WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Hearth, Part 2 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.240 Hey, you, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:10.720 name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, and we have 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.360 for you today of alt episode The hearth Part two 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.520 of two, originally published twelve nineteen, twenty twenty four. This 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.439 is the continuation of our look at the importance of 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.239 the fireplace in the hearthstone in human culture, psychology, and myth. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.360 So let us gather around its gentle warm glow. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.760 Here here is certitude you swore below this lightning blasted tree, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.600 where once it strikes, it strikes no more fool. And 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.000 you sang, Here is a three, And in this three 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.000 love lies unshaken as now, so must it always be. 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.280 You sang, with harsh notes, to awaken that ancient toad 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:57.080 who sits and mirrored within your hearthstone light forsaken. He 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.800 knows that limits long endured must open out in vanity, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.200 that gates by bolts of gold secured must open out 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:06.039 in vanity. 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.520 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.160 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:23.880 is Robert. 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.800 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we are back 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.520 with part two in our series on the Fireplace and 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.280 the hearth that reading at the opening was an excerpt 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.640 from not the whole poem, but an excerpt from a 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:41.040 poem called Essay on Knowledge by the poet Robert Graves, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.200 the author of I Claudius, or as some might call it, Iclavdivs. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.200 And so this poem, we were a little confused because Rob, 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.480 you dug this up, and I'd never read it before, 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.200 but I really liked it. But we were confused because 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.840 we were finding multiple versions of the same poem. And 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.040 it turns out that's not an error. There actually are 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.280 multiple versions of this poem. So it's kind of like 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.200 with some of these Walt Whitman poems, where like, you know, 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.960 he published multiple drafts of the same work. That's going 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.720 on here. Graves published an early version of the poem 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.639 called Essay on Knowledge, and then a later one called Vanity. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.880 Yeah, but it's I mean, it's really getting into some 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.200 stuff to blow your mind territory, because not only do 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.960 we have a hearthstone with an ancient toad beneath it, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.200 we also have a lightning blasted tree. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.799 Yeah, that's an unintended resonance there. But as I said, 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.200 I'd never read this before. I really love it now. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.240 It seems to describe the poet's internal struggle between reason 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.320 and passion. So he's characterizing half of his soul as 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:49.360 a kind of unflappable scholar aspiring to aloof rationality, that 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.320 part of himself attached to the day side kingdom of 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.880 Christendom and the Enlightenment. And then the other part of 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:02.400 him hidden underneath this thonyan pagan dragon of weird emotion, emotion, lust, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.960 and magic, I think are the themes of the suppressed part. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.320 In fact, we didn't quote this part of the poem, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.120 but in an earlier stanza he refers to it as 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.360 a dragon, and the balance of the poem seems to 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.720 suggest that as much as the rationality of civilization tries 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.560 to rule over the self, the dragon of lust and 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.160 emotion and passion will inevitably at some point be unleashed 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:28.680 from his tomb and reign again. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.239 Yeah, basically, he's saying, I really want to be a 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:37.320 good Christian scholar, dude, but somebody buried this pagan psychomania 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.960 frog underneath my hearth and there's nothing I can do 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:41.440 about it. 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.480 But anyway, the focal lines for us are interesting because 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.240 when I first read the poem. You know, I thought 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.640 that it was supposed to be the speaker's suppressed emotion 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.920 and carnal desire that were embodied as that ancient toad 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.480 who sits and mirrored within your hearthstone light forsaken. In 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.200 other words, I took the toad as another form of 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.480 the pagan dragon. However, I was reading an essay about 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:12.800 Graves called Philosophical Speculations, mock Beggar Hall, Welchman's Hose and 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.599 Poetic Unreason by a critic named Patrick Quinn. Not otherwise 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.719 familiar with this critic, but Quinn writes about this part 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.479 of the poem that quote the cries awaken only an 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.960 ancient toad symbol of the philosophic awareness of the Apollonian 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:33.000 and Dionysian duality in man's nature, referring to that division 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.640 between the sort of Apollonian reason and Dionysian passion that 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:41.720 is discussed in Plato's dialogue The Feedrus. But anyway, so 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.159 you get that line after that in the poem, where 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.640 Graves says he knows the limits long endured must open 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.120 out in vanity, and the he in that line seems 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.000 to be the toad. So if Quinn is correct, the 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.320 toad is not the dragon of passion and emotion, not 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.560 that Dionysian half of the struggle, but in dead the 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.680 sage who observes and describes the struggle to us, the 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.240 toad immurred beneath the hearth is Socrates. But anyway, this 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.480 line kind of reminds me of that thing. So like, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.320 the toad is buried beneath the hearthstone, and it reminds 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:16.880 me of the thing we talked about in the previous 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.680 episode of the void buried amulets, where you know, by 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.839 symbolic law of contagion that now means Socrates is a 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.479 witch bottle full of urine. