Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango, what's that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: So I've been thinking about that old saying curiosity killed
Speaker 2: the cat, right, I know, we teased it in yesterday's episode.
Speaker 2: It's got me wondering if maybe we're a tattoo hasty
Speaker 2: and committing to a week long series about being curious.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got families to think about, Mango. Can
Speaker 2: we really commit to this?
Speaker 1: There's no whimping out now. We are only on day two. Besides,
Speaker 1: haven't you heard the second part of that phrase, Curiosity
Speaker 1: killed a cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, great? So raising the dead always ends well?
Speaker 1: Right, I know, but that phrase is really just a
Speaker 1: way to discourage people from asking too many questions. And
Speaker 1: when has other people's annoyance ever stopped us from asking questions?
Speaker 2: Not even once? I can't think of one time. I'm
Speaker 2: more of a dog person anyway. So I think you've
Speaker 2: convinced me. I'm back on board. Let's do this.
Speaker 1: I like it. So, for the sake of all the
Speaker 1: curious cats out there today, we're going to investigate whether
Speaker 1: asking questions really is as dangerous as some people would
Speaker 1: have as believe. Along the way, we'll examine how cultural
Speaker 1: views and literary depictions of curiosity have changed over time,
Speaker 1: as well as what it means to stay curious in
Speaker 1: a world where answers are easy and always at our fingertips.
Speaker 1: So muster your courage, sharpen your claws, let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to the part time Genius.
Speaker 2: I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm here with my
Speaker 2: friend manguesh hot ticketter and on the other side of
Speaker 2: the soundproof glass making a poster of some kind. That's
Speaker 2: our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. I can't quite tell
Speaker 2: what it says, though, Dylan, will you hold it up
Speaker 2: to the glass? It says reward five thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: the capture of history's most notorious cat killer.
Speaker 1: Come on, Dylan, I've never heard of a man hunt
Speaker 1: for an abstract concept for five grand I think it's word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: focus on that. But I'm not sure which is less likely,
Speaker 2: someone physically capturing curiosity or Dylan ponying up five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I've never seen him give five thousand dollars to somebody
Speaker 2: of you, so I'm not surprised he's reacting so negatively
Speaker 2: to the phrase, because for as often as that expression
Speaker 2: gets thrown around, I don't think many people actually like
Speaker 2: it or even agree with the sentiment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the darker idioms of the English language,
Speaker 1: many of which are cat based. For some reason.
Speaker 2: I guess you're right and thought about that. You got
Speaker 2: scaredy cat, you got copycat and some cat.
Speaker 1: No room to swing a cat, more than one way
Speaker 1: to skin a cat, right, lots of cat animosity, And as.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this many times before, I'm a little
Speaker 2: freaked out by cats for all of our listeners. Before
Speaker 2: anybody gets mad, I don't hate cats. I'm just sort
Speaker 2: of freaked out by that. But now I'm thinking they
Speaker 2: have way more reason to be afraid of us.
Speaker 1: Definitely, And I think curiosity Kill the cat is extra
Speaker 1: going because not only does it make us imagine a
Speaker 1: dead cat, it also maligns curiosity, which is something most
Speaker 1: of us enjoy. In fact, we sent our friend Mitra
Speaker 1: out to Brooklyn to ask people how they felt about
Speaker 1: the famous saying and spoiler alert. Pretty much all of
Speaker 1: them hated it. There were two people in particular, Herman
Speaker 1: and Lindsay, who did a great job breaking down why
Speaker 1: it's such a terrible concept. Here's what they had to say.
Speaker 4: I think it's a very negative perspective to have on curiosity.
Speaker 4: You have to be curious if you want to learn,
Speaker 4: if you want to grow, if you want to evolve,
Speaker 4: and things like that. Question anything and everything. Anybody that's
Speaker 4: frowning upon you questioning it. Yeah, it's probably a beast side.
Speaker 3: When I think of curiosity, kill the cat, it feels
Speaker 3: like control. It feels like a repressive kind of ethos,
Speaker 3: like don't ask too many questions, just accept things the
Speaker 3: way they are, turn a blind eye to things that
Speaker 3: you can't explain, or else you might die like that
Speaker 3: cat over there. So that expression never really resonated because
Speaker 3: it feels like just some kind of patriarchal, repressive kind
Speaker 3: of idea. You know.
