2023-08-25 13:09:12
Dear friend, dear friend,
Do you know the experience that made the anthropologist Santiago Genovés famous(1,2,3,4) ?
Truth be told, this story cost him his job and his reputation.
However, what happened is interesting in more ways than one.
1973: a project for peace
Santiago Genovés belongs to the first generation of “physical anthropologists” also called biological anthropologists. These scientists analyze human behavior with a focus on biology(5).
His doctorate, obtained at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, focuses on violence.
He has, moreover, been a direct witness with the Spanish Civil War which he experienced when he was only fifteen years old. He had then fled with his family in dramatic conditions(1).
Santiago knows that, in certain large primates, violence is recurrent and that it can come from sexual tensions within a group.(4,5).
He wishes to demonstrate that in human beings this behavior also exists(2,5).
He wants to analyze the origin of violence in human beings in order, he says, to find a solution for universal peace.
We are right in the 70s. Woodstock is not far away and the liberation of morals thanks to the pill either.
A curious kind of transatlantic…
Santiago Genovés decides to organize a trip on a raft in extreme conditions(1,2).
The raft measures 12×7 meters. It has a sail. Food is provided to the crew.
It is equipped with a kitchen and the cook is Greek.
There are outdoor toilets, visible to all.
The crew sleeps in a common cabin.
Two lifeboats are there, just in case.
The raft is called Acali, which means “house on the water” in the Nahuatl language.
On board are five men, including the anthropologist himself and an Algerian priest, who came from who knows where.
Women are in charge, at least officially.
Maria Bjornstan, of Swedish origin, is the captain of the boat.
Edna Jonas, of Czech origin of Jewish faith, is a doctor on board.
The person in charge of diving in case of problems under the raft is also a woman.
The raft departs from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to Cozumel in Mexico.
The journey lasts 101 days.
A taste of reality TV
The absurd idea of the anthropologist is to create the conditions for a permanent confrontation on the raft.
He therefore chose the most diverse crew possible.
The participants are of different religions and of different origins.
Some are married and some are not.
All of them, on the other hand, are rather young, between 20 and 35 years old, and have been selected for their physical attractiveness.
It’s a bit like the raft of temptation before its time…
The participants even signed a contract by which, the time of the experience, they submit their soul, their body and their spirit to the anthropologist(2)…
Sex and blood for Santiago
All these quirks have only one goal: to spark violent disputes on board, of which Santiago Genovés would be the direct witness.
He is convinced that the promiscuity, the permanent danger, the youth of the crew and its diversity are all conditions for creating sexual tension on board, with the formation of couples, which must lead to arguments.
He might thus record in his notebook all the details of the tragedy at work.
He would then have recommendations to make to all of humanity so that it can find peace.
Clearly, Santiago regards the crew as lab rats. Revolting!
Questionnaires to stir up anger and violence
For Santiago, there is no doubt that at one time or another his guinea pigs will throw themselves at each other’s throats(1,2).
But to guide them a little, he distributes a questionnaire to them every week, of which here are some questions:
- Who do you think should leave the raft?
- Who is your favorite person?
- Who do you want to sleep with?
- What might incite you to violence? And the other crew members?
One wonders, reading these questions, if the anthropologist would not have been able to give them ideas or weapons himself so that they hit each other!
Cruising is fun!
Every week, the crew duly answers the mad scientist’s questions.
And with each passing day, they get along better and better.
Santiago is exasperated in his diary.
Little by little, the relationships are strengthened between each other. A solidarity is created.
This is the cordial agreement!
The videos of the experiment show that the participants are smiling. They play games.
They are having a good time.
The inevitable happened…
The frank camaraderie that sets in and the deadly boredom of everyday life in the middle of the ocean end up breaking down the barriers.
The crew cracks. And some go to bed together.
Santiago is over the moon.
The start of the program is recorded.
He is only waiting for one thing: for violence to come, which is the logical consequence of these first antics above the waves.
So what ?
Nothing at all !
The violence does not come. It’s dead calm in the tropics.
An almost mystical experience
Santiago area.
His questionnaires become even more personal and more aggressive.
As a result, the group begins to hate the anthropologist. And they do not hesitate to write it in their questionnaire.
And while the anthropologist is chomping at the bit, the others are having the time of their lives.
One of the participants experiences a real resurrection. She comes out of a conflictual and traumatic relationship. She found peace.
