This video, part of the TED series, has been making the rounds on facebook.
To summarize for the video-impaired, the lecturer, Frans de Waal, a primatologist, ethologist, and professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University, shows footage of two Rhesus monkeys in a laboratory.
They are in separate cages, but they can see each other. Their task is to hand the researcher a rock.
At first, each monkey is rewarded with a piece of cucumber, and both are satisfied even though cucumbers are modest rewards. Then one monkey is rewarded a grape (a highly valued reward) for the same task, and the other is given a cucumber. The poorly rewarded monkey becomes enraged, and Dr. de Waal quips "This is essentially the Wall Street Protest, here."
But it isn't. Human beings don't scream in protest when another is paid more for the same task. Why?
1. We're told from a very early age to respect authority and be polite.
2. We assume there must be a logical reason - the authority knows things we don't, thus the inequality must be fair. We're told over and over that hard work is rewarded, thus if we're not being rewarded adequately we must not be working hard.
3. We see reward inequality from a very young age, so we expect it.
and the bottom line is,
4. Researchers can't treat monkeys as badly as human beings treat each other.
Human beings don't protest pay inequality because they know if they do, they might get fired. Monkeys know that the researchers will feed them and care for their needs. Monkeys won't be starved, denied health care, or evicted from their homes. Monkeys won't be arrested for protesting. Monkeys don't fear that they'll never find another job.
The treatment of laboratory animals is controversial, and many argue that animal experimentation is in itself cruel and cannot be justified.
But in this case, animal experiments cannot reproduce human experience because they do not experience the institutionalized inequality and penalties for protest that humans do.