Speaker 2: It's interesting she brings up the patriarchy because some historians
Speaker 2: actually think that's why a cat was chosen as Curiosity's
Speaker 2: target in the first place. Cats are historically associated with
Speaker 2: femininity and traditional male dominated cultures. Women were the last
Speaker 2: people who were supposed to be asking questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's no coincidence that Eve was the one who
Speaker 1: ate the forbidden fruit in the Bible, or that Pandora
Speaker 1: is the one who opens the box that unleashes evil
Speaker 1: on the world. Those are some of the earliest examples
Speaker 1: of storytelling we have, and both of them cast women's
Speaker 1: curiosity as the source of humanity's woes, like it's not
Speaker 1: really that subtle.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. And sadly, we can trace the threat
Speaker 2: of misogyny all through the development of Western culture, especially
Speaker 2: with the many attempts to keep women out of academia
Speaker 2: and institutions of learning. But that isn't to say women
Speaker 2: were the only ones who've been discouraged from asking questions.
Speaker 2: For most of human history, a person's primary goal in
Speaker 2: life was just to stay alive long enough to procreate
Speaker 2: and keep the species going, So that meant a lot
Speaker 2: of time spent on sourcing food, building shelter, and avoiding
Speaker 2: unnecessary risks. So anything that took away energy from those tasks,
Speaker 2: like indulging your curiosity was typically frowned upon by ancient societies, which.
Speaker 1: Is kind of ironic when you consider that curiosity helped
Speaker 1: us build civilization in the first place, right, Like, how
Speaker 1: else would we have mastered the ability to create fire
Speaker 1: if not by observing it right or wondering how it worked,
Speaker 1: or trying to replicate it all those things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. But you know, once civilization was up
Speaker 2: and running, the focus quickly shifted to maintaining the status quo.
Speaker 2: Right wrong, there, that became, you know, the real focus,
Speaker 2: and those empowered decided the best way to do that
Speaker 2: was to limit the public's ability to ask questions. Previously,
Speaker 2: most people were just too busy to indulge their curiosity,
Speaker 2: but the rise of civilized society provided a new deterrent,
Speaker 2: the lack of moral authority.
Speaker 1: So what do you mean, like leaders told people it
Speaker 1: was wrong.
Speaker 2: To be curious, exactly, Like just in the stories you referenced,
Speaker 2: being curious was no longer considered just a dangerous use
Speaker 2: of time. It was condemned as a violation of the
Speaker 2: natural order. But rather than explain all this myself, Gabe
Speaker 2: actually set down with a full time genius, Barbara Benedict.
Speaker 2: She's an English professor at Trinity College and the author
Speaker 2: of Curiosity, a Cultural History of Early modern inquiry. And
Speaker 2: here's what she had to say about mankind's early systematic
Speaker 2: crackdown on curiosity.
Speaker 5: There are all sorts of prohibitions against asking questions from
Speaker 5: revered sources. Start with the Bible, which tells the lay
Speaker 5: people not to inquire into God's mysteries, not to ask
Speaker 5: questions that haven't already been answered, because God has kept
Speaker 5: things secret for his own sake. He moves in mysterious ways,
Speaker 5: and you better just accept that. And there is a
Speaker 5: kind of reflection in the social sphere to the political sphere.
Speaker 5: The way that politics, even from an early time, worked
Speaker 5: was by elevating certain people above others for a particular reason.
Speaker 5: They could be religious, they could be to do with property.
Speaker 5: But most of the time, the lesser people, the ones
Speaker 5: on the receiving end of authoritarianism, they are told it
Speaker 5: is wrong to ask. Don't ask why the gender system
Speaker 5: is the way it is, why the wealth distribution is
Speaker 5: the way it is, why the laws are the way
Speaker 5: they are. Just accept it because we know better.
Speaker 1: So, this war on public curiosity, it was really just
Speaker 1: a means of control by the upper classes.
