This one time I stayed up until 3 a.m. and watched National Geographic. The things they show on National Geographic at 3 in the morning are not the things they show during the day. 3 a.m. is when National Geographic shows you the raw truth of the animal kingdom, the naked, wild shit that most documentaries leave on the cutting room floor, too crazy or offensive for good civilized people. I saw things I had never seen before. I saw things I never thought I would see. It gave me a profound insight into human nature that I thought I would share.
WARNING: The subject matter of this diary is not just offensive, it's downright vulgar. Furthermore, the diarist does not treat the subject with any sort of discretion. He's actually very flippant. If you are easily offended, just know this: There ain't no pooties or woozles in this diary.
Now this documentary was about wildebeests. Wildebeests, if you don't know, are sort of like giant African buffalo. They're these big black cow creatures that travel in these massive herds across the savanah. If you've ever seen them in a documentary, then you've probably seen them being attacked by lions.
Wildebeests are always being attacked by lions, and they've developed a pretty good strategy for defending themselves from lion attacks- The biggest, strongest members of the herd run in a circle around the outside while the weaker members and the women and children huddle in the center. That way, whenever a lion comes near, there's always a sharp pair of horns moving at high velocity ready to gore the sucker. If some member of the herd should be caught outside of the circle, then the strongest of the strong wildebeests come out one at a time and try to gore the lions all by themselves until they get the member back in the herd.
There's actually a very uplifting video called "Battle at Kruger" which shows a herd of wildebeests rescuing a baby wildebeest from lions and crocodiles using this very method. It's a very exciting and uplifting video, and if you'd like to feel excited and uplifted I recommend you go watch it and stop reading this.
The wildebeest herd is a very strict hierarchy. It is the bulls who protect the herd and they keep very close track of which bulls are the strong ones and which are the weak ones. They do this by constantly locking horns with one another, testing each other in contests of strength until one wins and the other concedes. When the battle is over, the winner fucks the loser in the ass.
The documentary I watched focused on one wildebeest in particular, a strong young wildebeest who always won the fight and never got fucked in the ass. For no good reason we'll call him Steve.
Steve was a young Wildebeest, a strong Wildebeest, a pillar of the wildebeest community. He had fucked enough ass to earn respect from his peers and a prominent place in the pecking order. Every sign pointed to Steve living a long and prosperous Wildebeest life, except that this was National Geographic, and when National Geographic shows Wildebeests, there's bound to be some lions.
And the lions came.
And for some reason, Steve got fucked up. Maybe he was being cocky and careless. Maybe he got caught by surprise. Maybe a lion was coming after his girlfriend and he pushed her out of the way at the last second. The documentary didn't really say. But for whatever reason, a lion took a big chunk out of Steve.
But while Steve's lying there bleeding and barely able to stand, that's when the herd moves into action. Almost instantly the circle goes up, the horns come out, and the lions back off. A pride of lions can do a lot of damage, but no pride can take on a whole herd of wild wildebeests.
But these lions don't completely back off. Steve is still badly hurt, and blood is in the air. This isn't some sickly calf they've managed to injure, this is a big tasty feast of a beest, and they're not going to give up easily.
So they fought, the herd and the pride, in the ancient chess match of predator vs. prey. The lions would advance a little, then the wall of wildebeests would drive them back, and so on. Things were actually looking up for poor Steve. Except for one thing.
One by one, the big wildebeests were breaking off of the outer circle, making their way over to poor Steve's injured body, and fucking him in the ass. One by one they came to him. At first it was just the big ones, but then everyone got in on the act. They started forming a line. The lions started getting through but the wildebeests didn't care because they were too busy running a train on old Steve. Yeah, they managed to put up a little more fight, but pretty soon it seemed like they were less interested in fighting the lions and more interested in fighting over who got to be the next one to fuck Steve in the ass. So, eventually, the lions won. The defenses broke down, the herd was chased away, and Steve's gang-raped body was mercifully dragged away and eaten.
Here's what I learned.
First of all, I think I learned something very interesting about natural selection. I always knew that lions and other predators improve the gene pool of a herd of prey animals by weeding out the sick and the weak. What I'd never considered before is that the herd is actually an active participant in that selection process. Those sick and weak wildebeests don't just get left outside the herd because they're bad runners- it' because the herd puts them out there.
Think about it. Imagine there's a lion behind you and your buddy running next to you. And your buddy suddenly turns and runs to the right. Maybe you're not going to follow him so closely if he's the guy that's been fucking you in the ass everyday. Maybe you'd rather take your chances running to the left.
The second thing I realized is that wildebeests don't hate the lion. Wildebeests love the lion. The lion separates the losers from the winners. The lion is what makes them good wildebeests.
When Steve went down and all the other wildebeests started fucking him in the ass, did one single wildebeest step forward and say "Hey, guys! Stop! This is Steve! He's a good Wildebeest, an asset to our herd. Maybe he had a bad day today, but that's no reason to give up on him. Why, I bet if we all pitch in, we can beat these lions, and Steve here will be up and fucking us all in the ass again in no time!"
No. Nobody did that. Because to a wildebeest, if the lion gets you, that means you're weak. That means you deserve to be fucked in the ass. And all those times this weakling thought he was better than us, boy howdy, we are going to make him pay for those times. And maybe if we get to fuck a big wildebeest like Steve in the ass, maybe that means we're not as small and weak as the herd made us out to be.
Finally, I got to thinking about people. People are a herd animal, we like to congregate in large groups, and we have very complex social hierarchies. Plus, judging from our weak-ass claws and tasty smoothe bellies, our ancestors probably weren't always on the top of the food chain. It wouldn't surprise me if we haven't developed similar herd behavior to weed out the weak and the unwanted from our herd. Maybe that's why kids are always making fun of each other so viciously, why we take such pleasure in finding that weak, unwanted member of our group and shunning him as a collective.
So that's what I was thinking about when I read all the responses to Obama's mortgage relief proposal. All the bitter comments about how some people deserve to be in foreclosure, how they shouldn't have been irresponsible, they shouldn't have taken out loans they can't afford, and we shouldn't have to pay for their mistakes. So much of the commentary wasn't just a discussion of incentives and disincentives, of proper economic policy, it was angry. It was hateful. They don't deserve to be saved. The lion has chosen its meal, and they should be eaten. And all the wildebeests are eagerly waiting their turn to fuck them in the ass.