Another of black-American origin feels like reliving the crossing of the Atlantic forcibly suffered by her ancestors.
She takes pride in it and is aware of all that she can do with her life. For her, the experience is very positive.
Overall, the relationship between them has grown stronger. They all became best friends!
The damage and the shark
One day, damage slows down the raft. You have to dive under the hull. The anthropologist decides to do it himself.
He takes the suit of the woman in charge of diving and jumps. It almost drowns!
When night comes, she is the one who dives and repairs the boat.
Santiago is furious and frustrated. He brings everyone together and sharply criticizes them for not playing the game, for not doing anything to make the experience go in the right direction!
Another day, the group catches a shark.
In excitement, the participants disembowel the beast with an axe.
That’s it, Santiago is convinced of it, the old A wise man, hunter gatherer and quarrelsome woke up. He writes it down in his notebook.
But the videos show, on the contrary, a relaxed and convivial evening…
Who is the real captain of the tub?
One morning, a tropical storm melts over the raft.
Maria, the captain, believes that the crew should take refuge on a nearby Caribbean island.
But Santiago opposes it. He fears that contact with civilization will disturb the experience.
She replies that she does not want to risk human lives for an experiment that obviously failed.
Indeed, the crossing reaches its goal. And the anthropologist’s hopes of violence are still not justified.
Santiago strips him of the captaincy. He asks everyone to enter the cabin.
Fortunately, the storm passed and turned into a heavy downpour. No one is hurt.
But Santiago is now the only chef on board.
Some time later, a large ship advances on the raft without seeing it.
Santiago panics. He shouts and shakes his arms but the ship doesn’t see them.
Maria, for her part, gathers the crew and fires all the distress rockets. The ship then deviates its narrow course.
Shipwreck is avoided. Thank you Maria!
The adventure goes public
Meanwhile, the outside world suddenly takes an interest in the Acali epic.
And the newspapers will make their fat cabbage.
We then speak of the “sex raft”.
The media insist not on the violence but on the depravity that the anthropologist would have wanted.
The story makes the front page of some American newspapers and the university with which Santiago works dissociates itself from the project.(1,2).
Santiago is very affected.
The prophecy might have come true
History might have proven Santiago right.
But he wouldn’t have been there to tell it.
Because by dint of annoying his traveling companions and trying to sow discord, he draws their anger on him.
And that collective resentment might have turned into murder.
The crew reportedly had discussions to kill the anthropologist and even hatched a plan to make the assassination look like an accident(2).
Eventually, they renounce their wrongdoing.
The end of the cruise goes off without a hitch.
Santiago sulks and stays in his corner while the others take advantage of the last moments of this new kind of initiatory journey.
What lessons can we learn from this story?
This strange adventure, 45 years ago, inspired the making of a documentary called The Raft: Acali’s Experience (3).
And, indeed, as disturbing as it is, it deserves some attention.
1/ Science can be crazy
There is something profoundly scandalous regarding the Acali project. Endangering the lives of a group of human beings to validate a smoky theory is already absurd.
But to this is added the immense pride of the anthropologist who wants his guinea pigs to tear themselves apart at all costs and seems willing to do all possible manipulations to show that he is right.
What if the crew had really killed each other?
It is therefore good to remember that we must keep a critical eye on what scientists are proposing.
It is also useful to remember that some will stop at no sacrifice to demonstrate that a scientific theory is valid.
Once once more Rabelais’s maxim is correct: “Science without conscience is only the ruin of the soul.”
2/ Human beings are malleable and do not know what is good for them
Most of the people on board were educated. They had skills.
Yet they agreed to sign a contract that sold their souls and bodies to science without flinching.
They agreed to faithfully answer very personal questions every week.
Some have left their spouse or their family balance to embark on this uncertain journey.
They put their lives in the hands of a crank simply because it had “scientific” written on the torch he was carrying!
Human beings are fragile and sometimes allow themselves to be guided by their illusions or disillusions.
But this true story also shows the taste of human beings for adventure and their need to understand the world.
3/ The worst does not always come true!
Finally, and this is the most pleasing lesson, even when everything seems to be in place for a disaster to occur, human adventures can sometimes be beautiful.
The cruise participants seem, despite everything, to have had a good time.
They got to know each other, they lived a beautiful epic and they made friends for life.
Don’t we say that travel trains youth?
Naturally yours,
Augustine of Livois
1693064370
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