Speaker 2: I guess that's right. But you know, back then, no
Speaker 2: one would have used the word curiosity to describe what
Speaker 2: was actually being fought, and that's because curiosity didn't refer
Speaker 2: to inquisitive thinking until around the seventeen hundreds. Before that,
Speaker 2: the words meaning was much closer to the Latin form,
Speaker 2: which was derived from cura or care. So curiosity in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages referred to an unusual level of carefulness
Speaker 2: or attention to detail. So think about an or flatly
Speaker 2: carved piece of furniture, or a sculpted figure in a
Speaker 2: church or something like that. Those would be described as
Speaker 2: curiosities or curios because there was an evident sign of
Speaker 2: care and craftsmanship in their construction, and this made them
Speaker 2: stand up from the kinds of objects that people owned themselves,
Speaker 2: which were plain and utilitarian.
Speaker 1: So even though the meaning was totally different, there was
Speaker 1: still a kind of classessm tied up with early conception
Speaker 1: of curiosity, like only the wealthy could afford to buy
Speaker 1: curious objects.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing right, right, and the powers that be made
Speaker 2: it clear this kind of curiosity wasn't something the average
Speaker 2: person should aspire to in their own life, Karen. Attention
Speaker 2: to detail were luxuries for a very chosen few. Everyone
Speaker 2: else was supposed to stay in their lane and let
Speaker 2: good enough be good enough. And in fact, the infamous
Speaker 2: phrase was originally care killed the cat. Really, it's true.
Speaker 2: It actually first appeared in fifteen Yeah no, no, for real,
Speaker 2: in a fifteen ninety eight play by the English playwright
Speaker 2: Ben Johnson. So the line read helter skelter, hang sorrow,
Speaker 2: Carol killed the cat, uptails all and Louise for the hangman.
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Is well, it's thought that Johnson was using care and
Speaker 2: the sense of worry or concern, basically saying, don't let
Speaker 2: stress or anxiety get the best of you.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, akuna matata exactly.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I didn't just write that. And
Speaker 2: the reference to a cat is also kind of tough
Speaker 2: to explain, since cats aren't really known to be overly
Speaker 2: concerned about things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean mostly just food and ear scratches.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's a pretty short list, which is why
Speaker 2: my best guess is that it's not actually the cat
Speaker 2: who's stressing in this scenario. And what Johnson was really
Speaker 2: saying is that a person's anxieties can become so toxic
Speaker 2: that they even intrude in the care free life of
Speaker 2: a cat. So while the phrase wasn't aim specifically at
Speaker 2: the kind of care displayed in curious objects, it did
Speaker 2: warn against excessive care in general.
Speaker 1: So I could see how stress and worry might be
Speaker 1: bad for a person. But why would just caring about
Speaker 1: something be dangerous? Like if someone cared enough to look
Speaker 1: into why the sky is blue? How is what's a
Speaker 1: threat to society?
Speaker 2: Well, in that case, I think someone in the Middle
Speaker 2: Ages would say that you're prying into sacred knowledge, like
Speaker 2: you're overstepping the limits of what humans are meant to know.
Speaker 2: But according to Professor Benedict, it's also about social conformity.
Speaker 2: By expressing care for something that others consider trivial, you're
Speaker 2: also setting yourself apart from the crowd, and by extension,
Speaker 2: you're making yourself a target.
Speaker 5: There's a strong social and moral resistance to curiosity in
Speaker 5: all of its forms, because it's subversive, because it's asking
Speaker 5: questions are not supposed to be asked, and therefore, if
Speaker 5: a character is pursuing an inquiry, there must be something
Speaker 5: slightly wrong with him or her Because the artists are
Speaker 5: all out there and most of us have accepted that.
Speaker 5: But for this quirky person. Somehow they have to push
Speaker 5: the envelope and go a little bit further than anybody
Speaker 5: else is going. But it's also a question of you,
Speaker 5: as a curious person, investigating something that other people think valueless,
Speaker 5: which means that you're putting your own structure value above
Speaker 5: that of the rest of society, which makes you arrogant
Speaker 5: because it's sort of sneering at the rest of society's
Speaker 5: concerns and claiming that you have better knowledge of what's
Speaker 5: important than they do. It's a real sort of social struggle.