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:28.960 Yeah, and later on in the episode we'll get back 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.680 to some things buried under the hearthstone and there will 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:32.200 be toads. 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.880 Now. To recap a bit about the previous episode, if 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:37.919 you haven't heard it, I would recommend going back and 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.560 checking that out first. But in part one of the series, 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:45.960 we talked about what interior fireplaces mean to us culturally 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.920 by looking at the characteristics of hearthfire simulations such as 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.760 the Assorted Fireplace for your Home style media offerings that 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.040 have become very popular as ambient streaming video in recent years, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.839 including with we talked about some kind of burn barrel 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.279 for your home linked to some dystopian movie, and also 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.520 your witcher fireplace beloved in your house, Rob. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:10.440 Yeah, And I don't know if I mentioned this one, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.240 but there's a squid Game one. Now. Did I mention 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:13.799 that in the last episode. 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.640 You mentioned just finding out about it? 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.479 I think, yeah, yeah, I haven't watched it yet, but 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.599 I'm excited. This is the most exciting thing I know 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.120 about on Netflix. Is this squid Game fireplace? Yeah? I 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:24.240 may fire it up tonight. 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.560 Nice. But also in the last episode, we talked briefly 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.039 about research into the prehistory of humans and our close 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.200 hominin relatives, how our relationship too and then control of 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.800 fire probably developed over the last couple of million years, 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.000 and how fire fundamentally changed so much about human life, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:49.400 from nutrition to technology to our relationship with the climate 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.839 and with wildlife. After this, we talked about how a 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.039 modern domestic fireplace is usually constructed and how it works, or, 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.200 depending on your emphasis, how it doesn't work given it's 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.920 massive inefficiency as a heat source for the home. Estimates vary, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.000 but something like eighty or ninety percent of the heat 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.560 put out by a standard wood fire is lost just 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.680 straight up the chimney and goes right out the flu 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.440 And depending on the design, a wood fireplace can sometimes 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.440 even make a house colder overall, even though it heats 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.560 up one room, you know, makes one room nice and toasty, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:26.840 but freezes out the rest of the house. We discussed 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.240 the mechanics of that in Part one, and of course 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:34.360 all of this material energy analysis is useful to know, 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.000 but it's not going to make hearthfire any less beautiful 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:38.880 or attractive or magical to us. 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.200 Yeah, as well as deeply nostalgic and comforting. Yeah, we're 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:48.200 connecting with something very primal when we view a fireplace. Yeah. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.760 And on that note, finally, in the last episode, we 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.720 talked about the idea of the fireplace and its a 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.640 connected ventilation system as a portal for magical entrances and 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.920 exits in many full beliefs, as a sort of for 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.880 one thing, I sort of transporter platform to the gods, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.160 but beyond that, as a weak spot in the homes 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.320 defense against spells and witchcraft. And this led to interesting 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:18.320 examples of apotropaic magic associated with the hearth So thinking 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.840 of the fireplace as a gap in the armor that 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.120 had to be protected, perhaps by witch traps or other 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:29.320 magically potent items, maybe shoes. Yeah. Now, in the last episode, 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.680 one idea that I mentioned briefly and said I would 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.800 come back to today was about the idea of domestic 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.800 hearth fire and the nature of the light it provides. 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.680 When you think about it, firelight is different both in 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.760 quantity of light produced and in quality from daylight, and 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.800 that fact should not be overlooked when understanding the role 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.640 of fire in culture, especially if it is the primary 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.000 or the only source of artificial light, but even in 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.320 cases where you're just sort of optionally choosing to have 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.360 a room lit by a fire. And this brings me 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.920 to an interesting paper I came across about a less material, 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:15.360 less economic, but probably no less important way that control 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.120 of fire may have altered human culture all over the 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:23.440 world in prehistory. So this paper was by a scholar 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.959 named Polly Weissner, who is an anthropology professor at the 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.920 University of Utah, and it is called Imbers of Society 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.280 Firelight Talk among the Jutuan ce Bushmen, published in Proceedings 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.880 of the National Academy of Sciences twenty fourteen, and so 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.360 the author here, Weisner, acknowledges that there has been a 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.240 lot of research on how the human control of fire 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.120 may have affected lots of things about us, may have 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.680 affected our physical evolution and anatomy. This again is a 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.200 reference to the interesting but not completely proven cooking hypothesis, 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.760 which we talked about a bit in the last episode. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.960 And there's no doubt that it has affected our technology 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.160 and the design of our social and living spaces. But 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.920 then Licener writes, quote, However, little is known about what 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:21.120 transpired when firelight extended the day, creating effective time for 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.520 social activities that did not conflict with productive time for 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:30.280 subsistence activities. And I thought this was so interesting. So 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:35.000 this sort of acknowledges that while fire can extend the 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.679 amount of time in the day in which you can 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:42.200 stay awake and stay awake and conduct some activities, the 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.640 light of a campfire is not sufficient to illuminate the 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:51.439 majority of subsistence activities, like the main economic duties of survival, 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.720 such as gathering and processing food. So when there's firelight, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.240 there is enough light that it gives you time to 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.959 be awake and to see each other and to interact, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.800 But not really good enough light to do much useful work. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.800 Yeah, and again this is something that we so easily 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:14.360 take for granted in our so easily illuminated world. I know, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.800 just for my own part, my immediate neighbors usually don't 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.480 have their backyard floodlights on during the night. But if 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.080 they do come on in the night, or they're left 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.880 on during the night by accident, I'll sometimes notice that. 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:29.959 You know, I think I could read a book here 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.839 in my bedroom at three in the morning, Like it's 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:38.400 entirely possible based on the ampient illumination provided by their floodlights. 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.080 And you know, that's just acc at that level of 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.720 accidental illumination was just not something you had for the 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:47.880 majority of human history. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.840 Yeah, and that highlights how, of course, firelight is different 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:55.199 from daylight, but electrical light is different once again from firelight. 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.720 Yeah. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.400 So, how does the availability of this different kind of 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.880 time in the day change a culture or in the 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:18.400 author's words, did firelight quote simply give more time or 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:23.160 did it create a qualitatively different time and space? So 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:27.920 Weisner offers several potential observations and ideas in the introductory section. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.160 One is that the sort of different climate or weather 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.120 conditions during the night time, which is during which activities 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.880 can be extended by firelight kind of leads to some 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.439 different social dynamics. For example, during hot seasons, air cools 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.960 after sunset, but if you can have firelight, you can 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.880 still see each other after it gets dark, and people 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.920 can release pent up energy, you know, maybe dancing or 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.160 interacting socially in various ways. Meanwhile, during cold seasons, of 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.120 course the fire is useful for warmth, and people will 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.880 tend to huddle near the fire warmth. It kind of 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.120 has this gathering effect like we talked about with fires 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.120 even inside the home. She also says that fireside gatherings 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.920 are sometimes, though not always, characterized by social mixing, so 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.920 mixing of the sexes, mixing of people of different age 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.760 groups who might spend much of the economically productive part 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.360 of the day segregated. And then another thing she said, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.400 I thought this was very interesting quote. The moon and 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:32.079 Starlit skies awaken imagination of the supernatural as well as 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:37.640 a sense of vulnerability too. Malevolent spirits, predators and antagonists 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.760 countered by security in numbers. So the argument here is 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.719 that nighttime is a time of the imagination for possibilities, 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.400 both good and bad. It kind of expands that the 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.720 possibilities that you envision. You might think about the gods 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.920 or of powers beyond the normal, but you can also 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.840 think about dangers lying beyond the firelight in the dark. 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.320 So the light that keeps you up at night keeps 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:06.680 you aware and active during this imagination rich time of 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.400 the day. Another thing she says, I thought was very 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:14.640 interesting quote body language is dimmed by firelight, and awareness 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.280 of self and others is reduced. Facial expressions flickering with 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.840 the flames are either softened or, in the cases of 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.080 fear and anguish, accentuated. And I'm not sure I've ever 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.280 considered this before, but I think that's absolutely right. Different 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.760 light environments change how we look and thus change what 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.120 kinds of emotional expression we are sensitive to or that 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.080 we're aware of other people being sensitive to in us, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.080 and I think this could be a reason that we 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.520 associate like a romantic evening with candle light as opposed 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.160 to with like really bright lights. I don't you know, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.000 there could be multiple reasons for that, but I don't 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.160 have proof of this, but I think it's quite plausible 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.920 that fire based light decreases our ability to register body 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.920 language and facial expressions that would normally cause us social anxiety, 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.720 both because of our constant tracking of these signals in 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.840 others and because of our awareness and regulation of it 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.520 in ourselves, our awareness of being observed. In other words, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:22.040 firelight could be a naturally socially disinhibiting environment. Does that 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:22.560 make sense? 