11/18/2023 0 Comments Universe 25 mouse utopiaParallels to Today’s Utopian/Socialist Vision As such, the population density of the mouse utopia wasn’t the real issue, but the valuelessness of life when everything is handed to the subject without effort. Ramsden believed the demise was more due to the inability to move beyond the structure creating not an overpopulation problem, but rather a scenario where the more aggressive mice were able to control the territory and isolate everyone else.Ĭould this be the only issue? New experiments by other scientists revealed when the mice were assigned to carry out tasks (work) under varying conditions of population density they displayed far fewer behavioral problems. In the words of one of Calhoun’s collaborators, rodent “utopia’ had descended into ‘hell.’” Even when reintroduced to normal rodent communities, these ‘socially autistic’ animals remained isolated until death. At the experiments’ end, the only animals still alive had survived at an immense psychological cost: asexual and utterly withdrawn, they clustered in a vacant huddled mass. Calhoun called this vortex “a behavioral sink.” Their numbers fell into terminal decline and the population tailed off to extinction. Males became hypersexual, pansexual and, an increasing proportion, homosexual. Violence quickly spiraled out of control. “In the sealed enclosure, flight was impossible. What went wrong?Īccording to Calhoun, the death phase consisted of two stages: the “first death”-characterized by the loss of purpose in life beyond mere existence (including the loss of desire to mate, raise young, or establish a role within society)-and “second death” marked by the literal end of life and the extinction of Universe 25.Īccording to a researcher and reviewer of Calhoun’s experiments, Edmund Ramsden, author of “The urban animal: population density and social pathology in rodents and humans,” stated: The Utopia was designed to hold more than 3800 mice, but at 2200 their society began to decay. In each experiment: Early on the mice, with no need to forage or build (no work), would initially breed in large quantities soon a leveling-off occurred then, the mice would develop either aberrant, hostile or anti-social behaviors finally, the population would die off to extinction. From 1954 to 1972, working with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Calhoun spent years trying to perfect his experiment with continual redesigns of his rodent cities, Universe 25, repeating it 25 times (thus the title Universe 25). The mice were specifically chosen because they were healthy and disease was blocked from entering the Utopian city, and there were no predators. He gave them unlimited food and water, nest areas and nesting material, perfect climate control. Calhoun, sought to answer this question.Ĭalhoun started with just four pairs of breeding mice and put them in the Utopian “city” he created. What happens to society if all our appetites are catered to, with all of our needs and wants met? One ecologist and psychologist, John B. Living the Human “Universe 25” Experiment
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