Speaker 1: I really kind of love that she frames curiosity as
Speaker 1: this subversive acts. Like, obviously it's natural to care about
Speaker 1: things and to ask questions, and yesterday we talked about
Speaker 1: how our brains are hardwired to be curious. But once
Speaker 1: you put all these systems in control into place, whether
Speaker 1: it's religion or the state or peer pressure, the mere
Speaker 1: act of being curious becomes this violation of social norms. Now, luckily,
Speaker 1: curiosity is more accepted than it used to be, at
Speaker 1: least in some countries, and the reason for that change
Speaker 1: is pretty surprising. We're going to tell you about it
Speaker 1: right after this break. Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 1: It's day two of our week long dive into curiosity.
Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed it, do as a favor and share
Speaker 1: this episode with a curious friend. You can also leave
Speaker 1: as a nice rating and review. It really helps the show,
Speaker 1: and mostly it satisfies our curiosity about knowing what you
Speaker 1: think of us will. Before the break, you explained that
Speaker 1: for a long time, curiosity, at least in the Western world,
Speaker 1: was seen as a threat to the social order. Elites
Speaker 1: and people in power didn't want the rabble to ask
Speaker 1: too many questions or investing too much care in the
Speaker 1: world around him. Now that starts to change again. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Western culture in the seventeenth century with the
Speaker 1: English Civil Wars, among other things, King Charles the First
Speaker 1: was found guilty of treason and beheaded, the first and
Speaker 1: so far only time a British monarch has been put
Speaker 1: to death.
Speaker 2: And so what was there? People who are like he's
Speaker 2: gone can be curious now or what happened?
Speaker 1: Not exactly, but before the wars, Charles was thought to
Speaker 1: have been appointed by God, and after his death there
Speaker 1: was no divine retribution. In fact, the country was doing
Speaker 1: pretty well, so suddenly the whole idea of authoritarianism gets
Speaker 1: called into question. Right, people start to think, maybe God
Speaker 1: doesn't care who the king is, and maybe that means
Speaker 1: he's laid back about other things.
Speaker 2: Too, like questioning how society should function or why the
Speaker 2: sky is blue?
Speaker 1: I guess right, And that new mindset paved the way
Speaker 1: for all sorts of radical developments, including the rise of
Speaker 1: empirical science. Previously, people believe that everything worth knowing was
Speaker 1: revealed to them by God, but in the late sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: English philosopher John Locke suggested that we learned through our
Speaker 1: five senses and from reflecting on the knowledge we gain
Speaker 1: from those senses. So that kind of levels the intellectual
Speaker 1: playing field. You don't have to be a member of
Speaker 1: the clergy or even a scholar to learn. If you
Speaker 1: have the time and inclination, you can just go explore
Speaker 1: whatever catches your fancy. Yeah, and what's more, you could
Speaker 1: share what you learned with other people. And that was
Speaker 1: thanks to another game changer that happened around then, which
Speaker 1: was the printing press. So in a way, this is
Speaker 1: an origin story of what you and I like to
Speaker 1: call part time geniuses, right, like amateur is going out
Speaker 1: into the world and chasing their curiosities in their spare time.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And you know this is also the
Speaker 2: era when people started to assemble their own collection of
Speaker 2: curious objects, fossil shells, scientific equipment, artifacts from other countries.
Speaker 2: We typically think of this trend in relation to the
Speaker 2: fancy sort of cabinet of curiosities that later became the
Speaker 2: basis for modern museums, which is something I know you
Speaker 2: and Gabe talked about in your episode on tiny museums.
Speaker 2: But according to Professor Bennedictt, collecting unusual objects was a
Speaker 2: hobby enjoyed by Europeans from all walks of life.
Speaker 5: The Royal Society for the Advancement of Learning, which Charles
Speaker 5: the SECA established in sixteen sixty two, was deliberately looking
Speaker 5: at objects of nature to explain how they worked and
Speaker 5: to ask all those naughty questions about you then, how
Speaker 5: clouds dropped rain, and the generation of the sexes, and
Speaker 5: the movement of the spheres, and all those things that
Speaker 5: had previously been the province of the church. So in
Speaker 5: order to study nature, they had repositories, which we would
Speaker 5: call collections of natural and artificial objects, and therefore it
Speaker 5: became a sort of national point of pride and national pursuit,
Speaker 5: a kind of identification of the national character of the
Speaker 5: English as being empirical investigators. So whereveryone did it, And
Speaker 5: people didn't just collect precious things like Japanese netski or
Speaker 5: you know, snuff boxes or something like that. They collected
Speaker 5: stones they found that they thought were peculiar looking, you know,
Speaker 5: interesting twisted branches that might look like a hand. It
Speaker 5: was a national passion.
