus the [...]

#2 Posted by why openness is awesome | Pace and Kyeli on April 7th, 2009 4:42 pm | link

[...] that I feel like a real person to those who read me or know of me, I enter many people’s monkeyspheres. Just by living my life and sharing it openly, I become an example that it’s possible to be X [...]

#3 Posted by Oliver Danni on April 7th, 2009 8:30 pm | link

Wow, this is really neat!

This also helped me to understand something about other people that confuses me. I think I’m not wired for a size limit on my monkeysphere, but it makes sense to me that most people are. It just helps me to understand why other people are so amazed that my monkeysphere is so big…I guess if someone’s hitting their limit at 150, it would seem amazing to them that I never seem to hit a limit. But it doesn’t seem amazing to me, because…that’s just how I’m wired. ;-)

I guess, stemming from that, it also makes sense that most people’s instinct is to try to fill their monkeyspheres with people with whom they’re comfortable. After all, if you’ve only got room for 150, most people probably want to be very selective about who gets a seat on their monkeybus, especially since once someone gets in, by definition they’re someone you deeply care about, so you don’t want them to leave…even to make room for someone else!

I mean…not that I necessarily want to go around advocating that everyone should be more like me or anything…but maybe it would be useful for people to try to expand their monkeyspheres and not just diversify them? Then you wouldn’t have to make people you like get off the bus to make room for new people.

We might also consider that it probably doesn’t really diversify much at all if everyone in your monkeysphere is diverse in the same ways. If everyone in your monkeysphere is a “freak”, for instance, even if you’re all fairly diverse freaks, you still don’t have any non-freaks in your monkeysphere, and they’re all off in their own monkeyspheres without you, either….and then the divide between “freaks” and “non-freaks” (whatever the hell THAT means XD) grows even wider.

#4 Posted by Elly on April 14th, 2009 6:26 pm | link

It’s interesting to think about this: A lot of groups are within my awareness simply because I’ve had them in my Monkeysphere in my past. I don’t know anyone in a wheelchair these days, but I’m conscious of it because of a friend from middle school. Heck, when I was young the only gay person in my life was my kindergarten teacher, and he died by the end of the school year. But the concept was still in my monkeysphere. I’ve even had abstracts at times, “you shouldn’t do that because of MY friend”, although those were more abstract inclusions.

Anyways, the point of this all: Mass Media.

A lot of my group-awareness comes from movies, books I’ve read, documentaries on TV, whatever. I have an awareness of doctors and nurses, lawyers, spies even! All sorts of groups.

And I know that all of this is incredibly biased, too, but that’s the only data I have. So I do have awareness of these groups in an odd sort of way – plenty of fictional characters exist *within* my monkeysphere, being used as examples and data points. I would expect this is a very human trait, too, to have fictional people within their monkeysphere.

So there’s an even more revolutionary path: You don’t need to know real people! You can diversify media, fiction, and that will grow the monkeysphere too!

Someone whose only exposure to transsexuality is the Australian Borderguard Special on these evil identity-fraudsters is going to be very negatively biased. Someone who has seen a more personal, sympathetic story will probably have different attitudes.

Diversity WITHIN groups is also important! If you only know one gay person, and they’re an asshole, it’s easy to extrapolate that all gay people are assholes. If the only transsexual you know is an MTF obsessed about surgery and acting feminine, it’s going to be a lot harder for you to grok and accept someone who is more casual or genderqueer or dyke or tomboy or god forbid an FTM (Funny story: We had an FTM come out at work the same day I came out as MTF. Almost no one was phased by me, but more than a couple people responded to the FTM with a bewildered shock: “Wait, they can DO that?!”)

#5 Posted by Pace on April 17th, 2009 3:17 pm | link

Yeah! I forgot to talk about “junk slots”. That’s what it’s called when fictional characters occupy one or more slots in your monkeysphere.

Good point about diversity within groups, too.

Your point about diversifying fiction is excellent! That’s really exciting!!! And it also helps explain the bi poly kinky pagan gamer geek effect! Geeks have a high diversity of fiction, so they have more diverse monkeyspheres, hence the overlap with all these other subcultures. I think I will make a top-level post about this! I’ve added it to my to-post-about list.

#6 Posted by Elly on April 17th, 2009 3:21 pm | link

Ooooh, I hadn’t even thought of the geek diversity in fiction. I was just thinking of mass media moves and stuff like online communities (which are the only reason I know people outside the Northwest US, and have introduced me to a lot of new cultures and mindsets)

Interesting that they’re called “junk slots” – I don’t really like the term, since it seems to imply that the spot “ought” to belong to a “real” person. Feels like the sort of thing a lot of people would extend to online friends, too. But primarily: darnit, I’ve learned a lot from some fictional characters, and I think they’re a very useful cultural tool

#7 Posted by Wes on August 17th, 2009 12:15 pm | link

I had an experience with this situation when I was having a “discussion” with two friends about gays in the military. They had both been combat helicopter pilots in Vietnam, and I pointed out that at some point it was almost a given that some gay soldier had saved their lives. They strongly denied this was even possible, and I realized that neither one of them even knew any gays. Well, of course they did, but they didn’t know they were. So I completely agree that the more people that are openly gay, the more straights will see them as real people and not an abstraction. That sure worked for me, and for my wife. We’re passionate supporters of marriage equality because we have so many friends that want to get married! It’s personal! And my wife, who’s a Unity minister, would love to do the weddings.

#8 Posted by Harry on September 3rd, 2009 7:40 pm | link

You rock, Pace. @Wes – I was witness to a “paradigm shift” a few years back while at Ft. Bragg, NC. A couple of my peers were holding forth on “sissies in the military.” I noticed a fellow at an adjoining table paying close attention to the conversation. After a few minutes of listening to the blistering tirade, he stood up, crossed to our table and nailed the largest of my companions right between the eyes. The other was stretched out rather quickly, too. I still remember his comment – “Not bad for a limp wrist.” All I could do was grin like a mule eating briars. I think their monkeysperes were forever changed when all of their preconceived idea about gays were gently shaken.

Freaks of the world, unite.