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:27.400 Yeah, it does, because there is a huge difference between 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.160 you know, of course, stark daylight anywhere anything from stark 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:36.400 daylight all the way towards dusk and absolute darkness. We're 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.080 talking about a world in between where the illumination is 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:46.920 not harsh, but is atmospheric and can certainly have this 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:52.040 sort of emotional vibe to it. Yeah, this is interesting. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:57.240 It's almost like did sexy times exist? Didn't romance exist 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:03.800 before firelight? I mean it did that, you know in 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.680 the way that we're thinking about it. You know, candle 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.640 at dinner and so forth, or any romantic scene you've 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.000 ever seen in a motion picture, you know it probably 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.120 takes place in some sort of a lighting environment like this. Well. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.240 Yeah, and obviously the romantic example is just one type 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.480 of scenario where we want to be socially disinhibited where 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.040 we want like our social anxieties and our fear of 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.840 being perceived to be reduced. I think that's also the 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.720 case more in just general social interactions, where we want 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.200 to be like, you know, bonding with people and trying 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.680 to build up good relationships and so forth. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:39.240 Yeah. 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.880 Yeah, Now, on the other hand, here the author says 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.720 that overt expressions of fear and anguish could in some 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.400 cases be accentuated by firelight, and you can imagine that 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.920 being powerful as well for sort of capturing the capturing 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.160 of attention with storytelling or ritual. 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:56.160 Yeah. 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.480 I can't help but think about the fact that a 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.920 central fire, be it in a fireplace or a campfire, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.200 or even just a lantern that people are gathered around, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.119 it becomes the focal point. It becomes the thing you 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.919 look at. And on one hand, yeah, you're not looking 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.200 necessarily looking directly in people's faces while you're talking to them. 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.359 It's kind of getting into that whole zone where like 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.920 sometimes you know, a parent and their child can have 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.480 a more intense conversation whilst the parent is driving a car, 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.680 you know, because it's like eyes forward. We can kind 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:33.159 of have this slightly disconnected but deep personal conversation. And 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.359 then likewise, if everybody staring at the fire, it's kind 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.879 of like, yeah, attention is on the flames, but we 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.199 can still have this close conversation but without looking each 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.800 other dead in the eyes, and then the flames can 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.320 also kind of become the almost kind of like the 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.679 primordial television set where the telling of tales and the 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.560 invocation of wild concepts and imagined realities. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.199 I think that's a really good observation. I didn't think 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.879 about the comparison to the car or to the TV, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:05.480 but yes, totally. Now there's another interesting general observation Weisner 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.280 makes in the introductory section, which is quote, whereas time 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:14.800 structures interactions by day because of economic exigencies, by night, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:21.240 social interactions structure time and often continue until relationships are right. 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.480 And she summarizes this by saying that people in hunter 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:30.960 gatherer societies, they tend to focus interactions on efficiency during 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.640 the daytime and effectiveness during the night time. So during 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.959 the day we need to get this problem resolved quickly 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.320 so we can move on with what we're doing, whereas 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.000 at night we can address this until it's fixed. And 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.080 so the author here says that her goal is to 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.320 investigate how firelit time is used to achieve three things, 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.840 and this is, in the author's words, the first thing 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.520 is a more accurate understanding of the thoughts and emotions 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:01.840 of others, particularly those not immediately present. Second, bonding within 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.879 and between groups, and third the generation, regulation and transmission 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:11.280 of cultural institutions. So, in order to investigate the role 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.040 of firelight and creating productive space for these goals, the 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:20.280 author analyzed and quantified the differences in daytime and then 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:27.080 firelit nighttime conversation topics among the jutwan people of Southern Africa. 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.119 And so she is working mainly from a sample of 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:37.119 one hundred and seventy four memorialized conversations that took place 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.439 in among a group of people in northern Botswana in 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.600 nineteen seventy four, and then this was supplemented with subsequent 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.399 visits and re recordings of some stories. And then also 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:54.040 the analysis of this direct sampling of Jutwanzi conversations and 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.920 activities was supplemented by a survey of written translated texts 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.240 on day night differences in conversation topics in other cultures. 