Speaker 1: That makes me feel so much better about my stick collection.
Speaker 2: You've got the best stick collection I've ever seen, Mango.
Speaker 2: But you know, seriously, it's tempting to view collecting as
Speaker 2: consumerism ron a muck or someone trying to fill a
Speaker 2: void by hoarding a bunch of stuff. But there's also
Speaker 2: another way to look at it. Like the word curate
Speaker 2: also comes from the Latin word for care, as we
Speaker 2: talked about, and curating a collection turns it into an
Speaker 2: intellectual exercise, a way of exploring curiosity. So think about it.
Speaker 2: You consider which objects to include or reject and how
Speaker 2: to display them, and you learn the history of objects,
Speaker 2: and that helps you better understand the world and the
Speaker 2: relationship to it.
Speaker 1: That's a really lovely way to look at it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, these kinds of collections were a major source
Speaker 2: of knowledge and inspiration for people in the seventeenth century,
Speaker 2: and they were meant to be shared. People gave tours
Speaker 2: of collections as a form of after dinner entertainment. And
Speaker 2: I feel like this is such a great concept and
Speaker 2: we kind of need to bring it back, you know.
Speaker 2: So every day this week we've got a listener activity
Speaker 2: and anyone who participates has a chance to win a
Speaker 2: part time Genius prize pack. We introduced this yesterday and
Speaker 2: the fans went crazy. I'm just assuming this. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: the fans went crazy. So today we're inspired by the
Speaker 2: Cabinet of Curiosities. We asked our resident collector, Gabe to
Speaker 2: build out a shelf with some of his own curious objects.
Speaker 2: Head over to Instagram or Blue Sky and watch the
Speaker 2: video he made for inspiration. Then leave us a comment
Speaker 2: telling us three objects that you would include in your
Speaker 2: own display.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they could be anything you want, natural, artificial, old, new,
Speaker 1: stuff you own, stuff you'd like to own. We are
Speaker 1: not picky, and we are not here to judge. We
Speaker 1: just want to know what sparks your sense of curiosity.
Speaker 1: We are going to pick one person at random to
Speaker 1: win a prize pack, and if you want a bonus entry,
Speaker 1: make an actual video showing us your cabinet of curiosities
Speaker 1: and tag us. The deadline is Sunday, October twenty six.
Speaker 1: Details and links are in the show notes and on
Speaker 1: our social media accounts.
Speaker 2: All right, Mango, so what would you put in your cabinet?
Speaker 1: You know, I actually was thinking about this a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I'm not that much of a collector. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got like some stuff that like I've got these
Speaker 1: old binoculars that my grandfather, who was in the forestry Service,
Speaker 1: used to use, and they're like brass and beautiful. But
Speaker 1: it was actually thinking that I've got all my old
Speaker 1: iPhones from the first iPhone. Oh, and so like just
Speaker 1: how you catch shelf of like like the other variations
Speaker 1: going forward. Or my friend Chathan, his parents never drank
Speaker 1: soda and he never drank soda, but they'd always have
Speaker 1: soda for parties. So you walk through his basement and
Speaker 1: it's like a soda museum. So they've got like pepsicona
Speaker 1: and okay soda and like all this stuff about no
Speaker 1: one remembers I would definitely put those.
Speaker 2: Into Oh that's fun, haven't it. That's fun?
Speaker 1: How about you.
Speaker 2: I actually like to think back on the things that
Speaker 2: I collected or was interested in the past that I honestly,
Speaker 2: and I don't say this in a joking way, I
Speaker 2: just have no interest in now, Like things like baseball
Speaker 2: cards and stuff like that that I was just so
Speaker 2: consumed by as a kid, And it's just kind of
Speaker 2: fun to look back and think, like, what was it
Speaker 2: that it was so interested in this or other things
Speaker 2: that we collected as a kid. My parents every year
Speaker 2: would give me a different nutcracker at Christmas, and there
Speaker 2: was this collection of these until finally I kind of
Speaker 2: honestly had to put a stop to this. At some point,
Speaker 2: I think I was like seventeen or eighteen. I had
Speaker 2: to say to my mom. I was like, I think
Speaker 2: this is enough. It's starting to freak me out, but
Speaker 2: there are so many nutcrackers on the shelves at the holidays.
