There is a pretty interesting documented case about this thing called "critical mass"... the theory, pretty much, takes it's basis on the fact that once a certain average of the population is aligned to one idea, then the entire population embraces is... it's related to the "collective subconcious" and all those ideas.
The story is pretty much this one:
The 100th Monkey
A story about social change.
By Ken Keyes Jr.
The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED!
By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.
Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.
But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
From the book "The Hundredth Monkey" by Ken Keyes, Jr.
The book is not copyrighted and the material may be reproduced in whole or in part.
There is more about it on this site.
Anyway, the story is somewhat interesting, but what is even more appealing is the idea of how we can translate it to our lives... to humanity... how many of us are actually aligned to violence?, how many of us think war is honorable?, that you have to fight to survive?... and what would happen then if, for some reason, a good enough percentage of us all start thinking otherwise and aligning our selves to a peace set of mind... one in which in order to have peace no violence is necesary...
When I think about it, I see that most movies, magazines, even comics, talk about violence as "the only way" and how heroic it is to die in battle, and this or that crap. I wonder when we started losing our sense of what really matters... when we started having mistrust from each other, and when we became such an afraid society...
What if all of a sudden you start trusting in everyone, but for real!... what if we all align to a set of mind in which all the energy that is used on being afraid and protecting ourselves, is all of a sudden invested in supporting others, in trusting, smiling and loving?
I don't think it's that unreal... but for all I care, I am going to be one of those... to stand in the current, and to think about life that way... who knows, maybe little by little others will align themselves, to a point in which we do become a peaceful society... then we would give them monkeys something interesting to talk about us funny humans.
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