When I began this post, I had every intention of discussing my new fire pit that I recently received. I thought it would be great to recall old memories of camping, and ghost stories, but in doing so I discovered another ghost story, one that is scary and true.
It all began when I was trying to think up of a title for my blog. Any old title wouldn't do, so I thought up a good play on words. Pit of despair, which I took from a classic movie, "The Princess Bride," combined with the fire pit I wanted to discuss, I came up with the title I have now. But it didn't stop there. Knowing I would need a way to tie my title into my story and wanting you the reader to understand where I was going to go with this post, I went to the common place for information. That place, Wikipedia.
Thinking I would come up with something from the movie, I typed in, "pit of despair" and to my surprise found another story, much scarier than the one's I could remember from Camp Arrowhead. This story was about an American psychologist who created a pit of despair, also known as a vertical chamber, which was used on monkeys for the purpose of studying depression.
From what I understand, this chamber was built for the sole purpose of separating monkeys, isolating them, in order to evaluate the effects of depression due to isolation. The monkeys were taken from birth, and placed into this chamber alone for up to one year. Within days, the monkeys, which I might add are very social creatures, would quit moving and would huddle in a corner. After that one year went by the monkeys would then be removed from their chambers psychotic, and unable to recover. So is there a happy ending to a man who seemingly tortured monkeys for what seems to be common sense?
Intrigued by love, I found that Harlow also performed other experiments involving monkeys, and surrogate mother's. In this experiment, monkeys would be taken from their mothers, and placed into a cage with robotic mothers. One robot was made up with cold wire mesh, while the other made with cloth, but both having the ability to nurse the young monkey. It concluded that the baby monkeys overwhelmingly chose the cloth mother, because of its need for affection. Because of this study they were able to make key changes and improve how orphanages and child care providers approached a child's care.
When I first read this story, I was very upset, mostly because I am not an activist for animals. I feel that testing should be done on animals, if it means saving a humans life, but a story like what I first discovered could have changed me. I say could have because like many, I could have stopped there and not done any further research on Harlow, and drawn my conclusion there. Instead I gave Harlow the benefit of the doubt, researched his work on other sites, both biased to him and unbiased, and found that in the end, this was a good man. From time to time we all need to do this, including myself. Quit pre-judging others, love thy neighbor, and come together. If we do, then in the end, we'll be richer people for it.
*by the way, I love the fire pit. Thanks Francie, you are the fire that keeps me warm at night.
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