Speaker 2: But just like thinking about the things that people collected
Speaker 2: and that brought them Joe. I think the one thing
Speaker 2: though that I probably would include. My grandfather was a
Speaker 2: pocket watch and watch and clock collector, and like those
Speaker 2: were super cool, and so I still have a handful
Speaker 2: of those pocket watches that are fun to just pull
Speaker 2: out for memory's sake, and they're just such cool objects
Speaker 2: to look at.
Speaker 1: That's really awesome. Okay. Well, so you mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: the printing press came along around the time when Europeans
Speaker 1: were starting to embrace the concept of curiosity, and by
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century print was in full swing. It was
Speaker 1: spreading new ideas and new questions all around the globe.
Speaker 1: This gave rise to modern journalism, which of course is
Speaker 1: all about investigation, but it also helped people create the novel.
Speaker 1: One genre of novel became immensely popular right off the bat,
Speaker 1: and that was detective fiction and murder mysteries. These books
Speaker 1: were designed to peak the reader's curiosity but also reinforced
Speaker 1: some of the old negative thinking about inquisitive people and
Speaker 1: how did they do that well. The detectives in these
Speaker 1: stories typically had some kind of character flaw, so it
Speaker 1: was a trope that later became known as the defective detective.
Speaker 1: They were so single minded in their pursuit of the
Speaker 1: truth that they forgot how to be normal, and they
Speaker 1: really weren't like standard functioning people, so in the case
Speaker 1: of Sherlock Holmes, they turned to drug abuse when stimulating
Speaker 1: cases were in short supply. And this has a strange effect, right,
Speaker 1: Readers not only became curious about the mystery at the
Speaker 1: center of the story, but also about the detective. Part
Speaker 1: of the appeal was to see how the other half lived,
Speaker 1: and so how did this strange person's brain work and
Speaker 1: what was life like for them.
Speaker 2: The detectives become objects of curiosity in themselves.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and that's one of the strengths of novels in general.
Speaker 1: They can give you insight into interior lives of people
Speaker 1: who aren't like you. But again, in this case, the
Speaker 1: detective was defective, right, So there was kind of a
Speaker 1: social judgment at work here, sort of like going to
Speaker 1: see the quote unquote freaks in a sideshow, right, Like
Speaker 1: the genre was simultaneously stoking reader's curiosity while also implying
Speaker 1: that curious people were somehow abnormal. Now, curiosity became more
Speaker 1: socially acceptable because it gave us cool things like scientific
Speaker 1: breakthroughs and detective stories. But even today there's sometimes a
Speaker 1: sense of distrust and maybe even disdain for people who
Speaker 1: ask too many questions.
Speaker 2: Well, I do want to dig into that because, and
Speaker 2: this is going to sound shocking, Mago, but I actually
Speaker 2: think the naysayers are onto something here. Curiosity is dangerous.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got some explaining to do after the break,
Speaker 1: but before that, we've got a positile some ads. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part time genius. You know, well, I've known
Speaker 1: you for a very long time. I didn't think you
Speaker 1: could still surprise me. But I was not expecting you
Speaker 1: to say that you agree with that old timy idea
Speaker 1: that curiosity is actually dangerous.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's think this through, right, So, curiosity
Speaker 2: without any caution or self restraint can actually do a
Speaker 2: lot of harm, Like if a curious kid touches a
Speaker 2: hot stove, or if you hear a noise outside your
Speaker 2: tent while you're camping go outside to investigate and get
Speaker 2: mauled by a bear, that sort of thing. But the
Speaker 2: risk go beyond physical danger. For instance, remember we talked
Speaker 2: yesterday about deprivation curiosity, and so not knowing something can
Speaker 2: create a powerful sense of discomfort, and that can lead
Speaker 2: people to behave recklessly in an attempt to resolve that feeling.
Speaker 2: So one of the clearest examples of the mental and
Speaker 2: emotional toils this can take is in this old Japanese
Speaker 2: folk tale called the Crane Wife. It's about a guy
Speaker 2: who comes across a wounded crane that's been shot down
Speaker 2: by a hunter. He takes pity on the bird, brings
Speaker 2: it home, nurses it back to health, and shortly after
Speaker 2: he releases it, a woman appears at his door. She's
Speaker 2: asking him to marry her. Now. The man says that,
Speaker 2: as nice as this sounds, he doesn't have enough money
Speaker 2: to support a family, but the woman says, no problem.
