WEBVTT - Season 06 Episode 5 Extra: The Circular Ruins

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where

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<v Speaker 1>for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories

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<v Speaker 1>and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make

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<v Speaker 1>it into the previous show. In the last episode, The

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<v Speaker 1>Boy Who, we looked at the remarkable and tragic tale

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<v Speaker 1>of so called Caspar Houser, a teenager who in eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>twenty eight appeared one day in the city of Nuremberg

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<v Speaker 1>after apparently being kept prisoner in an unknown location for

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<v Speaker 1>most of his life. The story is fascinating on many levels. Firstly,

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<v Speaker 1>just taken at fate's value, we have the enthralling mystery

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<v Speaker 1>of the enigmatic Casper's true provenance and the question of

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<v Speaker 1>whether or not he had really been locked up since

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<v Speaker 1>he was a baby, and if so, was he imprisoned

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<v Speaker 1>as part of an elaborate plot to deprive him of

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<v Speaker 1>a noble inheritance, or had he simply been locked up

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<v Speaker 1>for more prosaic, if no less tragic reasons, or had

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<v Speaker 1>he simply just made all of it up. However, if

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<v Speaker 1>we look a little closer, we also find a much

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<v Speaker 1>deeper story about human nature, or, more precisely, the question

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<v Speaker 1>if there is such a thing of just what the

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<v Speaker 1>natural state of a human being is. What fascinated people

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<v Speaker 1>most about Casper, for those at least who believed he

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<v Speaker 1>had been locked up most of his life and consequently

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<v Speaker 1>cut off from all social influence, was his status as

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<v Speaker 1>essentially a noble savage. As they saw it. Today, the

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<v Speaker 1>concept of the noble savage is widely understood to have reductive, racist,

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<v Speaker 1>and colonialist connotations. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it

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<v Speaker 1>was often used as a stakenly benign typecast for the

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<v Speaker 1>indigenous people who were encountered in the process of exploration

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<v Speaker 1>and colonialization. The term is said to first been used

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<v Speaker 1>by John Dryden in his sixteen seventy play The Conquest

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<v Speaker 1>of Grenada, although the concept can be traced much further

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<v Speaker 1>back to ancient Greece. However, it was philosopher Jean Jacques

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<v Speaker 1>Rousseau who really popularized the term as a way to

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<v Speaker 1>describe an idea of a human that has not been

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<v Speaker 1>corrupted by what some might call the modern world, and

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<v Speaker 1>whose potentially perceived savageness should in fact be regarded as

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<v Speaker 1>an inherently noble quality. Used in this way, the term

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<v Speaker 1>is problematic because it both undermines and reduces the ideologies

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<v Speaker 1>and the processes of others, not least in regarding them

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<v Speaker 1>as something primitive, while at the same time it romanticizes

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<v Speaker 1>the non existent notion that there is even something objectively

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<v Speaker 1>pure about primitive humans in the first place. However, what

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<v Speaker 1>the concept of the noble savage is really drawing on

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<v Speaker 1>is the question of what, at base is a human being?

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<v Speaker 1>In other words, how much of our behavior is dictated

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<v Speaker 1>by nature as opposed to nurture. Is the way we

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<v Speaker 1>think and behave, for example, already inherent within us? Or

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<v Speaker 1>is it something conditioned into us through our exposure to

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<v Speaker 1>the world, Or, as some might put it, are we

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<v Speaker 1>born pure and good and later corrupted into doing bad

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<v Speaker 1>things by the stresses and processes of the world we inhabit,

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<v Speaker 1>Or are we in fact born with original sin as

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<v Speaker 1>some might have it, which is to say, born with

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<v Speaker 1>an inherent compulsion within our nature to do bad things?