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.879 Now the author is clear about the limitations of this 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.800 kind of research, because it's very important to remember when 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.040 you're looking at anthropology studies of this kind. Studying the 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.560 habits of one culture does not necessarily tell you how 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:21.199 another culture in some overlapping circumstances will function. So if 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.520 you see a behavior among one group of hunter gatherers today, 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.160 that does not give you certainty that all prehistoric hunter 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.080 gatherers did the same thing. In fact, you don't even 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.600 know that other hunter gatherer groups in the modern world 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.960 do the same thing. In fact, it doesn't even show 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.359 you that the exact same group of people would keep 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.040 doing the same thing at a different time. And in 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.320 the case of the Jutwan people, the paper notes that 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.320 for many of them, the structure of life has changed 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.880 significantly since the mid nineteen seventies, around the time when 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:56.359 these conversations were initially recorded, with many people settling more 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.240 into more permanent villages with a more mixed economy, some 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.360 traditional subsistence foraging, but also wage labor and selling crafts 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.720 and things like that. But still, this kind of cultural 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.320 observation does tell you something. It doesn't show you how 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.840 it always is, but it does show you with certainty 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:18.240 one way it can be. So it's important to understand 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.360 the strengths and the weaknesses of this kind of anthropological research. 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.800 Studying one culture doesn't prove universal patterns, but it does 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.720 establish a precedent something you can see. Okay, here's one 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.879 way it could work. So coming back to the question 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.720 the author was trying to figure out here, does firelight 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.919 simply give us more time or does it create a 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.800 different type of time and space? And in the specific 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.720 case of the people observed here, the author found some 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:51.080 strong differences in what people talked about during the day 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:54.879 versus after sunset when the illumination was based on fire. 0:21:55.560 --> 0:22:00.359 So the author said that daytime conversations strongly centered around 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.879 economic matters, meaning things having to do with work, so 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:08.439 the acquisition of food through hunting and foraging, plans for 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:14.240 the acquisition of food, resource availability, conversations about technology. All 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.040 of this economic talk about work represented about thirty one 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:22.439 percent of the daytime talk that was sampled. Another thirty 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.199 four percent of the daytime conversation sampled was what the 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:31.880 author calls quote, verbal criticism, complaint, and conflict, and this 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:36.840 basically covers all talk that is designed to regulate social 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.280 relationships and hash out personal disputes, and a lot of 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:46.160 this seems to be based on maintaining egalitarian social relationships 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:50.640 and preventing other people from acquiring social dominance or sort 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.200 of unfair social advantage. 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:58.640 So bickering is that I think of this thirty four percent. 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.040 Well, I wouldn't want to put like afrmative negative spin 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.880 on it, but in a way, yes, this is social 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:10.880 regulatory talk where people are addressing social problems that they 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.400 perceive or some kind of conflict between people and addressing 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:19.399 those addressing those issues and trying to resolve them, which 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.320 in this broad understanding, this is also a huge part 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.800 of conversation I would say among basically any people anywhere, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:31.640 Now during the daytime, another sixteen percent was devoted to jokes, 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:37.080 joking around. Another nine percent was devoted to land rights 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.160 discussion of the use of land, four percent was about 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.680 interactions with other ethnic groups, and six percent was made 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:47.760 up of storytelling. But the author describes how as the 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:50.720 day went on and families would gather for the evening 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:53.960 meal around the fire, the mood would tend to mellow out, 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:57.680 losing a lot of the harshness of daytime talk. After 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:01.520 the sun went down and in the darkness around the 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:07.440 fire major activities shifted and they were music, dance, and conversation. 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:12.480 So what was that conversation about. Well, during the firelit time, 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.400 she found at least among these people in this sample 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:20.160 it was radically different. Quote, night activities steer away from 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.159 tensions of the day to singing, dancing, religious ceremonies, and 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:29.920 enthralling stories, often about known people. And the difference is huge. 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:31.880 I've got a pie chart for you to look at, Rob, 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:34.560 and I remember during the daytime, like thirty one percent 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:38.720 of the talk was about economic issues, things related to work, 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:42.359 thirty four percent was the resolving of these social disputes, 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:47.000 only six percent was stories. During the night eighty one 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:51.640 percent of conversation with stories, the radical shift was shifting 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.800 almost overwhelmingly to story mode. 0:24:55.359 --> 0:24:58.840 Yeah, that is considerable, especially seeing it on the pigraph here. 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.040