Rat Empathy January 24, 2012

It will be no surprise to readers of Indigenize! what Univ. of Chicago researchers found in their most recent rodent study, published December 9, 2011 in Science.

According to Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, one of the co-researchers, it turns out that rats will spend a lot of time and energy figuring out how to open a cage if they see another rat trapped in it.

In fact, if faced with two cages, they’d choose to free their pals just as often as they’d choose to open a cage full of delicious chocolate for themselves. Now *that’s* compassionate action! The freedom of their friend was as just sweet to them as a big hoard of chocolate chips.

Further, even when the rats got the chocolate, they weren’t stingy with it. In more than half the trials, rescuer rats left some chocolate to share with the newly freed. Researchers were surprised by this rodent kindness or perhaps shared celebratory meal. Bartal says, “The most shocking thing is they left some of the chocolate for the other rat. …It’s not like they missed a chocolate. They actually carried it out of the restrainer sometimes but did not eat it.”

This was not the first time such an experiment had been done; not by a long shot. Stéphan Reebs reported in the October 2007 issue of Natural History reported on a study done at the University of Bern, Switzerland in which researchers Claudia Rutte and Michael Taborsky trained rats to pull a lever that gave food to a rat in a neighboring cage. These rats were then placed either next to other helpful, lever-pulling rats’ cages or near those untrained to be generous in that way. On the sixth day, they discovered that

“…rats that had been paired with helpful neighbors were, on average, 21 percent more likely to pull a lever for a new neighbor they had never encountered than were test rats paired with unhelpful neighbors. What’s more, the rats could distinguish between strangers and former benefactors. In another experiment, test rats that encountered a rat that had given them food earlier were—not 21 percent—but 51 percent more likely to return the favor. Notably, Rutte and Taborsky studied only female rats. No word on whether males would be equally obliging.”

Similar empathetic behavior has long been observed in other animals as well. Franz de Waal’s brilliant work Peacemaking Among Primates comes immediately to mind, as does the chapter about animals in the “Anarchist Prince” Pyotr Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. Not to mention all those videos on YouTube.

What do such studies prove? Scientists now state it’s plausible these rats demonstrated “empathically motivated pro-social behavior.” The same behavior exhibited in people would generally be called helpfulness and even kindness or compassion. In the Swiss study, we also see how empathy begets more empathy; kind actions spread and come back to benefit the generous. University of Chicago neurobiologist Peggy Mason said, “Rats help other rats in distress. That means it’s a biological inheritance. That’s the biological program we have.”

So we can read into this finding a very important message for the currently dominant culture: Collaboration is hardwired into us as animals. Not cold, me-first, gotta win and get mine and the hellwithyou competition. It’s NOT “survival of the fittest,” as ‘social Darwinists’ Thomas Malthus and Herbert Spencer mutated the message to be. It’s as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace themselves originally observed: “survival of the FIT,” meaning those who best adapt to the situations in which they find themselves. Both anthropological studies and game theory statistically show that collaboratively working together creates the most likely conditions for long-term survival.

You can read more about the U of Chicago rat study in this accessible report by Laura Sanders in the Dec. 31, 2011 issue of Science News:  He’s no rat; he’s my brother

Rat liberation: gotta love it.  I’ll end by saying that if we have to do studies on our kindred in other kinds of bodies, I like this trend of doing studies that involve the animals as themselves, instead of merely as test items for some product.

Science Fiction Holidaze January 16, 2012

This post is for you lovers of science fiction and mythopoetic fantasy literature. As one myself, these made me laugh.

1)  When I first saw this sign, I thought it was a clever joke – but no.  Klingons kicked Stormtrooper butt in this ultimate nerd showdown held for a good cause in Portland, Oregon on New Year’s.

“New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are not holidays people typically think of to give blood,” said Steve Stegeman, CEO of the American Red Cross Pacific Northwest Blood Services Region. “We have to get a little bit creative.”

You can read more about it in the Oregonian.  I just can’t help but wonder what blood type each of them are…

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2)  Then there are the Xmas ornaments.

My dear friend Burnie, who taught science fiction and fantasy to two generations of brilliant misfits in her high school English classes, has collected Hallmark’s Star Trek ornaments for years. Some of them light up; others even talk. She is amazed to realize that this goofy collection has so increased in value that it may well now form the bulk of her childrens’ inheritance.

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Here she is, in a photo taken a few years ago by her porch with me and another close friend.