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<v Speaker 1>The archaic Christian notion of original sin posits that from

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<v Speaker 1>the moment we exist, we contain within us a compulsion

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<v Speaker 1>to do bad, sinful things. As such, proponents of the

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<v Speaker 1>idea argue that it is our daily duty to fight

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<v Speaker 1>this compulsion and the duty of others to help condition

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<v Speaker 1>it out of us too. It is an idea that

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<v Speaker 1>you might think holds little sway in what we might

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<v Speaker 1>describe as mainstream contemporary secular societies. However, in October earlier

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<v Speaker 1>this year, Catherine Burbel Sink, a head teacher and recently

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<v Speaker 1>appointed chair of the British Government's Social Mobility Commission, raised

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<v Speaker 1>eyebrows when she responded to a tweet stating that we

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<v Speaker 1>are all born bad with the following tweet of her

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<v Speaker 1>own exactly original sin. Children need to be taught right

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<v Speaker 1>from and then habituated into choosing good over evil. That

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<v Speaker 1>requires love and constant correction from all the adults in

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<v Speaker 1>their lives over years. Moral formation is a good thing.

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<v Speaker 1>Putting aside the mind field of who determines exactly which

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<v Speaker 1>behaviors of ours should or shouldn't be considered sinful, berbal

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<v Speaker 1>sings comment, although no doubt well intentioned, coming from someone

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<v Speaker 1>with significant influence in terms of shaping and asserting the

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<v Speaker 1>prevailing attitudes of children, is hugely controversial to say the least.

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<v Speaker 1>Perhaps berbal Sing doesn't actually believe in the literal existence

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<v Speaker 1>of original sin, but rather is simply alluding to the

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<v Speaker 1>idea as a way to frame the role of the

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<v Speaker 1>teacher as an assertive influence, someone whose principal job is

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<v Speaker 1>to actively provide children with the tools and attitude that

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<v Speaker 1>will best help them succeed in later life. Verbal sings

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<v Speaker 1>remit at the Social Mobility Commission, after all, is mainly

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<v Speaker 1>to try and help children who have struggled with certain

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<v Speaker 1>systems of education due to a perceived lack of discipline

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<v Speaker 1>and opportunity, so in some ways may be framing things

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<v Speaker 1>within the context of original sin is just a mechanism

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<v Speaker 1>with which to highlight discipline and a strict moral code

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<v Speaker 1>as being things that she considers key to a pupil's

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<v Speaker 1>success or even if she does in fact believe in

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<v Speaker 1>the literal concept. Who's to say that when this idea

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<v Speaker 1>is applied to educational processes by someone who holds it

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<v Speaker 1>to be true, that it doesn't have a positive impact

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<v Speaker 1>on the future successes of their pupils. I've not seen

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<v Speaker 1>the studies that might prove otherwise. Far be it from me,

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<v Speaker 1>someone with no experience whatsoever of teaching, let alone teaching

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<v Speaker 1>children with difficult and chaotic lives, to insist on how

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<v Speaker 1>best to educate them and no doubt there is a

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<v Speaker 1>lot to be said for being realistic about the world

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<v Speaker 1>in which children are going to find themselves as adults,

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<v Speaker 1>and that ultimately having qualifications or a sense of purpose

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<v Speaker 1>and direction, however that is instilled, is what's fundamentally important.

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<v Speaker 1>But what jars about herbal sings appeal to the notion

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<v Speaker 1>of original sin is the implication within that idea that

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<v Speaker 1>if there is something inherently inarguably wrong with us that

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<v Speaker 1>must be fixed, there must therefore exist a state of

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<v Speaker 1>being that is inarguably the right way to be. But

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<v Speaker 1>who exactly gets to decide what that right way to

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<v Speaker 1>be is? And what if the problem is not that

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<v Speaker 1>we aren't right for the world in which we find ourselves,

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<v Speaker 1>but rather that the world is not right for us.

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<v Speaker 1>Should we be focused on conditioning people so they can

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<v Speaker 1>better prosper in the world they find themselves in, or

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<v Speaker 1>should we instead give them the space to recondition the world.

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<v Speaker 1>We often talk about how the advent of streaming has

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<v Speaker 1>Tweaked regarding original sin and Casperhuser's story put me in

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<v Speaker 1>mind of the allegory of the Cave, as presented by

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<v Speaker 1>Plato in his famous work Republic. The allegory is a

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<v Speaker 1>hypothetical situation in which a group of people are chained

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<v Speaker 1>to a wall at the back of a cave where

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<v Speaker 1>they live their entire lives. Their only sense of the

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<v Speaker 1>world that exists outside the cave comes from a series

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<v Speaker 1>of shadows that are projected onto the wall opposite them

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<v Speaker 1>from that world. To the people inside the cave. Therefore,

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<v Speaker 1>having no idea that this outside world exists, they don't

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<v Speaker 1>understand the shadows on the wall as consequential reflections of it.