Speaker 2: She goes to a room, closes the door, comes out
Speaker 2: the next day with the most beautiful garment you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: So far, this seems more like a story about the
Speaker 1: dangers of a lack of curiosity, right, I would have
Speaker 1: so many questions if a stranger showed up claiming to
Speaker 1: be my wife and then spent the night sewing some
Speaker 1: mysterious garment. Yeah, but this guy just rolls with it.
Speaker 2: I've never told you this is how I met my wife.
Speaker 2: This was a fifteenth century, so he probably didn't have
Speaker 2: too much else going on. And anyway, the woman tells
Speaker 2: him to take the garment to the market, where he's
Speaker 2: able to sell it at an insanely high price. So
Speaker 2: now they're this thriving, happy couple, and the woman says
Speaker 2: she's willing to keep the gravy train going, but on
Speaker 2: one condition. She'll continue to make beautiful clothes to support them,
Speaker 2: but only if her husband never enters the room while
Speaker 2: she's working. Wow, the curiosity here, right. This man agrees
Speaker 2: things go well for a while, but eventually his curiosity
Speaker 2: gets the better of him, and one night he peeks
Speaker 2: inside her.
Speaker 1: Room and based on the title, I'm guessing he sees
Speaker 1: the crane.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. She's been disguised as the woman the
Speaker 2: whole time and has been secretly plucking out her own
Speaker 2: feathers to make this dazzling clothing. But now she's so
Speaker 2: heartbroken that her husband broke his promise that she flies
Speaker 2: away and she never comes back.
Speaker 1: That is brutal. So I guess I do see your
Speaker 1: point that relentless drive to know things can override everything else,
Speaker 1: even our own sense of self protection.
Speaker 2: That's right, and it actually reminds me of something Professor
Speaker 2: Bennedict said about the nature of curiosity and the complications
Speaker 2: of trying to wield it responsibly.
Speaker 5: Curiosity is fundamentally, as I said before, it's insubordination, it's subversive,
Speaker 5: it crosses boundaries. It's no respector of persons peering, peeping, prying.
Speaker 5: They're all transgressive, and they're all kind of also, you
Speaker 5: might even say imperialistic, because they're assuming the power in
Speaker 5: the person who is inquiring. They have the power and
Speaker 5: right to invade and to possess your secrets. There have
Speaker 5: to be some kind of restraints on inquiry that respect
Speaker 5: everybody's rights. But again, you know who's to say that
Speaker 5: doesn't just suddenly become a conventional way of oppressing people.
Speaker 5: It is a very tricky balancing act.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, a balancing act is a good way
Speaker 1: to think about it, because even deprivation, curiosity can have
Speaker 1: some positive applications. The drive to find an answer can
Speaker 1: push you to work extra hard and think outside the box,
Speaker 1: which may not be the case if you're exploring a
Speaker 1: topic just for the fun of it. The flip side
Speaker 1: is when you don't really care what the answer is,
Speaker 1: so long as you feel like you've found an answer,
Speaker 1: meaning what exactly, Well, I keep thinking about something I
Speaker 1: read by a psychologist named Charnathan Schooler. He says that
Speaker 1: deprivation curiosity is closely tied to intellectual arrogance, and that
Speaker 1: when a person seeks an answer simply to avoid not knowing,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to accept a wrong answer. And that's
Speaker 1: a big danger of fake news, right, Like, if someone
Speaker 1: just wants to stop feeling uncertain about a given issue,
Speaker 1: then they might settle for a false answer, especially if
Speaker 1: it reinforces something they already believe.
Speaker 2: So this is a kind of curiosity that actually makes
Speaker 2: you less curious because it convinces you you already have
Speaker 2: the answers, even when they might be the wrong ones.
Speaker 1: Which is weird, right, But it can be tough to
Speaker 1: wrap your head around. So I wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to Lindsey, who we heard from earlier. She told me
Speaker 1: to something that perfectly encapsulates what I'm talking about.
