Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter

by Tom Baugh

  And so the spiritualist contagion gains a permanent foothold. The rain, or whatever precipitating crisis was at hand, no longer matters. If the rain comes, the shaman was right. If not, they move to the next victim until it does. The important thing now is that they believe.

  Because now they must. And now the shaman gets to start imposing some rules. Many of these happen to line up nicely with the king's needs, but no one dares point that out.

  "Don't kill anybody." Implicit in that one is that it is OK if the shaman or the king tells you to, but don't decide to kill anyone on your own.

  "Don't steal stuff." Again, not bad. Pretty much a necessity for civilization.

  "Obey the king, because God says to." Neat. That one is worth every dime, goat, perfume, oil and priestess the king will pay the shaman from now on.

  "Don't want anything your neighbor has." On the surface, this one was already covered by the stealing thing. But, we can twist this around to keep those individualists in line. Everyone should just be impossibly happy with what circumstances you were born in or assigned to, and not try to improve your station by learning and things like that.

  "Don't work on Tuesdays." Everyone has to do something on Tuesdays, but at least this way you get to be guilty of something.

  "Come tell me when you do bad stuff and I will ask God to forgive you." Motherlode. Look what the shaman could twist those tiny minds into doing when he got you to rat out your neighbor's cough. Getting that information allowed him to tell said neighbor that God told him about the cough, and thus win the neighbor's compliance. Imagine what can be done with the flood of information this little rule will unleash.

  "God hates knowledge." We can't let any of those pesky ideas lead to some embarrassing questions for the shaman or the king. You might even make up some stories about how everyone would be all happy-pants right now if some dumbass smart guy didn't start thinking about stuff long ago. Maybe you could even work in a "hate women" angle while you are at it, if you can show how his primary babe lured him into eating a grape or something.

  "The devil makes you do it." This one lets you off the hook for bad stuff from time to time, but only if you show up and tell all. While we are at it, let's claim this devil guy is the one who puts thoughts in our heads to learn stuff, especially that dumbass smart guy and his stupid conniving wench. That one is great as it a) shows you the devil IS real or else you wouldn't be having all those ideas, and b) stop thinking, damn you! Really.

  You can also add some great ideas that really do make sense, as these keep the populace alive longer:

  "Don't eat dead people."

  "Don't have sex with dead people."

  "Don't have sex with people who eat dead people."

  And a whole bunch of other sex-related rules. Those shamans are horny little one-track-minded bastards, come to think of it. Anyway. Add a few more genuinely beneficial ideas:

  "Wash your hands."

  "Don't let people with pus make food for you."

  Also, mix in some rules to prevent the idiots from doing stuff that people with sense could do just fine:

  "Don't have sex with women who charge for sex." She can do your laundry, watch your kids, slap you around for a while, wash your car, bring you burgers, etc., all for money. Or, she can demand diamonds and other shiny stuff all the time, but just not money for doing that one thing. If you do want to have sex with her, make sure she gives it away for free to anyone who wanders by rather than her running it as an entertainment industry. Otherwise, she might take pains to protect the inventory.

  "Only have sex with people with whom you have reached particular contractual arrangements, which must be approved by your local shaman representative, even if such contracts are decades old." There's that sex thing again, but this time contractual arrangements are OK so long as the shamans approve in public rituals.

  "Don't smoke that." More later.

  "Don't drink that." More later, too.

  "Don't eat that pig or catfish or shrimp." The shaman could have easily added "unless you make sure it's cooked thoroughly first." But, that would have required some individual thinking and responsibility, and that is a can of worms best left closed.

  "Don't judge anybody." Even the idiot who clearly screwed up every opportunity he had been given. Judgement is just more of that pesky thinking, and you might start judging the king or the shaman if you do. Besides, that's their bag.

  "Trim the penises of little boys." Hmmm. Maybe that one is only for idiots. Or else it is good as a reminder of what the shaman might do to you if you start using your penis outside of your shaman-approved contracts.

  To protect the shaman's interest, he needed a catch-all rule: "Stone anyone who gets out of line." This one pretty much puts the end to that rampant individualism and thought.

  With a related: "If you don't make your children or your wife or husband follow these rules, you get stoned."

  And the Mother of All Rules: "Give me ten percent of everything you get."

  The kings should have seen that one coming. Instantly, despite the fact that the king demands more, the shaman becomes the richest guy in the valley. Sure, the shaman has to hire a few malcontents as priests, perhaps even The Chosen Ones who helped launch this new sensation. He also has to put up some special huts to hold court. But other than these things, the shaman really doesn't have a lot to do with his cash.

  The king, on the other hand, is busy building roads to march on, and feeding the masses so they can dig ore and bang out bronze swords. And buying off his allies and foes alike with money he took by force from the productive. The king gets more, but the shaman keeps more of what he gets. Now, the shaman isn't stupid enough to just say it like that. No, the words sound more like: "Give God ten percent of everything you get. He said I can hold it for Him."

  As if God doesn't own it all, anyway. But even that isn't good enough. So he adds: "Oh, and make it the best ten percent, too. He doesn't want to think you are holding out on Him."