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<v Speaker 1>The shadows and the cave in which they live is

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<v Speaker 1>their entire world, so anything they conceive will eternally be

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<v Speaker 1>limited by this small narrow band of information. Any achievements

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<v Speaker 1>and accolades they might award each other who is the

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<v Speaker 1>best at counting the shadows, for example, would only ever

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<v Speaker 1>be impressive to those that also exist in this restricted

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<v Speaker 1>state of being. The allegory has been interpreted in numerous ways,

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<v Speaker 1>but serves essentially as a metaphor for the way in

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<v Speaker 1>which we mostly exist within the framework of an established

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<v Speaker 1>order of things or the while unbeknownst to us, there

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<v Speaker 1>could be a whole other world of possibility and knowledge

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<v Speaker 1>beyond what we know. Greater truth, as it were, what

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<v Speaker 1>struck me about Casper's story in this sense, was having

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<v Speaker 1>found this supposedly pure human, unblemished by social conventions and moraids,

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<v Speaker 1>just how quick his guardians were to change and mold

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<v Speaker 1>him into something that would be acceptable to their concept

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<v Speaker 1>of what the world should be. In a way, he

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<v Speaker 1>had been brought out of one cave only to find

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<v Speaker 1>himself in just another, albeit more sophisticated one. I think

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<v Speaker 1>in many ways we create the same problem whenever we

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<v Speaker 1>assert that there is a fixed, inarguable way to interpret

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<v Speaker 1>the world with ideas like original sin. For example, I'm

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<v Speaker 1>often fond of saying that I don't believe we are

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<v Speaker 1>born good or bad, or indeed that humans can ever

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<v Speaker 1>be said to be objectively good or bad or even evil.

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<v Speaker 1>I believe humans merely act, and it is us who

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<v Speaker 1>then ultimately ascribe to those acts moral labels such as

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<v Speaker 1>good or bad. Furthermore, such labels are in constant flux,

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<v Speaker 1>due to not only being relative in terms of the

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<v Speaker 1>prevailing attitudes of any one time, but also being forever

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<v Speaker 1>at the whim of our many varied and conflicting personal

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<v Speaker 1>points of view. All that being said, if we did

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<v Speaker 1>want to use Casper Houser's story as a case study

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<v Speaker 1>on whether humans are indeed born bad, with original sin

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<v Speaker 1>and in need of instruction on how to be good.

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<v Speaker 1>We might find some of the ways in which Casper

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<v Speaker 1>behaved before his effective conditioning began, quite revealing his affection

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<v Speaker 1>and empathy towards all living creatures. For one thing, if

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<v Speaker 1>you had indeed come to this instinctively without any influence

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<v Speaker 1>from the outside world, is a behavioral trait worth noting.

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<v Speaker 1>His lack of shame at his naked body is another,

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<v Speaker 1>this shame being something he only acquired after being exposed

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<v Speaker 1>to the modern contemporary society of the world he suddenly

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<v Speaker 1>found himself in. And lastly, an anecdote not mentioned in

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<v Speaker 1>the episode that struck me as especially sad. From the

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<v Speaker 1>moment that Casper first arrived in Nuremberg, much like a

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<v Speaker 1>young child, he was especially drawn to bright, sparkly things

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<v Speaker 1>like the uniforms worn by local soldiers, but also the bright,

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<v Speaker 1>colorful clothes that were often worn by the women in

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<v Speaker 1>the city. He liked their clothes so much he has

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<v Speaker 1>reported to have said he would have preferred to have

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<v Speaker 1>been a woman, just so he didn't have to conform

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<v Speaker 1>to the standards of what a man should be, and

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<v Speaker 1>so he could wear the clothes traditionally worn by women

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<v Speaker 1>of the day in a way that twas acceptable to

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<v Speaker 1>the world. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to

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<v Speaker 1>the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.

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