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This cool retro rocket ship night-light is what I gave her this year. The red liquid inside contains glitter that roils around when it heats up from the light. Sometimes a person needs a booster rocket to get to the proper dreamland.

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Star Trek is one thing; Lovecraft would be quite another. Would you open a present found under a tree with this on it?

Ornament made by Etsy seller Michelle Scrimpsher

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3)  Although the holiday season can bring great joy, you might be surprised by the number of folks who feel relief that it is now past.

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Happy January!

A “Must Hear” Whole Systems Story January 8, 2012

Yesterday I happened to have the radio on, and caught a show that blew my socks off, a recording of Mike Daisey’s stage performance about a trip he took to China. It’s an excerpt from his one-man play, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” A self-proclaimed “worshipper in the cult of Mac,” when Daisey gleefully opened up his newest iPhone, he found four photos on it – photos taken in the factory, as a test of the camera. He began to be haunted by these images. It occurred to him that he’d never once given a thought about how his beloved gadgets came into being. So bless his heart, he went to find out.

This is one of the best whole-systems pieces I’ve ever heard. I doubt it would be possible to listen to it and not come away with a deeply expanded awareness of the need to consider the life-cycle of all of our things.

Mike Daisey did fabulous journalism, to begin with; through his detailed, evocative imagery, the listener really feels herself to be there with him, seeing and hearing what he is experiencing. When he interviews a worker whose hands were ruined by the minute repetitive work of creating iPads and then realizes that this man has never actually seen one completed, let alone one powered up and working, I was glued to the radio. The man thought Daisey’s iPad was like magic.

And it is, in a way. I’m incredibly grateful to our technology, from radios on, for allowing me to hear Daisey’s performance done thousands of miles away, and allowing you to read my words about it now.

Daisey’s honesty about the dilemmas this growing awareness poses in his life is refreshing, and it is an issue we all face, whether we think about it or not. If you are reading this on a personal computer, you are complicit, as am I. How best to deal with this reality? On a personal level, should we give our gadgets up and try to live a materially simpler life? Or is the commerce actually helping the people there, as many claim? On a societal level, does the problem simply lie with unscrupulous companies in Shenzhen (a former fishing village, now manufacturing central) trying to make the biggest bucks in the fastest time; shades of the Gold Rush in the American West; boom and bust, and damn the consequences? If so, could it be fixable through stronger governmental oversight of the tech industry and overseas manufacturing? Or is the problem actually rooted more deeply in the west’s rampant overconsumption; in the corporate capitalist industrial growth model itself? All of the above?

I intend to give Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory to the students in my Ecopsychology in Context course at Naropa this semester as part of their required “reading.” It’s that good.  Be sure to listen to the commentary afterward, too. It’s much dryer, but contains important follow-up journalism regarding Apple’s response that will make you think even more deeply about the issue.

So what can we do? These issues are complex; to begin with, please don’t jump to immediate conclusions about whom to blame. Socioenvironmental issues like this, involving toxins, survival, workers’ rights, economic growth, and desire, are systemic problems. And when we’re talking widespread, multi-faceted processes like this, it’s often mistaken and shallow thinking to point to one minute element that contributes to it. In fact, shifting one little element in a system more often than not leads to unforeseen, unintended consequences that we then have to add to the pile of problems. (Illustrating that will be another long story.)

A middle-ground response for the individual could be to just keep the gadget you have for as long as you can before replacing it. This would help on both ends of its life, the manufacturing end and the discarding end. How about we re-define the “coolness” factor to include long-term sustainability for both planet and people?

 You can hear the piece on NPR’s This American Life website (after 7 pm Sun 1/8/12). It’s episode #454.  There’s a short promo too, so you can see if you’re interested.

Please let me know what you think about these things here in the Comments section!

Update 1/16/12:  Apple has responded with a new page on their website, Supplier Responsibility at Apple.

 

alt.vegetable January 7, 2012

I love being a grownup. Unlike in childhood, if someone at work beats you up, they go to jail. Adulthood has so many perks, mainly to do with freedom: staying up as late as you like; listening to any music you like; hanging with the friends you like, no matter how bizarre; having your own car so you can all go wherever you want while blasting the aforementioned music out the window for your weirdo friends to sing along to at all gawdawful hours.

To the child still awake in me, one of the best perks is that if you don’t want to eat your vegetables, you have many viable options.

You can wear them…

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You can glue them to your car…

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…or morph your car into one  (although the interior might be a bit seedy).