  So much for Tithing, and the genetic miracles that brings. Prosperity gets in the way of all that desperation and the attendant obedience anyway.

  Related is: "Give stuff to poor people." Without any judgement calls about whether they deserve it or are just a bum, of course. This one is really neat in that it kind of sidesteps the original selling point for the ten percent. It also promotes the interest of all those people who listen to the shaman and outnumber you. You don't expect the shaman to be dipping into his till for those waifs, do you? That's your problem, not his. Besides, he and his boys are too busy listening to the juicy gossip.

  For a while, this one was: "Let the widows and orphans root around in the fields after the harvest so they can pick up what's left and help trample that leftover stuff into mulch." But that sounded too much like work and fair exchange of value. Worse, if the widow has her kids out working they might pick up some skills and a work ethic. Here come those damnable thoughts again! Stop it!

  The shamans eventually transformed the way in which men viewed their relationship with God. After a sufficient number of individualists, who saw themselves in direct connection with Him, had been butchered or intimidated into silence, nothing stood in the way of the shamans inserting themselves between God and His creatures. What had previously been an exploration of God's creation became labeled as Occult, or Witchcraft, or Paganism, or Satanism. Or, any number of easily named and capitalized heresies, suitable for burning or stoning.

  After a sufficiently long reign of terror, a shaman of sufficient authority need only point at an individualist and name him or her as one of these. And then lean back, smiling righteously upon them, as the swarm attacked in their religious zeal, certain that God smiled upon them as well. Over time, the fear of such retribution silenced dissent or discussion. Celebrations of God's bounty, such as our tribe's annual berry fight, would have served as sufficient evidence for ritualistic execution of the proponents or attendees.

  The battle was considered won wh
en the only theological choice available in the landscape of ideas was simple. One side of this simple choice was adherence to and promotion of silly rituals that could only demean the awe of an Infinite Creator. The other side of the choice was atheism or other evil-sounding labels. The third possibility, that of the most simple relationship of man as an individual creation of his God, was stamped out where ever it happened to spring up.

  Eventually, some of those shamans became a little too big for their britches. In some cases, some barbarian king had enough of them and decided to whack them and start his own shaman subsidiary. In other cases, the shamans took over the kingdom and went into the barbarian business.

  The most successful shaman racket of all time grew larger than a whole bunch of kings. One day, some shamans got together and decided to resolve their differences. To do so, they lumped all of their compliance rituals into one big mash, which might seem a little inconvenient at first. But, this turned out to have a couple of great advantages.

  First, the ritual mush became so confusing that the guy on the street had no idea what the hell was going on with God, to put it bluntly. The common man was left with no choice but to either listen to what the regional shamans told him to do, or to think for himself and get stoned.

  Second, all those gossip chambers now had the potential for revealing some really good stuff that had real political power. Imagine if some minor functionary in one kingdom blurted out some tidbit that meant some other kingdom was about to get invaded. Then, just like the whole "I had a dream" thing that got it all started, the shamans could use that information as some kind of "God told me this" type of kingdom-vs-kingdom scam for hire. Or, the shamans could get together and decide whether or not to tip off the invadee, and possibly sell that information to the highest bidder. Or, they might just let some jerk king they didn't like get invaded. Or get wiped out while invading someone else. Lots of ways that one could turn out, all of them great for the shaman pocketbook.

  On the flip side, this organized shaman glaze had a major flaw. Just as this mondo-shaman thing was getting touched off, the top shamans realized they had a problem. With all those little believer cults out there, each with their own scam going on, someone had to come up with a great common story or else the whole thing could blow apart in no time. All it would take to rattle apart is for one of those lower-level guys to decide that their version of shamanism should predominate.

  For a while, things seemed to stagnate. And then, one day a shaman showed up who had been visiting another cult trying to get them into the fold. This other cult was notoriously known as the predominate dicksnippers, they not liking anyone named Richard, and had refused to join up. The snippers, as it turned out, had their own thing going like gang-busters.

  The shaman reported that the snippers seemed, in a way, to value individuality, despite their shaman tradition being the one that came up with that whole "knowledge is bad" thing. More oddly, the whole collective of them sometimes acted like an single personality. These qualities allowed the snippers to infiltrate most of the barbarian kingdoms and assist them with handling a lot of the administrative and media needs all around. Unfortunately for them, a few centuries previously their host barbarian king had decided they had grown a little too powerful and decided to disperse them around.

  It turned out that this dispersion had happened a couple of times before, too. During one of these previous dispersals there came about a story of a semi-magical radioactive box they used to carry around to neutrate their enemies. Barbarian kings, not liking to be on the receiving end of an ad-hoc neutron bomb, decided enough was enough (I'll write about that one someday, but I'll probably cast it in modern times).

  The shaman rep who had gone to visit them, and had been rebuffed, heard a story about some really nice guy, Lam. This Lam had rocked the boat for the snippers by pointing out some stupid stuff that had been going on. As happened to Ungh, the snippers decided to off him, but instead of getting the tribe together, managed to con the barbarian king into subcontracting the work. The snippers did bother to get a crowd together to watch and throw stuff at Lam as he died, though.