Speaker 6: I have a cousin who believes that the Earth is flat,
Speaker 6: and a lot of people believe that, and I guess
Speaker 6: in a conspiracy theory kind of situation, you almost stop
Speaker 6: being curious and assign your identity and belief system to
Speaker 6: this weird structure that somebody says is how the world is.
Speaker 6: And it's almost like your blinders go up and your
Speaker 6: curiosity turns off.
Speaker 2: All right, So what's the solution here, how do we
Speaker 2: combat that type of mindset.
Speaker 1: Well, the solution to flat eartherism is to go watch
Speaker 1: the sunset over the horizon. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: navigating the pitfalls of deprivation curiosity, the only real enddot
Speaker 1: is to keep an open mind and try to stay humble.
Speaker 1: Socrates famously said, the only thing I know for certain
Speaker 1: is that I know nothing, and that is such a
Speaker 1: healthy frame of mind to have, especially in the information age,
Speaker 1: when you can ask AI a question and get an
Speaker 1: instant answer, right or wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's worth mentioning too that material security plays a
Speaker 2: role in healthy curiosity. So remember we talked earlier, back
Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages, curiosity was pretty much a luxury.
Speaker 2: So unfortunately, in some ways that's still true. Studies have
Speaker 2: actually shown that while levels of curiosity don't vary by nationality,
Speaker 2: they do vary based on economic status. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: the Greater Good Society Center at UC Berkeley collected data
Speaker 2: about curiosity and people from different backgrounds. Out of the
Speaker 2: ten thousand participants, those who earn less than twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year had lower curiosity scores than all
Speaker 2: the other income brackets. So one way to read those
Speaker 2: results is that it's hard to stay curious when you're
Speaker 2: constantly in survival mode, worrying about bills, how to keep
Speaker 2: the roof over your head. And that's something to keep
Speaker 2: in mind when you're feeling smug about supposedly having all
Speaker 2: the answers. It's a privilege to have the time and
Speaker 2: energy to indulge your curiosity, and we squander that away
Speaker 2: when we settle for easy, self confirming answers.
Speaker 1: So again, it's about having some intellectual humility and just
Speaker 1: like getting comfortable with uncertainty, right, like, the best way
Speaker 1: to find common ground is to stay curious about other
Speaker 1: people and how they view the world.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. In fact, Professor Benedict says that being
Speaker 2: curious can help us bridge our differences, even in today's
Speaker 2: incredibly divided society.
Speaker 5: I think the curiosity in a cultural context leads directly
Speaker 5: to tolerance, because you are asking what other people are like,
Speaker 5: how they work, what's important to them, what do they eat.
Speaker 5: All of that requires the kind of empathetic understanding of otherness,
Speaker 5: if you like. So there's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 5: That the respect thankful practice of curiosities. We're bringing people together.
Speaker 1: I love that so much, and I love that phrase,
Speaker 1: the respectful practice of curiosity. I like to think that's
Speaker 1: what we do with this show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say we're mostly respectful. Mostly.
Speaker 1: Well, our mostly respectful exploration of curiosity will continue tomorrow
Speaker 1: when we will be talking about animals. Does your pet
Speaker 1: experience curiosity the same way you do? How does being
Speaker 1: in captivity affect wild animals and their curiosity? We'll find out,
Speaker 1: and I promise not a single dead cat insight.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that does it for today's episode. Thanks
Speaker 2: to Mitra Banshahi for collecting field tape for us. We
Speaker 2: appreciate you so much. And thanks to Professor Barbara Benedict
Speaker 2: for sharing her expertise. I heard she also showed Gabe
Speaker 2: one of the objects in her own collection. It was
Speaker 2: a mummified shrew from ancient Egypt. I've never shown gave
Speaker 2: my mammified truth from ancient angel, which is just a
Speaker 2: bizarre and wonderful thing to have lying around now. Even
Speaker 2: if you don't have a mummified true, tell us what
Speaker 2: you'd put in your cabinet of curios We're on Instagram
Speaker 2: and Blue Sky at part Time Genius. Be sure to
Speaker 2: follow us because we've got more activities and giveaways the
Speaker 2: rest of this week. We're from Mango, Dylan, Gabe, Mary
Speaker 2: and Me. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongashtikler,
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Vine Shory.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3: The