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You can play with them…

Party guests made these fanciful beings as part of the celebration of Damien McAnany’s birthday in Santa Rosa, CA. Yep, we played with our food!  (The ginger-footed critter is mine.)

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…Or you can literally play them.

Introducing the Wien Gemueseorchester (Vienna Vegetable Orchestra).

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Here they are again, featuring a live performance on carrot.

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If you get inspired by this post to make your own animistic vegie sculptures, music or couture, please come back and share stories/links in the Comments box below.

Vegetables can be both good for you and fun. Who knew?

Happy New Year! January 2, 2012

My resolutions are to dance, loaf, and not go on any diets.

This year, I’ve decided to be realistic.

Happy new year!  May 2012 bring you much joy.

Women In Rubber

James Hillman, R.I.P. November 19, 2011

I don’t read the news every day, and even if I did, many of the things I care most about don’t appear on the front pages. So it’s about a month after the fact that I learned the sad news that just before Hallowe’en, James Hillman died.

He was mostly known for his work in the mens’ movement and his books about archetypal psychology. He encouraged people to see stories as healing, to not get caught up in musty old ideas about gender when dealing with the anima/animus, and to listen to dreams in order to learn something, rather than imposing our waking consciousness onto their interpretation. But what moved me most about his work was a sense that he cared deeply, in an animistic way, for the anima mundi; the soul of the world. The man was a pioneer of spiritual ecopsychology.

Here are some of his words:

“Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon ‘world’ itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world’s continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.”(Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World).

If you haven’t yet read his work, consider doing so now. Your life will be richer for it. Resurgence magazine has kindly put many of their back issues on the web, cross-referenced by author. Here’s a link to Hillman’s three articles in their fine publication.

And here is a transcribed “conversation” with Hillman (which others might call an “interview”), conducted by Scott London for The Sun magazine. This is another very worthy publication; an indie that features beautiful writing and photography, and has no advertising!

Finally, here is an obit written by his close friend Thomas Moore:  Remembering James Hillman

RIP, wise elder. I never knew you, but my soul recognized kin in your words.

Art Therapy Marathon Paintings November 15, 2011

The Painting Marathon put on by Naropa University’s Art Therapy program was a rousing success. 48 hours of nonstop work by 75 volunteer students, staff and faculty on three large paintings netted over $15,000 in donations. The money will support a service-learning project in Cambodia with Transitions Global to help girl victims of sex trafficking. Participating in this as part of “Team Tutu” was a fun way to get to know some of my new community.

Here are the final lotus paintings, photographed where they are temporarily hanging at Naropa’s Paramita Campus in Boulder, CO.

They are big, taking up most of each wall. I often walk the long way round to the copier or the water fountain just to look at them. Those who offered the three highest donations will get the paintings. Lucky stiffs! That sure beats those Xmas card packs other charities offer as thanks.

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Team Tutu

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The “A” Team

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Vibrant Vortex 

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As you might imagine, the paintings underwent tremendous transformation over the 48 hours, as teams of painters came and went and added their own vision and flair to the works.

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Team Tutu in progress

Grad student Stephanie Andres (the sketcher above) held Team Tutu together in a way that was a masterpiece of skill, strongly holding a coherent vision for the geometrically layered work while still allowing individual creativity.

Those pomegranate seeds in the middle – my contribution, which then virally spread coral colors throughout the piece as other tutu-clad painters came on board – are an illustration of this.

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The “A” Team in progress

(look back at the final to marvel how much this one changed just over the final 5 hours!)

This lovely beetroot heart still remains, shining forth from within the new lotus.

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Vibrant Vortex in progress

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Here’s a video by Meg Hamilton that documents some of the paintings’ changes through photos taken by many participants, myself included.

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There was also a wall-sized piece done by visiting teens. Here’s a small part of it that I particularly liked:

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Local musicians came to play for the painters, which made the event even more fun. I love how music informs visual art. Long ago when I used to paint a lot, I’d sometimes make a list of all the songs that went into each completed work. You know that the piece was different due to its influence.

At one point during the marathon, these guys called for guest singers, and I got to sing St. James Infirmary with them!  Best coffee break ever.

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Some of Nalanda Campus’ 7 cute prairie dog coteries sang along outside.

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I feel fortunate to teach at Naropa, where I get to work alongside such inspiring colleagues as Sue Wallingford, the Art Therapy faculty who is spearheading the project along with her dedicated and talented students.

Who could resist painters in tutus?

Thanks to all of you Indigenize readers who supported this project.

Brava all!