The Crazy Apes: A Satire of Human Society

Our Misguided Love of Big Cities

Every year people migrate from rural areas to the big cities: they just keep getting bigger and bigger. They have become a big magnet for ruralites. What's driving this phenomenon? Why do people want to live in noisy, polluted and congested cities? 

In the time span of human life on earth, the advent of cities is a very recent thing: a few thousand years compared to a few million. About five thousand years ago people started flocking to cities like Babylon, Sumer and Uruk, in what was then known as Mesopotamia, or the cradle of civilization.

People moved to the cities to live in civilized society. They gave up their freedom to roam around for a life guided by rules and regulations: a citizen's code of conduct! However, much has changed on the long road from Babylon to New York! And it's not just size!

The following dialogue is between two chimpanzees named Abu and Mabu: I use A and M to distinguish the speaker.

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A: There was a time when humans lived in the forest just like us, why did they leave their native habitat for an artificial one?

M: I suppose they did it to distance themselves from us. Doing so made them superior. They became civilized while we remained mere savages. Unfortunately for them, it was an experiment that didn't quite work out.

A: Why do you say that? They achieved a lot compared to us: they literally left us in the dust, as they like to say.

M: It was a failed experiment because they didn't know when to stop. Their new habitats have become far too big for their own good. They have grown into chaotic and polluted places. Their shelters now go up to the sky. I don't know how they can live in those tall, slim structures. It's repulsive just thinking about it.

A: I agree with you, but people still flock to them. There must be something that's pulling them there.

M: What do you think it is?

A: I don't really know, but it has to do with their desire to consume because their big habitats are nothing more than places of production and consumption. Humans flock there so that they can produce and consume more.

M: You're probably right; and all that production and consumption is making their big habitats unhealthy places to live in. They possibly don't see it because they're right inside of them, but we can see the thick haze hovering over them like the morning mist.

A: They must be suffocating in there. I suppose healthy living is no longer a priority for them.

M: On the contrary, they thrive in polluted environments. As soon as they get there, they also become big polluters.

A: It must be so. If they wanted good health, they would continue living in the small towns and villages where clean air is still readily available.

M: But the big pull is their duty to further enrich the wealthy classes.

A: You must be right. The ruling class can amass more wealth by promoting bigger and bigger cities.

M: And where does the ruling class live?

A: Let me guess, in the small habitats close to the forest, faraway from the smoke bubble that engulfs the huge cities?

M: They certainly know what's good for them!

A: Mabu, is it the elites' fault that people are so greedy and never satisfied with what they have?

M: Of course not! If they weren't such upstanding citizens the elites would take advantage of that greed: they would even exploit it for huge profits!

A: The masses must enjoy being exploited, otherwise they would say, enough is enough, and would start consuming less rather than more.

M: That would hit the ruling classes right were it hurts!

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Compared to today's mega cities, those of Mesopotamia were tiny and perhaps very liveable. They might have been chaotic, but they certainly were not as densely packed as today's major cities: the symbols of modern civilization, if it can still be called that. The aroma of horse manure might have been somewhat unpleasant, but it didn't kill them and make them suffer like the air exhausted by automobiles.

Corruption must have existed even in Babylon, where it might have been possible for all citizens to know each other; but in New York City, as the events prior to the 2008 world financial crisis demonstrated, corruption must be orders of magnitude greater. In a city of more than ten million people, nobody cares about the others. They're just names to be exploited. How many times a day does the telephone ring with people wanting to do exactly that?

Is it personal greed that pushes people to leave small towns the size of Babylon for those the size of New York, or is it ruling-class greed that pulls them there? We all have heard the rationale for justifying mega cities: they're more efficient, so we pay lower taxes. It's a myth! Bigger cities offer a bigger public trough for the elite to feed on.