  As it turned out, this guy Lam had some friends for which he had done some favors, and didn't like the way he had been treated. So, these friends of his had started wandering around, writing stories and letters. Eventually, most of these guys had died off in obscurity, but not before planting seeds of the stories here and there, mostly where the snippers were wandering around doing their thing.

  So, the organized shaman rep thought that, with a little editing, this story could be the one that would help rally the various shaman cults under one flag. But also, as a bonus, this story might discredit the snippers, their biggest competition, in the eyes of their barbarian king hosts. It would also relieve the necessity of the shamans having to off someone periodically, as they were running short on individualists willing to stick their necks out.

  After much debate, it was decided that they would cast Lam as a son of God, as all men are. But, unlike the uncooperative Unghs of the world, both God and this guy would be excited about the chance for him to get whacked. Without this mental gymnastics, it would be irrational otherwise for God to just let His boy get strung up without turning everyone involved into roaches.

  With the story cast this way, you could get the bonus of a blood sacrifice, but without all the social chaos that results when you get the natives stirred up. Now that the shamans were going to be running things, they couldn't very well have the populace running around with stones and fire, could they? Things like natives with stones and fire sometimes turns out bad for shamans as well as Ungh.

  But you still needed the guilt angle, because that was the glue that had kept Ungh's murderers in line. Modern-day abortionists use this strategy also. By performing abortions on young girls, at their request, they have these children's bloody little hands for life. Those hands are best used in the ballot box, even for issues that have nothing to do with abortion but which promote related world-views akin to a religion.

  Without guilt, no obedience. It was decided that they would have another rule such that you would be in trouble with God if you didn't get excited about Lam's murder. This rule also included the provision that you had to believe that God was excited about the whole thing, too.

  Also, as a bonus, the shamans decided to put in another whole level of indirection. This contractual obligation indicated that you have to talk to the shamans who would then talk to Lam, who would in turn talk to God for you. Or, you could talk to Lam yourself, who would then talk to God, depending on your service area and contract terms. In any case, no one was allowed to talk to God directly anymore. The payoff for the faithful is that by simply buying into this story they would get the good spiritual vibes that had taken a mob an evening's work at Ungh's hut.

  It was essential for compliance to make sure that everyone had the same blood on their hands as did those who obediently kneeled and rose and attacked Ungh. To this end, the shaman collective, and subsidiaries, decided that all the faithful would be required to eat little toasted crackers that represented the body of Lam. Further, the faithful would be required to drink various beverages, again depending on the prohibitional status of your subsidiary chapter, that represented his blood. One of these chapters came up with a famous question-answer joke: Q: "Have you heard the good news?" A: "Lam is toast."

  To make this sacrifice OK again, and not seem as bloodthirsty as it is, they decided that after taking a weekend off Lam hopped up like a bunny and wandered away.

  This framework was remarkably successful. In arranging this story and the associated rituals, the shaman organizers were able to make sure that little children were sucked into the fold. To grab the kiddies, the shamans associated snacks and goodies with killing off some guy who had just bothered to ask a few questions and tell a few clever little stories about his Father. And hey, everybody wins, since Lam was asking for it, right? By the time these little kids grew up to be adults th
ey wouldn't even stop to think of the horror that they were celebrating. Instead, they would reach for their own stones to hurl at anyone who dared tickle that little part of their mind that revealed the truth.

  Also, despite this story having been presented as good news, the shaman organizers managed to throw in one final twist. Recall that the snippers had conned their host king into offing Lam. As a result, the shaman organizers used the history of this manipulation in their favor against the snippers. Over the centuries, each time the snippers got wellestablished anywhere, the gossip chambers swang into action. In these actions the faithful barbarian kings were coerced, blackmailed, or encouraged to expel the snippers from their lands. Or, encouraged to try to wipe the snippers out entirely, lest the king in question be similarly fooled, and subsequently damned.

  This gambit was particularly effective against any snippers who dared to start acting individualistically. Today, modern monkeys would call that "an effective business model" as it ensured that the organized shamans would have a virtual monopoly on theological issues.

  Unfortunately, there was another bunch of shamans who had recently sprung up that wasn't buying-in. These guys also had a beef with the snippers. It seems that an old snipper had, at his wife's urging because of her frequent headaches, tapped his maid, Sami, who got pregnant. Then, when wifey got pregnant with her own child, she convinced the old snipper to get rid of the maid and her kid, who had been named Izzy. The old snipper should have told wifey to can it, as it had been her idea, probably so she could lord it over him. Snipper chicks tend to have an endless reserve of drama.

  Regardless, the old snipper should have elevated the maid to co-wife status, or at least to subsidiary wife. Instead of manning-up, he took the loser way out and cast Sami and Izzy out into the desert. This strategy of avoiding parallel responsibility eventually became part of the organized shaman canon, and formalized as law in much of the world. So much for the children. Needless to say, Izzy grew up with an axe to grind of his own, said axe launching that other shaman bunch I just mentioned.